I signed up to attend Beaker’s smoking academy because I was fascinated by cigarettes and wanted to learn how to be a smoker. On my first day, I entered the school to attend my first class. The teacher stood at the door, a half smoked cigarette in her hand. She was tall and slim, with long brunette hair, a creased upper lip and slight dark circles under her eyes. She smiled and flashed her tar stained teeth, then exhaled a thin wisp of smoke as I entered. She welcomed me to the school in a low, husky voice and lifted her hand to cover her mouth as she let out a deep, wet cough. I looked in awe as she raised her cigarette and closed her eyes to take a drag, the cigarette sizzling in her lips. The class was filled with about 20 other girls like me, each sitting quietly and nervously, waiting for the lesson to begin. I sat and examined my desk. Except for the teacher’s desk, each desk in the room had an empty and clean ashtray placed in the corner. The teacher’s desk held two ashtrays, three packs of cigarette packs and a pile of lighters. One ashtray was filled with cigarette butts. The teacher stubbed out her cigarette and reached for another. She lit up and began the lesson. The cigarette pressed between her fingers as she spoke, interrupted occasionally by her wet and hacking smoker’s cough. Today we were going to learn about the school, the program and at the end of the lesson we’d light up our first cigarette. Everyone around me looked excited. She said that after we completed the program we’d go from non-smokers to heavy smoking women with an appreciation for cigarettes, adept at all techniques. Most graduates leave with a 1 pack per day habit, while some can be smoking up to 3 packs per day.
However, first we needed to learn the basics. She then demonstrated how to use a lighter. She took an unlit cigarette between her lips and showed us by hollowing her cheeks how we needed to inhale through the cigarette as we lit it up. Her cheeks hollowed as she inhaled a few times on her cigarette, a column of ash forming at the end. She pointed to the ash and showed us how to delicately hold and tap the ash off the cigarette into an ashtray. Then, holding an ashtray up in one hand, she showed us how to butt it out. After the demonstration, she took one of the unopened cigarette packs from her desk and unwrapped it. She asked us to line up and to each take one cigarette from the pack and a lighter from the pile on her desk.
Once everyone had a cigarette and lighter, we all sat down. The teacher smiled and again raised another unlit cigarette to her lips, she then asked us to try lighting up. This was my first time smoking. I awkwardly put the cigarette between my lips and flicked the lighter a couple of times until a flame appeared. I sucked the cigarette like a straw and drew the flame to the end of the cigarette. As the flame drew close to the cigarette, it bent towards the cigarette and the tobacco sizzled. I felt smoke entering my mouth. It surprised me and I coughed it out. Many other girls were doing the same. The teacher laughed softly as the room erupted in a symphony of choking coughs. It tasted bitter and I felt like I just wanted to cough, but I also felt dizzy.
She insisted that we take another puff, to suck the smoke into our mouths, but not too much and to not worry about inhaling it into our lungs just yet. She said to consider this first cigarette as a sample, to get used to the sensation, after all we were just beginning to learn. I gently puffed on the cigarette and began to feel lightheaded and giddy. The sensation was new and I liked it. I finished as much of the cigarette as I could, nervously tapping the ash off after each small puff and then delicately stubbing it out into my ashtray as the teacher had shown. Eventually all of the girls finished their cigarettes and the clean ashtrays each now contained a single distorted cigarette butt. A smoky haze hung in the room as the teacher smiled and proclaimed that the class was now over.
I headed to my dorm room to rest, my head still rushing from the excitement of my first cigarette. Inside, there were two beds, one empty and a friendly looking girl sitting on the other. She welcomed me as her new room mate, and smiled as she introduced herself as Isabelle. She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her purse and offered one to me. She was a new student like me, but she explained that she’d actually started smoking a year ago, but was still interested in learning more. I took the cigarette from her and lit up, again feeling the head rush again and closing my eyes, gagging. She laughed and reassured me that it would get better. Isabelle said she smoked about 4 or 5 cigarettes a day, and that she had taught herself over time but that eventually when you light up the gagging stops and the headrush intensity goes down. I was looking forward to my next day of school.
During the first week, the teachers explained that we should aim to smoke about one cigarette per day. They would hand out cigarettes at the end of each day for us to smoke in our dorms as homework. They said to get used to the sensation and to experiment with our inhales and exhales, which were just basic for now. It was getting easier and I was starting to like it. At the end of the first week, we were surprised to each receive our first pack of cigarettes. It felt so reassuring now to carry the pack around in my purse, able to light up whenever I pleased. During the second week, I tried to keep track and I was up to about 2 cigarettes per day, sometimes 3 and I still had a couple left at the end of the week.
By the end of the first month of classes, we were now allowed 2 packs per week and we had enough cigarettes now to sometimes smoke in class during lessons, as this was encouraged. The head rushes seemed to be going away, but the relaxation feeling when lighting up was still there. We started a class on smoking physiology. We learned about many things that we were now starting to experience. How the nicotine in the smoke gets absorbed into our lungs and interacts with the rest of our body. How our bodies were beginning to crave nicotine. How the tar in the smoke would eventually stain our teeth and fingers and build up in our lungs. The coating of tar on our lungs would eventually make it hard to breathe and we’d probably develop a smoker’s cough. She explained that this was perfectly normal and that it was the trade off to the enjoyment we got from smoking. I was fascinated by all of this, it made me understand that rush I got when I lit up. This is when I truly started to feel like I was addicted to cigarettes. I was starting to crave them a lot and one pack per week wasn’t enough. I would try to ration my cigarettes over the week but the cravings just seemed to get worse. After we completed the smoking physiology class, something incredible happened. The teacher gave us a special pass so we could get cigarettes whenever we wanted.
I was making friends and we all seemed to smoke all the time. At least one of us would have a lit cigarette at any given time during our lessons and time together. Smoking cigarettes was a great way to socialize with the other girls. After getting my pass, I tried to make sure I’d have a pack of cigarettes in my purse at all times. I was smoking about a half a pack a day at this time. Isabelle and I smoked a lot in our dorm, the stale smell of cigarettes now clung to our bed sheets and clothes.
Next in smoking techniques, we learned how to do some different inhales and exhales. We learned the basics: to french inhale and to blow smoke rings. Smoke rings were tough, but the teacher encouraged us to practice and after a couple of days most of us were blowing smoke rings like pros.
