Keep Rehearsing And Keep Performing

This is a rather long slow burn of a read.

It's a slow build-up of a story of a budding romance of a young woman studying acting and her much older neighbour. The love is intertwined with her growing addiction to the performance of smoking. There is eventually also smoke-filled sex.

If a pretty girl (potentially) falling in love with both a man and (potentially) smoking is not something that interests you, move on. If it piques your curiosity, then there should be plenty to enjoy. It was written primarily for the smoking fetish community.

Any comments, negative or positive are of course appreciated. I need to mention MicGio who worked on this story too.

Grammar is of course important! I have read this through several times, but some errors are bound to exist. Primarily I hope you can focus and enjoy the story!

Everyone, as expected, is over 18.

Keep Rehearsing and Performing

Act 1 Scene 1

"If you have a rifle, hanging on the wall in the first act,

it should fire in the last act"

Grant Martins was rubbing his hands together whilst walking quickly back towards his house. The autumn air was cooler that morning than he had anticipated. He was only wearing his summery short sleeve shirt and regretted not putting on his jacket to cover his bare arms. The task had only been a two-minute job. He had just carried the metal bin all the way around the house and placed it just at the end of the neatly paved driveway, but away from the pavement as not to be a trip hazard.

It was his own fault the bin was heavy. He should have done more recycling. He knew how much glass and plastic was in the sack. His wife used to oversee all that stuff spending what Grant thought hours sorting everything into the right buckets. Grant however focused on his one priority, work starting early, and finishing late. As such he did not find the time to do it. He just about remembered to do the bins, but that was only because he set a recurring alarm on his phone.

All he knew now was that he needed to wash his hands; the metallic bin was filthy and needed a wash. As he made his way back around his house he took in a deep breath of fresh cool air. His nose twitched as he stopped in his tracks alongside the wooden fence on the recent pressure washed grey slab path down the side of the house.

His nose twitched; with a sniff he paused in his tracks. He could tell that there was the distinct potent smell of fresh cigarette smoke lingering in the cool air, tickling his senses. It was coming from the other side of the fence.

He knew both his next-door neighbours were heavy smokers. Maggie and Paul Baker. It was not uncommon at the weekends in the summer when the wind was blowing in the right direction for Grant to smell the remaining mighty smell as it drifted teasingly in the air and through his open windows as they went about their business in the garden on the other side of the fence.

That changed two months ago when Paul had jumped on the opportunity of an early retirement from his highly stressful job in logistics and with pretty advantageous severance conditions and just like that, he and his wife Maggie had decided to leave for a year-long sailing cruise in their 45ft yacht. It normally spent most of the year in the marina, as with their jobs they did not have the time to sail it anywhere. They took the opportunity to take the boat as far as they could, with the aim of going around the world.

Maggie worked at a convenience store but had managed to get a year-long unpaid leave, hoping that she might one day have to come back and work. After spending a year on the boat, they might need some money! They had been excited to conduct a trip of a lifetime, that they had spent and dreamt of for many years but never thought they would ever be able to be young enough to realize.

"We don't want to wait until we're too old to do this!" They had explained to Grant early one summer evening over the fence. "We still feel young enough to truly enjoy sailing the long distances and don't want to wait."

The house was meant to be empty. Then the penny dropped.

Not wanting to leave their house unattended for a whole year, they were ecstatic when they agreed to let Rachel Ronaker live in their house while they were away. It was a convoluted way of getting someone to house sit. Maggie was good friends with Rachel's mom Susan for many years. Once Susan and moved out of town they kept in contact writing old fashioned letters and the occasional email. Although they both missed not being able to see each other as frequently as before. It was a perfect arrangement for everyone.

Rachel was starting both a part time job and she had got an important place at the local acting college and needed somewhere local to stay. It was the perfect arrangement Maggie and Paul had someone they trusted to look after their house. Rachel had a great place to live, much bigger and better than anything she could have dreamed to have afforded.

Rachel, like many young girls, had a dream to become a famous actress and had applied to an acting school right after graduating from high school. She had also got herself a part-time job, but the money would never have been enough to live in anything other than a small run-down cheap apartment. Now instead, she had a whole house in a nice neighbourhood for almost no money at all.

Grant followed his nose to his backyard and stood in the middle of his neatly mowed grass lawn and looked over the panelled wood fence. Suddenly he heard a violent cough. At that point he knew: Rachel was at least trying to smoke!

"Hello, good morning?" Grant called out over the fence.

Emotional tears were running from Rachel's eyes, and she was trying to regain some composure. She felt she almost choked and was blushing furiously, feeling ashamed to be seen smoking by her neighbour.

"Oh, morning!" she wheezed and with a large amount of embarrassment then loudly hacked a cough.

"Err, are you okay?" He asked with genuine concern.

"Yeah...well...right...sorry...you see, well, err, let me explain, well, err, I really don't smoke..." Rachel loudly snorted and coughed again, almost hiding the cigarette behind her back trying to explain.

"Oh, I see."

"I'm going to try for a part in a movie. Just for college."

"Oh...wow, amazing..." replied Grant with a quizzed expression, not entirely convinced about the young woman's explanation.

"I should explain. You see, and you might already know, I'm attending the Andrew's Academy acting school. Sometime, later in the spring, the academy will audition for a short movie to conclude the winter courses. Yesterday we were told that the movie will be some kind of remake of the classic black and white movie "To have and have not." She grinned confidently.

Grant nodded along "Oh yes, if memory serves me right, is that the famous one with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, right?" he asked.

Rachel grinned, "Yes! That's the one, my dream is to get the lead role, Lauren's role as Marie...I think I will be perfect. You see, only the most promising students will get a part, and if I manage to get the lead female role it would give me great chances to get a real part in an actual movie later in life. The school has a very good reputation, and it's quite common that movie producers and directors choose new faces from the school's top students." Rachel happily explained.

"So let me guess. To get the part you will be required to smoke, is that it?" Grant asked, almost pointing at her burning cigarette whilst standing on tiptoes looking over the fence even more intrigued.

"Well...funny thing is, I can't know for sure; we weren't told any details really. But I've seen the movie a couple of times, okay more than a couple of times now, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case." Rachel reflected, shrugging her shoulders with indifference.

"Yeah, it makes sense..." Grant agreed, then continued after thinking for a few seconds. It was a movie he vaguely was aware of.

"Exactly! I thought so too!" Rachel exclaimed in agreement. "The more I thought about it, the more I thought that to be able to play Marie in the most convincing way, I should really be able to mimic her smoking. It's such a defining part of her look!"

"You are probably right." Grant smiled and nodded as thoughts bounced around in his head as he was thinking about the movie. Whilst watching the stream of smoke twist and twirl in the air as Rachel moved around.

"But here is the problem. The whole smoking thing has proved to be harder than I imagined..." Rachel said thyen waving the recently lit cigarette that burned between her fingers the smoke creating a swirl in the cool morning air.

All the while they had been talking, the cigarette had continued burning and Rachel hadn't taken any more drags from her cigarette. The distraction of talking was helping her ignore the cigarette even as the smoke swirled around them. She was not yet confident enough of her cough to actually smoke it with Grant watching her. She was rather relieved when Grant said his goodbyes.

"Anyway. I hope it works out for you. I must get going if I don't want to be late at work. Just finished the bins...Good luck!"

"...Thanks..." Rachel shouted friendly back at him. "Oh hell, I better do the bins too, I've been thinking of other things, thanks for the reminder!"

He smiled happily as he turned around "Let me know how it goes!" he called out and then disappeared quickly inside, almost slamming his back door shut. Keeping the smell of her cigarette definitely outside.

Rachel remained with her feet stuck to the green grass for a few moments more before she shivered as morning cold air forced her back to reality.

"I should also hurry up. As I don't have all day and I guess this won't get any better just because I...wait for it to..." Rachel said, talking to her cigarette.

She raised the all-white cigarette to her lips, and ensuring it was secure took a shy drag and shallowly, fearfully inhaled the smoke again. She quickly exhaled. Her face gurned as she winced as the smoke tasted so bad, she was sure she would have coughed again if mentally she hadn't been prepared to control that irritating tingling sensation that tickled her throat and lungs. What was fun however was that the smoke danced in the cold air which made it look so thick. Rachel couldn't avoid feeling a little proud of herself to have made it that far.

***

That morning wasn't the first or second time Rachel had tried smoking. A couple of years before, whilst still in high school, her slightly mischievous best friend Imogen had convinced her to try smoking with her.

Imogen grew up in a smoking household, so she was surrounded and as such accustomed to being around smokers her whole life. It was not surprising that she had grown very curious about smoking especially once she had caught her two-year older sister Liz secretly smoking.

Liz was at the time a senior and has been smoking on and off for more than two years, unofficially borrowing her parents' cigarettes. As time had progressed, she was now finding it increasingly difficult to hide and keep under control her growing cigarette addiction. She had first tried a few cigarettes at a couple of parties with her friends. But over time as the parties became almost weekly what was once the occasional smoking had become more like a regular party activity together with friends and the secret beers. Going Saturday to Saturday was too long to wait for a cigarette.

As it often happens, Liz never stopped thinking about the consequences and never put any relevance to the fact that in a few months she had started almost longing for the next opportunity to party with her friends, because it meant the possibility of smoking. Liz had also looked the other way when finally, she now longer needed to use fake ID, and was all excited to buy a new pack of cigarettes to bring along to the parties and then chose subconsciously not to realise that after a while a pack wouldn't last her more than two parties.

Nicotine that was absorbed on Friday and Saturday nights very much now flowing around her body inevitably working diligently to anchor its addictive hooks as deeply as possible into her willing body.

It was a natural decision for Imogen to follow her big sister, once Liz had explained how easy everything was to her. It was only a little hop of imagination and Imogen then started 'borrowing' one or two of her sister's cigarettes in reality at the weekend too.

Over time Imogen's smoking addiction grew and blossomed. She had explained it all with Rachel. However, Rachel never embraced smoking like her friend. She had determined it just was not her. As such she only ever sporadically smoked when she was with Imogen, as she found it kept her happy. It also meant that Rachel was not socially ostracised.

Rachel's decision not to smoke was simple. Away from Imogen it was almost impossible for her to contemplate smoking. At home neither of her parents smoked, nor did really any of her other friends. Just Imogen. Imogen was almost an antisocial smoker. The only one that did. Rachel could also not think of any sensible reason to smoke.

This decision was also helped by that very first catastrophic cigarette that had made her cough, retching so much to the point of very nearly throwing up. It made her feel as if she had ejected the whole of her lungs and stomach out. However, being the good friend that Rachel was she battled on and learned the very basics of smoking cigarettes.

She did without effort as only a social thing to do to fit into the very small crowd of her best friend. She never went beyond the early stage and maintained what to her was her typical beginner style with very short drags and shallow inhales. She made it quite clear to Imogen that she did not like smoking.

***

On moving in Rachel had been having a nosey throughout the house, looking through all the house cupboards and drawers. As you do when exploring a new house. What naughty or fun secrets can you find? What things have been left behind that should have not.

Opening all the cupboards, looking through the house owners' clothes, basically having a rummage. In one of the several chests of drawers full of clothes. She was surprised by the extensive range of rather sexy underwear that Maggie clearly owned; she was saddened for her husband. She had left it all behind in the drawer rather than taking them away with her. Maybe not really sailing clothing.

When in the kitchen, in a drawer along with what seemed like hundreds of cleaned ashtrays she unintentionally found an open golden pack of Benson & Hedges in the back. It was a pack that her hosts must have forgotten when they left. Rachel's first instinct had been to throw it away. However, after retrieving the dusty pack and having it sitting on the counter next to the rather artistic and impressive glass ashtray along with a blue Bic lighter that she had found.

Rachel stopped what she was doing when the very silly idea popped into her head.

The rather ridiculous and stupid idea to try smoking a cigarette again to hopefully give her a better potential at the upcoming audition appeared unexpectedly. Rachel had spent a couple of days just for an hour here or there methodically going around the house. There were spotlessly clean glass ashtrays almost in every cupboard. They were everywhere.

It had taken Rachel a couple of days to pluck up the courage. Even after coughing, for Rachel, standing outside in the garden she found it was like riding a bike, but smoking was still really foul and disgusting just as when she tried it at first a few years ago, and she could now tell why never developed a taste for it, they reeked and were sickening.

'God this was tough!' Rachel though as she finally crushed out the half-finished cigarette on the grey concrete patio under her white sneakers. She was all ready to walk back inside, take the bin out and then afterwards cover herself in perfume and get prepared to go to work. 'I still can't understand what Imogen sees in this smoking thing...'

Unknowingly to Rachel, upstairs practically hidden behind the curtains of the bedroom window, Grant had run back up the stairs and secretly watched the rest of the scene play out. In hindsight he would have loved to keep talking to his pretty neighbour, but not sure where the conversation would have gone, and he was afraid that it might have been too obvious. He had preferred the idea of walking back inside. His special curiosity had been too much for him to tame, so he couldn't do anything but find a spot inside from which to keep watching Rachel smoking her cigarette.

Grant had always found the sight of beautiful women smoking very exciting. It was a strong enjoyment, almost a fetish but one that he, as expected, kept very secret. The only person that he had confessed his passionate secret to was- his wife Penny. When Grant and Penny had met, she was a very occasional smoker, but when things between them started to get serious, he chose to take the risk and confess his rather twisted desires to her.

At first Penny was both shocked and unsure how to deal with her boyfriend's confessed peculiar interest, which she could not avoid thinking was sort of weird. She knew it was strange because she discussed it in total secrecy with her best friend, who also agreed it was very weird. They both concluded that it was neither illegal nor derogatory. So, she sort of should run with it.

Penny enjoyed watching Grant's face as she smoked. His glances and occasionally stares as she did the occasional smoking tricks like snap inhales. When she knew he was watching she would do several smoke rings that would be sent across the room, one after another. Penny was pleased that he chose to focus on the fact that he'd chosen to trust her with his deepest secret. That he was being completely open with her. He loved her as a smoking woman.

She weighed it up after all, he hadn't confessed anything illegal or uncomfortably kinky, sex was vanilla except for the smoking. She quickly realized that it gave her a unique power over him. All she had to do was to light up, drag on a cigarette and like a puppy dog smelling biscuits or treats he'd do almost anything for her. For all the tricks, she never quite got him to roll over.

Penny loved the attention she could get from Grant with just a flick of her lighter and pulling the enjoyable and addictive smoke into her lungs. She could easily keep his focus as she exhaled with a teasing flash of her long bare legs in her work skirt. On the weekends she could even top it off, maybe the sight of her red lace knickers, or maybe when she was in the mood, even none at all. She knew that whilst he watched that she could send him into overdrive.

There were a few downsides that she had to pay for his undevoted sexual attention. The main one was her own smoking obsession. At first it initially was hardly a habit, as it would only happen with the odd beer at the end of a long day. They would unwind in each other company of an evening. However, it soon began growing from maybe two cigarettes twice a week to more. Her evening smoking rate quickly increased fuelled by the fact that she knew her partner got so turned on by her smoking. But cigarettes became part of her life because she now wanted to smoke. A new routine would occur. Both of them excitedly rushed home from work to meet up and for her to hurriedly light up. A whole day not smoking was getting too long. Even in his rental flat cigarettes entered the bedroom. Penny knew what it would do for Grant, so whilst undressing she would smoke for him. Tease him with deep inhales and exhales as she would slowly undress before straddling him.