"Ba-an?"
"What?" Jack B. Bancoran winced. Maraich had just snatched his cigar and the ashtray from under his nose, shook butts blatantly into the kitchen trash bin, washed the and put it to a dish dryer. And without a cigar, the MI6 major could not be cool and distant enough to endure his lover's 'talk'.
"Will you ever quit smoking?" the red-haired young man snarled. "It's not good for health. You're an adult, you know it perfectly, so why do you continue to kill ten packs every day till they kill you? And not just cigarettes but cigars! It costs a fortune, I looked up the price in your card slips! In the years I know you, you've spent worth of a space shuttle on that!.. Cut it out, immediately! Don't light another one when I'm talking to you about quitting!"
His voice rose to dangerous pitch, and Bancoran hurried to squash the offending item on the table and move it out of his lover's sight. For the same reason he swallowed a remark about not needing a space shuttle. One tone higher, and Maraich would attack him with strength amazing for his slender stature. Even assassin Maraich didn't fight the MI6 agent so ferociously as an irritated 'housewife' Maraich.
"We earn more than enough and don't feel any poorer even with my consumption habits. And I don't tap on your income-"
"You tap on OUR joint, family income! Also, I heard on TV that the Government starts a new trick to lessen smoking… how was it called… that employers will have to cut bonuses of smoking personnel, or something like that."
"Okay, I'll take ext-" Bancoran swallowed words 'extra work' as it would have definitely drive Maraich over the edge. "Eddie Lawrence graduates this year so I won't have to pay his tuition, and our financial position will not be shaken."
"And health?" Maraich was evidently not intending to give up. He plopped onto Bancoran's lap to get a better hold of the subject.
"Why health? Men of Bancoran's family chainsmoked since Columbus brought tobacco from America, and no one died of lung cancer, or asthma, or the like."
"Yeah and no one lived even to 50 because they got stabbed or shot or poisoned all the time. You told me."
Bancoran sighed. Sometimes he wished his lover talked just a bit less.
"You're just petty. Smoking does not affect our kin."
"YOUR kin. I'm not sure about mine."
"But you don't smoke."
"So what?" Maraich waved index finger with most expert air. "A British scientist said in a TV show that people who stay around smokers become passive smokers too, and still worse, they breathe with the worsest parts of fumes... formail.. de…hide.. or something like that. Anyway, I don't want to breathe with some shit I can't pronounce! But I get too much of it around you."
Bancoran blinked.
"I think you watch too much TV- ouch!"
That was definitely a mistake – Maraich was too close to his unguarded belly, and his elbow was too hard and sharp.
"You don't care about me!" Maraich whined while Bancoran tried to catch breath.
"Okay, okay…" he coughed up at last. "I'll try not to smoke in your presence. But I can light a cigar automatically, so I permit you to stop me."
The young man smiled and kissed Bancoran on the nose. It was a perfect plan, after all! If Bancoran is left without cigars from evening till morning he'd grow a normal appetite not dulled by smoke, and eat breakfast made by Maraich. At last.