Once a fetish has been imprinted on—some might say infected—your brain, its grip is unrelenting. You will have as much success willing it away as willing your eye color to change. And if an opportunity, no matter from where, presents itself to exercise your fetish, then it will be irresistible.
For a long time I've had intense fantasies about women who smoke with holders. Still, I was startled—or maybe shocked is a better word when reality confronts a fantasy—when, the summer before I entered my final year of college, my mother began to smoke with a holder. Maybe it was because her divorce had been finally settled and she wanted to try something new and maybe it was because she wanted to try to escape post-menstrual depression. I was to find out later. She was now living alone in the house where I grew up—I was an only child—but I knew from when I'd call her from school that she occasionally dated.
Except when she was stressed, mother smoked only occasionally, perhaps after a meal or at a party. I once asked her why she smoked,
"I smoke only for pleasure, a little bit like eating a chocolate-covered cherry now and then."
And then, smiling, she added, "and because of the erotic effect it has on some men. Of course, other men think it's a nasty habit."
"Put me squarely in the former camp," I almost said out loud.
Mother was small, about five-foot two, and probably weighted hardly more than 100 pounds. She had a light olive skin, dark hair, small breasts, and, apparently about the same time she started to smoke with a holder, had her hair done in a blunt cut. At 47, she was still a very attractive woman.
Although I loved both my parents, I could hardly say that about how they treated one another. As I grew older, their fights increased, typically occurring after a party when Dad would begin by accusing mom of flirting and she would reply that she did so because he always ignored her. And there were money issues. Poor mother never learned—or, more likely, never wanted-- to balance a checkbook and Dad would accuse Mom of spending extravagantly. I was pretty sure however that he had a very good salary as an insurance executive and he never seemed to think twice about the dues to his exclusive country club or the "business" trips he and his buddies would take on short notice.
Once I was back in school that fall, my fantasies began to involve my mother more and more. At first I tried to suppress these thoughts with their hint of incest, but they were so insistent and arousing that I soon just let them go wherever my imagination took them.
The plan over my Christmas vacation was to spend the first few days with my father, stay with mother from the 23
rd
until New Year's day, and then go back to my father's for the rest of my vacation. (Ah, those long school vacations. What luxury!)
By the time I finally stepped into my old home on the morning of December 23, I was obsessed with thoughts of my mother and her provocative smoking.
The first day with mother was devoted largely to last minute shopping (we're both procrastinators). We picked out a not-too-tall Christmas tree and I bought a 12-pound turkey, cranberry sauce, potatoes, and string beans to cook on Christmas Day. (Although not great, I'm a better cook than Mom.) After that, we split up to look for presents for one another. I got mother, who liked to splurge on presents for me, to promise me that she'd buy only two and I said I'd do likewise. Actually, earlier, I had gone online to buy her a silver cigarette case for her unfiltered Pall Mall 100s. The second gift, I bought that afternoon: a bottle of the perfume "Obsession," both appropriate gifts I thought given my fantasies.
Too tired to cook, we ate dinner at a cozy Italian restaurant. After two glasses of Chianti mother was frisky and kept probing me for details of my romantic life—meager as it was—at college. Finally she asked,
"I'm curious, Sweetie, just what kind of girls do you like?"
"Well, to be truthful, Mom, I prefer small women, just like you. I suppose that's all very Freudian."
"Ah, my darling Oedipus. His mother is his secret love." I blushed. If she only knew!
As soon as we got home I set up the tree, leaving it to be decorated on Christmas Eve, a tradition at our house. Mother said she was tired and was going to bed early.
"Would you like a nice back rub to put you to sleep," I asked, delighted when she answered, "That would be lovely."
She told me where to find some massage oil and pleaded, "Please warm it up with your hands. I hate the shock of cold oil on my skin."
I did as she asked, and gently began to rub and kneed her shoulders. She sighed, "Oh darling, that feels so good, so good." But by the time I had worked down to the small of her back she was asleep. I covered her with a sheet and then her comforter, kissed the back of her neck, and went to my old room to sleep.
Mother slept in Christmas Eve morning, but finally came downstairs in her nightgown, cigarettes, lighter, and holder in hand, aroused by the smell of brewing coffee and sizzling bacon. I poured her a cup of coffee and announced that I was making scrambled eggs with a bit of cheddar cheese and chives. "Yummy," mother murmured.
As she finished her eggs and toast, I was praying that she'd light up and I wasn't disappointed. To a hard-core fetishist like myself, every gesture mother made with her cigarette, holder, and lighter was riveting: how she carefully inserted her unfiltered Pall Mall into her holder so as not to wrinkle the paper; how her fingers curled around the holder as she raised it to her lips, and how—what an unexpected touch—she handed me her lighter and said. "Can you give me a light?"
It took me two tries to produce a flame and as I moved as I moved it toward the tip of her cigarette, my hand began to tremble.
"You're not nervous, Sweetheart, are you?" mother laughed. I'm sure you've lit a woman's cigarette before."
"Actually, Mom," I answered, "not many of the girls I know smoke."
"Well, I obviously do and I love it when a man lights my cigarette."
The next few minutes watching mother smoke languorously with her holder were an unmitigated erotic experience. After each deep drag, mother would hold the smoke in her mouth and then open her lips slightly before exhaling a thick white stream. I especially loved it when she would sometimes clench the holder between her teeth to free her hands to pour a bit more cream or sugar into her coffee after I had refilled her cup. Her holder was one I had seen on the web: a black and silver 5" Lady Denicotea with a built-in filter, elegant and practical.
I was hoping that mother might light up a second time, but no such luck. Instead, she said,
"Let me get dressed and then we can decorate the tree. You can build a fire and put on some Christmassy songs. You'll find a couple of albums by the CD player."
I did as I was told, mother finally came down stairs, and we began to decorate the tree. Although the tree was hardly taller than mother, she was a perfectionist when it came to decorating and scrutinized the placement of each icicle and each light. When we finally finished, I suggested that I make sandwiches and we go for a long hike in a wooded park about a mile away.
"But Sweetie, it's cold outside," she protested.
"Don't worry Mom, I'll make a thermos of hot coffee and I'll hold you close as we walk."
Actually, it wasn't that bad outside, but by the time we got to the edge of the park we were ready to sit down and eat lunch. During our walk and over lunch mother did most of the talking. She told me about her crazy mother and father, her wild escapades in high school and college, how she met my dad, why they fought and why the finally got a divorce. She also told me how lonely she sometimes got now that she lived alone and how much she loved having me around to help her and to fix things that were broken or didn't seem to work properly.
"And just think, Baby, just one more semester of college and you'll be out in the real world. I so hope you can get a job near here so I can see you more often. I can't tell you how much that would mean. I think you must be the only person in the world who really loves me."
Because it was getting colder, we decided to bag the walk in the woods and head back home. Once we got there and I had revived the fire to warm us up, I told mother that I had a few errands to run and that I wouldn't be gone for long. I knew where there was a high-end food market with a good selection of wines. I picked out four bottles of a 2000 red Bordeaux, a chèvre for an appetizer, and a good bottle of domestic Champagne to drink while we opened our presents in front of the fire.
Mother's dinner was not so great: the steaks were over done, the baked potatoes under done, and the broccoli soggy. Mother was simply not into cooking, as I well knew from experience. But she tried and that made me love her all the more. Fortunately, the Bordeaux smoothed over everything, so by the time we had finished the bottle and were on to desert—it's hard to ruin vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce—we were feeling pretty good, but not drunk by a long shot.
"Look Mom, let me quick put the dishes in the dish washer while you get the pillows off my bed and yours. After I stoke up the fire we can put the pillows in front of the fire along with some of the cushions off the couch."
When mother came down with the pillows under her arms, she had changed to her silk pajamas. She looked stunning and I told her so. As I put a couple of big logs on the fire and prodded them with a poker so that the embers came to life, mother went back to her room to get an ashtray and her cigarettes, holder, and lighter. I knew she adored Frank Sinatra so I put on a two-CD set called, "Music to Make Love By." After mother arranged the pillows and cushions to her liking she carefully inserted a Pall Mall into her holder and, with out asking, simple passed her lighter to me. I think my hand must have been trembling as much as before because she reached out with her free hand to steady it as she dipped her cigarette to the flame.
"I love to watch you smoke with your holder, Mom. You're such an elegant smoker."
"Oh, I know because I saw the way you looked at me while I was having a cigarette after breakfast. But, I have to confess; I'm not surprised because when I was cleaning out your old room a few months ago I found a wooden box with a flimsy lock that I easily picked. You know, of course, what I found."
I blushed, "Yes I do. Those were pictures of beautiful models smoking with holders that I cut out over the years from those old
Vogue
and
New Yorker
magazines from the 50s and 60s that Aunt Helen had left in the attic. I never thought that you or anybody else would ever find them."
"Here I thought I'd find
Playboy
