**Picks up a cigarette. Lights it. Puff puff, Cough, cough (chokes). Switches it off**

I don’t even like smoking. Worse still I am right outside a cancer ward. Alright, I don’t even know how I’m gonna start this story. Physical appearance? Boy, would I like to address that elephant in the room. I am not an elephant per se, but if you put two slim bodies together, they would probably fit in my pants. The world seems to accept me more than I accept myself. But thank God I’m rich! I can AFFORD my pain if I don’t PAY too much attention.

I have stretch marks, they are a pain in the ass to remove, I mean literally! And that seems only to piss them off because they grow back twice as strong and twice as ugly. I was part of the cool kids back in high school, but that was because I was rich. And also because my appearance helped in some way, I could fake my age and buy liquor. I was the life of the party. I could dance too; I liked to dance. But only for the first four minutes, anything beyond that would result in me sweating like a seal or me feeling my chest to check if I had a heart attack.

My smoking, I’m not a smoker, and I don’t think I will become one. Three of my step mums died of cancer, can’t blame them, though, they were all smokers. And given my weight, I would rather not seek a date with death coz Lord knows I will overeat if you know what I mean.

I am in my college freshman year and yesterday was my 18 th birthday, but I will get into that in a bit. I wanna talk about college. There are a lot of fat people here, and that makes me jealous surprisingly. I guess I no longer stand out. I miss being different. Here everyone is different; I can no longer ‘fit in’ pun intended. Okay, enough with the fat jokes, let me get serious with my story. Of course, sex is a key element of my story. I’m still “technically” a virgin; I did have my chances in high school, but I never took them seriously partly because my sex drive wasn’t as high as I think it was supposed to and partly because I was uncomfortable taking my clothes off. There was this particular girl who was patient with me, Cindy. We had so much in common, I preferred to talk to her, but because of peer pressure back in high school, and the reputation I had to maintain, I had to pretend. I had to treat her wrong, talk about sex or other girls in front her when my gang was around. She understood the mask I had to wear, and she played her part surprisingly well. She once brought a can of fish and told me to dip my fingers in it just to prove to my friends I was getting some. God, I miss that girl.

Okay, my birthday night, super 18. As usual, my friends were more excited about it than I was, and also because my dad sent me $10,000. Oh, and Cindy was coming too. Our long distance relationship couldn’t work because we were at different colleges, so I was hoping this night would be special. Maybe she would give me my 1st college experience; coz college has been overrated so far; nothing really excites me.

I know what you are thinking, the story seems obvious from here. You think the party was awesome given all that money I threw (it was awesome BTW), and the night ended with Cindy spending a night in my room (she did, she still is in my room). Damn, okay the night was that obvious. Note to self; stop ruining the story with your side comments in brackets.

I guess there’s no turning back; the party was pretty dope, and so was Cindy. She wasn’t the sweet innocent girl I used to know. College did a number on her. She was confident, aggressive, had that hands on approach when alcohol entered her system. She could handle more liquor than I could remember. But here is a juicy piece from last night, I know some of you readers are curious.

The party was at its peak, way more people showed up. I guess news of a party with free unlimited beer travels faster than bad news these days. When I first met sober Cindy, she was everything I remembered. I could see more of her eyes because she stopped covering them with her hair. Her figure hadn’t changed much, but there was something about her, a glow in her, maybe it was her new found confidence. I won’t lie; I had a boner the second I saw her at the airport.

I didn’t spend much time with her because the seniors, impressed with my party kept grabbing me and introducing me to more people, both guys, and girls. Oh boy, I know this feeling, I was becoming popular again.

Back to Cindy, we eventually had our moment. I was actually impressed, she grabbed me from the crowd and took me to my room. I couldn’t even get the key in coz she was aggressively kissing me while I was trying to open the door. I was nervous; I hoped the key was the only thing I would fail to get in tonight. We entered the room; she didn’t even care that the door wasn’t fully closed, she pulled down my zipper and struggled a bit to find it.

I said, “if it makes you feel better, I also struggle to find it sometimes.”

She grinned at me and said, “You need to relax. Here, unstrap my bra, I have some coke.”

Honestly till this moment I don’t know why I unstrapped her bra. I don’t know if I was drunk-stupid and curious to try coke or I wanted to see her tits. Fuck it; I’m 18.

She sat on top of me as I lay on the bed and poured the coke on the glass side table next to me. She took a huge unreal snort and signaled to me while struggling to breathe. I stared at the coke next to the $100 bills and black card. I slowly picked my black card and put the powder together. I looked at Cindy who was hopelessly smiling at me; I knew she was looking at me, but her mind was gone. I stared at the powder one last time, I guess THIS IS IT.

As I pulled the powder closer to my nose, my phone rang. It was mum, my dead stepmother. Nobody uses her phone; it’s only turned on to make emergency calls. It was the butler, dad had a heart attack but was fine. My heart sunk deep into my chest, I dropped the phone as the call ended. Cindy was in a world of her own, she dropped down beside me and blacked out.

I know this feeling again, it starts as a heart attack, and after further tests, they will find a cancer growth somewhere. Traumatized and not knowing what to do, I grabbed a few 100s, my card and walked out. The party didn’t seem like it was going to end soon, good for them, have fun today and get a herpes-shot tomorrow. Right now I need some air. I managed to sneak out, but I didn’t know where I was going. I can’t exactly remember what happened in between but it was irrelevant, and I found myself in a cab, then entering a bar/club (not sure). The door bouncer looked at me strange, as if he had a superpower, like he could tell my age if he stared hard enough. Thank God I had a huge body. I gave him a 100, and he smiled and took me to the VIP section. I assumed it was the VIP section because there were few people and all the ladies were extremely attractive. I sat by the counter, and the bartender looked at me with a subtly shocked expression and asked. “Are you sure you can afford this place?”

I dropped my black card, smiled at him and said, “Try me.”

It seems I wasn’t the only person impressed with my little stunt, a lady who I assume wasn’t much older than 24 approached me. Her face was forgettable, but her rack wasn’t.

She said, “Your 1st time here.”

I said, “Yes. Is it that obvious?”

She smiled and said, “You don’t even know what it means when you drink from the counter?”

That’s when it clicked, holy sh… She’s a hooker, and those who sit at the counter are ready for action. Trying to keep my cool, I faced her making a strong eye contact to show I wasn’t afraid and said, “Aren’t supposed to wait till I am drunk before you approach me? It’s easier that way, and I would be more generous.”

She laughed, seeming slightly impressed with my cockiness (or was it her way of flirting?). She said, “Ok MR 1st timer. You seem quite confident and sure of yourself. You tell me how you want to go about with this.”

I said. “Well, for starters, tell me your name, and if you are gonna use one of your stage names, use one you haven’t used before.”

She seemed more into me than I was into her (but of course, it was her job.) Smiling more, she thought for a moment and said, “I’m V, just like valium, I can make all your troubles go away for a bit.”

I laughed and said, “Wow, mind blowing.”

She laughed and said, “Is that what you want?”

At this point, I was more impressed because she got the pun behind my comment, there wwas more to her brain than what she gives. I might have to call her again after this. We conversed a bit more; she danced with me; we drank together. Then came the hard part (not what you are thinking…,) the close.

I couldn’t bring her to my room coz Cindy was there, and she couldn’t go more than 50 yards off the place, can’t remember, but she mumbled something about rules of her pimp. So we found an alley not too far away. She opened her purse and pulled out the cigarette. It was an odd thing to do, and when I asked why, she said she didn’t like the taste of meat in her mouth, so the cigarette lessened the taste. Halfway through the cigarette, she knelt down and pulled my zipper down. That’s the second time this night; boy was I lucky. I won’t go into the details of it; she was definitely a pro. Boy does she put the V in vagin… I mean Valium.

So there I was enjoying being a man for the first time and she abruptly stopped, and she said, “Shit! There’s a cop approaching us….”

**Picks up a cigarette. Lights it. Puff puff, Cough, cough (chokes). Switches it off again. Throws it**

As I reflect on the events of last night, I still can’t believe it. It was a rush, unreal. I have changed my mind; now I’m sure I will never be a smoker, don’t know why I enjoyed it last night. I guess money can buy happiness sometimes. I’m standing outside the cancer ward because it’s the only section I ever visit when I come here. It turns out, after the full body scan, my dad doesn’t have cancer. He just needs to watch his diet and quit smoking. Cindy keeps calling, but I will deal with her later. I think she’s embarrassed about last night; I doubt there is a future with us. Little sweet Cindy is dead and gone, but we will see. I guess, you wanna know how last night ended? Well spoiler, we didn’t get caught. I’m feeling lazy to type out the rest, but the cop walked past us like nothing happened. Guess he didn’t see us.

The End. Bye now!

Jokes, that night, was a big moment for me, so I can’t deny you the pleasure or cut you off just yet. So back to the story. It’s not that long or dramatic. The cop did see me but not her because what she said was genius.

As she was on her knees getting that employee of the month promotion, she saw the cop and said, “Shit! There’s a cop approaching us.”

I faced downward to see her face to make sure she wasn’t joking. She could tell I was about to panic. She gave me the cigarette, and I was clueless but she was calm and she said. “He won’t see me if you ‘STAND STRAIGHT WHEN SMOKING,' you are like ‘TWO SLIM’ bodies.”