It was just one of those chat services–one of those fads that was a flash in the pan a few years ago–but Derek had always found them a bit fascinating. Sure, most of the time it was just dudes jacking off, but if you just kept at it, sometimes you stumbled on someone interesting. He’d made a number of good friends this way, all over the world–it was a good way of getting out of this small college town he lived in. Aside from the college, it was just a blue collar place full of grubby workers employed at the various factories outside of town, and he couldn’t wait to graduate and get the hell out for good.

It had been a mistake to stay here for the summer, because once the college cleared out, he was all alone, and so his internet contacts had proved more important than usual. But he’d found an apartment he’d liked, and without a subletter, his choice was to either find something in the fall when class started, or stick it out. At least his job bar-backing at a local pup paid the bills, but it was his night off and with nothing to do, he was jumping through various cock jackers online, until the “Next” button suddenly stopped functioning.

He was trapped looking at some nasty fucker, shaved head, wearing some grubby coveralls, groping his cock and smoking a cigar, nose billowing out smoke. Without seeing him type anything on the keyboard behind him, a cryptic message appeared in the chat box, followed by two more.

>> Do’t fthen hems fr y

>> Y’reon kn it,prmis

>> Ben pigste bs

And then, the screen went blank, and the feed moved onto the next cock, but Derek was so weirded out he closed the window and just tried his best to forget about what he’d seen, and go to bed. Out his bedroom window, however, he thought he saw someone across the street, just outside the street lamp light, but when he got a better look, all he saw was a dissipating haze of smoke.

***

For the next few days, Derek was certain he was being followed. He hadn’t gone on the chat site since, but every time he walked to and from work, especially coming home in the early hours of the night, he would walk as fast as he could, sometimes breaking into a jog, just to avoid his imagination.

The bar he worked at disregarded the state’s no smoking policy–and so it was a common hang out for various roughnecks, many of whom smoked cigars there. They had all largely ignored him, but now he kept noticing them staring at him, often unabashedly. Some even looked at him…like they wanted to fuck him. He’d had a suspicion that the bar catered to the small gay population of the town, but that was the first time he’d felt uncomfortable. Even the bartender–a smoker himself–was treating him different, but when Derek confronted him, he gave a series of excuses and hurried off to do something else.

Before long, he was certain that someone was tailing him everywhere he went. In the bar, he would see glimpses of a man in the shadows, smoking a cigar, face invisible through the haze, but by the time Derek had noticed, the space was suddenly empty. The man appeared in alleys as he walked home, follow him down the streets during the day. He called the police, but not only did they refuse to do anything about it, as soon as he’d told them what was happening, they simply ignored him when he called about the man. He became paranoid, quit his job, and locked himself in his apartment, and his attention turned to conspiracy.

In the chatlog of the site, he’d managed to retrieve the three strange messages the figure had sent him at the beginning of all of this insanity, and he began running them through every translation filter he could find. He asked paranormal experts, he posted on forums big and small, but no one could help him, get any traction of what was happening to him. And then, after a week of isolation, he smelled the smoke coming from his bedroom closet.

The man stepped out before Derek could bar him inside. He said nothing, grabbed Derek by the face and exhaled a huge amount of smoke directly into his lungs. Derek stumbled back, but his body suddenly was numb, and wouldn’t work properly. Paralyzed, he tumbled to the ground on his back, frozen, struggling for breath.

The man came over, holding his cigar in one hand, and he slipped it between Derek’s lips. Suddenly, he could breathe again, but it was the smoke he needed, not air. He needed the smoke in him, craved it, lived on it. His body was still frozen, but the man got down on his knees by his head, and they shared a long series of smoky kisses, passing it back and forth between them for hours, Derek’s terror slowly replaced by lust, and then even hints of love.

The man stayed with him for several weeks, and neither of them left the apartment. They had work to do, work to do with smoke, work to do on Derek. Pig work. Learning how to suck cock and take dick up his ass. Learning how good piss tasted. Learning to be a slob, ruining his body, giving him a heavy gut and aging him into his fifties, where he should be, who he wanted to be. There was a hole in Derek’s life when the man left, almost like he’d never even been there. The college’s new semester started up, but Derek was now a machinist at a factory outside of town, hanging out at the bar, sucking dick in the dim corners of the back rooms, occasionally certain he’d seen his master, the man he loved, the man the whole town loved, in the darkness, but all he ever found was wisps of sweet smoke he’d drink in hungrily.

He still loved his chat sites, but now he was just another masturbating pervert. He loved seeing people disgusted at him, at his body, at his thick, ugly cigars. He loved chatting with other filthy fuckers, bringing them to orgasm, talking about their favorite hook ups. He built a whole new circle of friends, sex addicts like him, until one day his computer froze, and a man appeared on the screen like a dim, fuzzy memory. He started typing:

>> Don’t fight, when he comes for you

>> You’re gonna fuckin love it, promise

>> Being a pigs the best