The Prism - Shifting to Red (part 3)

“Slowly,” I said as I put the flame to the tip of the cigarette. Her hand was trembling slightly. “You have to push it down into your lungs and keep it there until you count to seven.”
Her cheeks hollowing, she took a deep drag, breathing the smoke in. Her eyes widened, and got watery. I counted slowly to five and then she exploded in a paroxysm of cough.
“Shit,” Juliet said then between coughs, her voice raw. “This is horrible.”
My mother laughed and took a hard hit from her cigarette. “You’ll get used to it.” She threw her head back and exhaled slowly. “I thought the same when I started.”
It was two weeks since my mother’s first cigarette, and she was developing into a rabid nicotine addict, hovering already at one packet per day. Just like me, she lit up first thing in the morning. Then we shared a cigarette after coffee, and took it from there. The effects of the shift, combined with the boredom of her days at home, had helped her along. We now spent our evenings together, smoking, reading, gossiping. Our apartment was perpetually shrouded in a haze of second-hand smoke, and we had placed ashtrays in every room.
She did not complain about the smell anymore.
The idea of getting Juliet to smoke had been my mother’s.
“Wouldn’t it be fun,” she had grinned at me one evening, while I lit her up, “to make Juliet one of us?”
The thought had sent a thrill through my panties. We had smoked and talked about the best way to pressure our next door neighbor into sharing our vice. And now, five days later, here Juliet was sitting on the couch, trapped between me and my mother, pumping on her first cigarette.
Her next drag went down better. She was able to hold it down for about six seconds, and she controlled her coughing fit.
“My head spins,” she said.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” my mother cooed. “It’s the nicotine.”
We shared an evil grin over Juliet’s head, while she pumped her third hit.
My mother pushed her back against the back of the couch. “Relax and ride it,” she said gently.
Juliet exhaled slowly.
“A pity the taste is shit,” she said, bringing the filter back to her lips.

I poured her a glass of vodka. “This will help with the taste,” I said.
My mother pushed her empty glass towards me. I noticed the lipstick smear on the edge, the same as on her cigarette’s filter. I filled her up.
Juliet took another cigarette from the packet and motioned for me to lit her up. “Come on, I have to make up for lost time.”