Late Night Smoke

I need to smoke.

She had that thought a few times a day. Sometimes, the thought occurred right as she woke up, other times it was stress-induced. In this case, it was right after a session of passionate lovemaking with her boyfriend, David, and while the mountain goat was quick to fall asleep, Perci, on the other hand, usually needed a little buzz beforehand.

Slowly, she wiggled out of his embrace, careful not to wake him. Reaching the edge of the bed, she sat herself upright, letting the blanket slip off of her nude body and leave her exposed. The poodle's eyes glanced around until she found the items she was looking for upon his desk: an ounce bag of weed, her glass pipe, and her lighter.

Once she had her possessions on her person, the canine made her way to the window that led to the building's fire escape. She pulled the blinds up and opened up her exit of choice. Immediately, the sounds of the city made themselves evident. Fortunately, thanks to the late hour, the running engines of taxis driving by and the click-clack of heels against the pavement below didn't saturate the air the way they did during the rest of the day.

Still, out of habit, she darted her gaze back to the sleeping ram. Aside from the subtle up-and-down motion of this chest as he snored, he did not move. She closed her eyes and sighed happily. A smile crept across her face as she thought about the past hours of wild sex they just shared. She'd be willing to give an encore performance in the morning, but that would be hours from then. At that moment, she had other priorities. Without any more hesitation, the naked poodle climbed out the window and into the fire escape balcony.

After pulling herself out of the window pane, she stood up and stretched her body, raising her arms in the air and allowing the wind brush across against her bare fur, helping to rouse her wearied senses. With her body limber, she brought her arms down and opened her baggie, beginning the process necessary to get her daily high.

The habit of lighting up on David's fire escape wasn't an uncommon occurrence when she visited him on the weekends. After all, she couldn't smoke in the apartment, lest she leave the room reeking of cannabis, much to the ire of the asshole landlady. However, after noticing how the people on the street seldom bothered to look up in the residential area, the amount of clothing she wore during these excursions became less and less until she the only thing she wore were her earrings. It got to a point that she didn't even bother to look for possible voyeurs from the adjacent building windows. David never seemed to mind, even joining her sometimes, albeit with at least one article of clothing on. His loss, she always thought.

After filling her dose into the pipe, Perci quickly tossed the bag back into the apartment. She had lost good weed to a sudden gust of wind before and had no intention of repeating that mistake. The canine brought the mouthpiece to her muzzle and the lighter to the bowl, waiting for the bud to kindle before breathing in. Once lit, she inhaled, letting the drug enter her lungs and course through her system. Several seconds later, she exhaled, a white cloud gently streaming out from her lips.

While marijuana was still illegal in the state of New York, it never stopped Perci from getting her daily doses of it. A few of her friends called it addiction, but she never considered it like that.

"Some people drink coffee, some people take ritalin," she would say, "Me? I light up."

Her therapist always told her she should be taking actual antidepressants over her own form of self-medication. Whether or not pills would work, she didn’t know, but she did know that the specific brand the therapist recommended was the same brand prescribed to her old high school friend. A few weeks later she took her own life, throwing herself into the Hudson River. Perci still missed her. Still, if she had to choose between being a living stoner or a medicated corpse, she’d take the former option, depression be damned.

She shook her head, mentally pushing the thought out of her mind. Nights like this shouldn’t be spent focusing on dark thoughts like that. Leaning against the railing, she took another puff from her pipe, deciding to focus on the city sky instead.

A few minutes later, the contents of her pipe had been used up. With her fix obtained, she crawled back into the apartment and tucked herself back into bed with her lover, but not before leaving her pipe by the bathroom sink as a reminder to clean it in the morning.