La Petite Mort
31 December 2014
La Petite Mort
by Vesperae
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - January - February 2015
La petite mort is French for "the little death." The expression is most often used to describe the experience of having an orgasm, but is also used to describe the release of emotional energy (catharsis) that accompanies experiencing the climax of a creative expression, as well as the experience of going through a shocking life-changing event.
It's a concept that would seem to be inherently and universally relatable, which explains why it apparently dates back to at least Classical Greece, and probably even earlier. The sense is that the expression of life energy is equivalent to eventual inevitable death, and that by extension, the intense expression of life energy is equivalent to a hastening towards death.
Cigarette smoking is a seemingly endless chain of petite mort, and petite petite mort ("little little death") moments – both figurative, and of course, literal. Each link connects to the next…and the next…and the next…stretching towards the Abyss somewhere out there in the distance.
Build the energy. Release the energy. Die a little to feel more alive for a moment.
All those moments she spent feeling herself choking and intensely hating the smell of cigarette smoke. All those moments she spent thinking about those scary gross Anti-Smoking Public Service Announcements she saw on TV, and all those scary gross Anti-Smoking Health Class lectures and videos. All those moments she spent being frightened that she would lose people she loved because they smoked. All those moments she promised herself that she'd never smoke.
All those moments when she first felt the temptation to break her promise to herself. And all of those moments leading up to the moment she did…
So emotionally arousing…
The first time she walked to the convenience store to buy a pack of cigarettes and lighter. The first time she read the Surgeon General's Warning on the side of pack of cigarettes. The first time she peeled the cellophane and foil off of a pack of cigarettes. The first time she pulled a cigarette out of a pack. The first time she held it between her fingers. The first time she felt a cigarette between her lips. The first time she felt and tasted and smelled cigarette smoke in her mouth and her nose. The first time she tried to inhale cigarette smoke into her unmolested lungs. The first time she fully molested her lungs and did successfully inhale cigarette smoke.
The first time she stood in front of the mirror and watched herself smoke a cigarette. The first time she studied the reflection of her expanding chest as she inhaled cigarette smoke and pictured her lungs changing. The first time she heard the alarm going off in her head. The first time she got off on hearing the alarm going off in her head. The first time she felt sexy and got wet while watching and feeling herself smoke a cigarette.
The first time she realized that she was addicted to smoking. The first time she satisfied the perverse hunger she'd planted deep inside her poisoned body. The first time she realized that she was smoking every day and had fully become a regular cigarette smoker. The first time she smoked a pack of cigarettes in one day. The first time she bought a carton of cigarettes.
The first time she decided to come out as a cigarette smoker. The first time she smoked a cigarette in front of each member of her family. The first time she smoked a cigarette in front of each one of her friends. The first time she smoked a cigarette in front of each one of her mentors.
The first time she realized that smoking a cigarette could be used to seduce someone. The first time she smoked a cigarette in bed with a sex partner. The first time she smoked a cigarette while she was having sex. The first time she realized that cigarette smoking intensified her orgasms.
The first time she could really feel that cigarette smoking was having an impact on her breathing. The first time she went for a chest x-ray. The first time she kept on smoking after getting it, despite her doctor's strong urging that she quit smoking immediately.
The first time she knew that she would never quit smoking. The first time she accepted that smoking cigarettes was steadily destroying her lungs and body and was probably going to kill her. The first time she lit up a cigarette after accepting her possible fate, and how horny it made her. The first time she smoked while having sex after accepting her possible fate, and the mind-blowing orgasm she had…
The first time she thought that she deserved to be punished for all of her intense forbidden pleasure.
Build the energy. Release the energy. Die a little to feel more alive for a moment.
Work hard. Spend your money on a steady supply of tar and nicotine and carbon monoxide to fill your one and only pair of lungs with. The act of buying a carton thrills you. That's it. Do it. Just think…you're going to deposit all of them inside your chest!
Oh yeah, take out a pack. You earned it Girl! Open your Dirty Little Present to yourself. Stick 1/200 in your mouth. Oh yesssss…light up and take a nice long drag and inhale it deep down into your chest where it's the most dangerous and can do the most damage! Feel that thick rich cloud of cancer gas expanding your precious rotting lungs! Let it really soak into your filthy, carcinogenic respiratory tissues. Feels like nothing else, Baby! Then…let it go slowly. Oh yes, yes, yes…do it again!
Keep a couple of packs and an extra lighter in your purse with you wherever you go. That's right…you go right ahead and smoke a cigarette whenever and wherever you feel like it! When your brown rotting lungs get hungry for more perversion, you'll need to feed them. Again…and again…and again.
You're a cigarette smoker, Baby. This is what you do to get yourself off. You're a twisted little crazy Dirty Lung Slut. So clever. So completely cool.
Paralyze your respiratory cilia. Rupture your alveoli. Fill your airways with pre-cancerous leukoplakia. Just keep doing it. Feels so good to smoke cigarette after cigarette after cigarette!
You like to show off your smoking, don't you? You like to put on a little Suicide Show when you light up. All lipstick stains and tar stains and thick balls and plumes of smoke rushing deep into and out of your heaving chest. Danger is so Sexy…
Every pack a ritual. Every moment of every cigarette a thrilling echo of the first time, and all of the first times that came after. Every lungful of smoke a Deadly Sacrament.
Build the energy. Release the energy. Die a little to feel more alive for a moment.
