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Date Posted: 17:57:51 10/03/25 Fri
Author: Curious
Author Host/IP: 49.183.81.32
Subject: (SFFR) 'Smoke In My Hands: How Cigarettes Got Me' (Anon.) - A Review
Warning: This Review Contains Spoilers
'Smoke In My Hands: How Cigarettes Got Me' (Anon.) - A Review
Part One - The Author
The true author of the story is unknown, it may have been the creator of the 'Women's Stories' YouTube channel, but equally given that one of the other stories posted on the channel(1) was stolen from the Noble Leaf Library it's possible that this story was stolen from another as yet unidentified source. A further possibility is that the story was generated algorithmically using a large-language model. As of the time of this review, no evidence has been uncovered to clarify this point.
Part Two - 'Smoke In My Hands: How Cigarettes Got Me'
The story was uploaded to YouTube in audio form on Mar 7, 2025. It's plot is clearly summarised in the last line of the story, "Mara gave me the smoke, and I let it take me."
Part Three - Comments
There are many things unknown about this story, even the actual title, the one used in this review is the one used on YouTube. The opening sets up the 'where' cleanly and specifically, Missoula, Montana during a long, hot summer. The 'when' of the story is not entirely clear, but a reference to the narrators mother having a laptop means it cannot be set later than the mid-to-late 1990s. As to the time frame of the story the narrator mentions she is 14 when Mara arrives, when the story ends, the narrator is 16 or slightly older.
There are only four named characters in the story, Jade, the narrator. Eliza, Jade's mother, Mara(2), Jade's aunt and Shelly(2), the last character is the subject of one of the stories worst mistakes, she just appears with no preparation, from what happens when she does appear it would seem that she was a smoking friend of the narrator, presumably from before the narrator started smoking.
Mara, is in the words of the narrator "...a secret I had to unravel...", someone who, two years ago walked away from everything to take up an itinerant existence, footloose and fancy-free that's carried her from Montana to the West Coast of the United States and back. Her wildness(3) and exotic(4) nature(5) cause the narrator to become fascinated with her, it's presumably this fascination that inspires Mara to offer a cigarette to the narrator.
It also appears that she's surprised at the speed at which her niece travels the path from 'experimenting' to 'devoted' and underestimates how just how strong a hold the habit takes on Jade. She walks out of Jade's life at the end of summer and has not re-encountered her by stories end.
Eliza, the narrators mother is simply defined as being the opposite of Mara. Missing from the story is any mention of the narrator's father.
Jade, the narrator is as mentioned earlier 14 at stories start, by implication chafing at her mothers restrictions. Mara is seen as a way in which to break free of them. Like her aunt she completely underestimates just how quickly and strongly the habit takes a hold of her with need driving her to steal from her mother(6). By stories end she's estranged from her mother, the habit having become a wedge between them, with her mother directly comparing Jade to Mara.
Ultimately, what do I think of this story. The story has 'good bones', it's an 'inkspot'(7) at the lowest level, centered on the interaction between Mara and Jade, but it's too tightly focussed as evidenced in the abrupt appearance of Shelly. It's readable in it's current form, but I'm sure that an enterprising author could take the material here and craft something special.
Recommended.
Appendix: A Hypothetical Origin - Anti-Smoking Testimonials.
There are five stories(8) with a first person narrator posted to the 'Women's Stories' YouTube channel prior to the posting of a pirated version of 'The Six Weeks' by Stu Bash, all share a common structure, narrator becomes devoted, attempts to quit and fails. Only the first of the five has what may be considered a positive ending with the narrator becoming a proud and open smoker who regards her cigarettes as her friends. The others are either negative, or in the case of the one under review ambivalent.
First person stories are comparatively rare in Smoking Fetish fiction, but many testimonials are in this form. It therefore seems reasonable to suspect that whoever (or whatever) created these stories used anti-smoking testimonials as a model. Against that is the positive ending noted above to the first story and the fact that the third story is followed by an advert for a dubious sexual enhancement drug that is narrated by the same character who narrated the main story and which references it's characters. But until the original versions are uncovered it remains a plausible hypothesis.
Notes:
1. 'The Six Weeks' by Stu Bash, the story can be found in Vol. 6 of the Noble Leaf Library, a review by G_T, can be found in Vol. 16 of the Consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Review.
2. The name is spelled both Shelly and Shelley in the subtitling. This also happens to Mara, with her name being spelled as Maura at one point.
3. "...a cheap beer in one hand, a Marlboro Red in the other, legs crossed, barefoot on the grass."
4. "...slouched in a cracked plastic chair, her brown hair falling into her eyes...she'd take a deep drag, hold the smoke like it was something precious, then let it out slow, half through her mouth, half through her nose."
5. Compared to the narrators mother.
6. The narrator says she stole $5(US) on the first occasion to pay for cigarettes, this is an important dating clue. I have no idea how to research it though. The only constraint being that its after the date that proof-of-age was required to purchase cigarattes since she specifically mentions the place she goes did not ask for ID.
7. In an 'Inkspot' plotline a smoker comes to a region and inspires others to start smoking.
8. The five stories in order of publication are: (a). 'How I Fell for Marlboro Red: My Unapologetic Smoking Addiction Story' (Feb 28, 2025) (b). 'Smoking Took Me Over: How Cigarettes Hooked Me and I Can’t Quit' (Mar 1, 2025) (c). 'Smoke Won Me Over: How Cigarettes Seduced and Addicted Me' (Mar 6, 2025) (d). 'Smoke in My Hands: How Cigarettes Got Me' (Mar 7, 2025) (e). 'The Smoke I Couldn’t Escape: A Summer of Cigarettes' (Mar 7, 2025)
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