“Her Smoke Rose Up Forever”, by James Tiptree, Jr, first published in Final Stage: The Ultimate Science Fiction Anthology, 1975, is brilliantly funny and one of the best short stories I have ever read. An excellent one to start with. I read it in the nice collection The Legend Book of Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois and published in 1991 (where it says it is copyright 1984, but the anthology was published in 1975 — misprint?).
This was an excellent short story from an excellent writer. It was tough to get my head around what was going on but it was well worth the effort and some of the imagery will stay with me for years, I imagine. This is one to read again and again.