by Jacqueline Applebee
(03/03/10)

Ashley used to write to me. I would slip my fingers between her folds of paper, lay back with legs wide as I read long letters full of her sweet words. Ashley lived just outside London, but when I got her letters it felt as if she were a long-lost paramour just waiting to draw close to me. Her words could keep me going for days. Her words used to sustain me.

I went to a prison for women. I was stupid and greedy, taking possession of goods that I should have never touched. I thought Ashley would continue to write to me on the inside, but as my sentence stretched on, her letters grew shorter, infrequent. Soon she had nothing left to say.

I got a cleaning job when I was released. I lied to the owners of the employment agency; told them I'd spent the last few months caring for a sick relative. I bought a pen with the money from my first wage slip, along with some half-decent underwear and a bottle of good whiskey. But those other things came second place to my pen. She was slim, black with a band of silver, top, middle and around her nib. I named my pen, Sylvia. I would suck on her whenever I was deep in thought. I wrote on anything I could find, including bus tickets, the back of receipts, empty cereal boxes. My modest room became my journal. All the things that happened in the past, all my dreams for the future decorated the floor like confetti. I looked to the bare walls with hungry eyes.

Crayons didn't work out; they were too thick, too waxy and childish, but I needed something as Sylvia couldn't handle vertical surfaces. I went in search of a new tool to write with. I needed a new woman in my life.

The cool air of the stationery shop was a respite from the hot day. A rotating display of fountain pens caught my attention. These ladies were German, Mont Blanc writing instruments that cost more money than I could quite believe, even though I traced the four-digit price tag with my fingers. Eighteen-carat gold nibs were etched in swirls, white metal inlays made the pens sparkle whenever they caught the sun. Curvaceous barrels enticed me. Even the creamy suede-lined presentation cases spoke of luxury. The pens slowly span around, hypnotic. I wondered what they would feel like in my hands, what they would taste like if I rolled one around my mouth. And as that thought entered my mind, I realised that I was getting crushed out over a pen. Prison must have finally broken me if that was the case. I tried reasoning with myself: if people loved expensive cars, and went mad over expensive clothes then maybe I wasn't completely nuts to have a crush on an expensive pen, was I? It was no use driving myself crazy over them; they were out of my price range, and then some. If I ever won the lottery, then maybe I'd treat myself; I'd call my golden-nib pen, Ruth. I sighed inwardly. People like me don't win shit.

I moved over to a rack of permanent markers instead. I uncapped a black marker pen, sniffed the thick blunt nib. It was sturdy, practical. I liked it. I could afford this.

"Can I help you, madam?" A young man stood at my side, appearing as if by magic. I straightened a little at his official-sounding voice. "Those marker pens are on sale: three for the price of two."

"I only need one." I felt his gaze slide up over the exposed skin of my arms, and down to my cleavage.

"I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave." His voice was less official. "We're a bit short staffed today. I need to shut so I can have some lunch." He reached out, closed his hand over the pen that I still gripped. He had pretty brown eyes. The feel of warm living skin made me want more. There was a fifty-fifty chance we'd either end up fighting or fucking. With my criminal record, a fight wouldn't be a great idea. I grinned at him instead.

"I'll leave if you come with me." He went pale as a fresh sheet of parchment. I wanted to see more of that skin. I wanted to feel something, even if it was his heart fluttering beneath his ribcage. "If you can take the pen away from me, I'll leave. If I keep hold of it, you come home with me."

The sales assistant laughed nervously. I looked at his name badge, "Kiyosi Ito." I tugged the pen to my chest in a sudden jerk, dragging Kiyosi's hand onto my breast.

He yelped, "I'm sorry!"

"Don't apologise." I smiled wide. "Are you even going to try taking the pen off me?"

"No."

"When do you get off?"

"Six." I watched Kiyosi swallow. He fidgeted with a silver ring on his middle finger, twisting it round and around.

"I'll be waiting." Kiyosi's hand was still on my breast. I slipped the marker pen from our joint grip, wrote the word, Mine over the back of his hand.

I walked past the stationers a few hours later. Kiyosi was still there, biting his lip as he peered out of the front display window. The fancy Mont Blanc pens rotated to his left. Kiyosi's eyes widened when he finally saw me. I could almost taste his nervous sweat. The door was locked. I stood outside, wanting more than anything to just touch him. I'd been solitary for too long. I wanted sensation.

"Look, lady, I've changed my mind." Kiyosi's voice was muffled by the glass. He spoke through my reflection.

"Let me in. What are you so afraid of?"

A flicker of doubt skittered across his face. "Okay, but just for a moment." With that he used a jangle of keys to open the door a fraction.

Like a vampire given permission to enter a hallowed place, I stepped over the threshold and into the cool interior of the shop. I kept moving as Kiyosi scooted back. We crashed into a vertical display of ink bottles and pen refills. Dark slick liquid dribbled on the floor.

"Have you got somewhere out back?" I asked.

"Only a storeroom, but its tiny."

"Then what are we waiting for?" I flashed him a smile.

"I don't have any money. There's nothing left in the till."

I glared at him, although I wasn't particularly angry. "You think I'm a whore?" Kiyosi flushed a deep glorious red at my words, although if truth be told, he was only half wrong. "Where's that room you were talking about?" I scooped a little jar of blue ink off the floor, helped myself to some highlighter pens in different colours. I wanted to be prepared.

"We'll probably need these." Kiyosi reached into his pocket. He revealed several condoms. He was no innocent lamb.

There was just enough space in the store room to stretch out. I pulled off my blouse. Kiyosi arranged some boxes that we could lay on. I straddled him, pushed him back. He lay white against the brown of the cardboard boxes. I lifted his shirt until it circled his armpits. I twisted my pen in my fingers, moved over that sweet white canvas with wide cursive script. I wrote my name over and over again.

Kiyosi's hips gyrated with long sloppy circles beneath me. His cock twitched. "You're one strange lady, you know that?" he said with a tight gasping voice.

"Don't move." I fingered the belt of his smart trousers, flicked open his fly to release him. "Turn over." I was sweating. The anticipation was killing me. It was so long since I felt words as a physical thing. Ashley's letters had been fantastic, but this was something else. I saw words rise and fall with every breath that Kiyosi made. I wrote my intentions above the crease of his arse; tiny words that disappeared as my pen travelled lower. I fished my marker pen from my bra where she had been hidden.

"What are you doing?"

"What do you think?"

Kiyosi breathed out as I pushed the marker pen slowly into his arse. My pen squeaked as I moved her up and down. Kiyosi squirmed, groaning; white on brown, but now with the ink decorating his skin like a tribal tattoo. I pressed my lips around the end of the marker pen, and used only the pressure of my mouth to move it in and out of Kiyosi's arse. He bucked up against my lips. Words became real. Words became flesh.

Kiyosi turned over, his cock jutted out, hard and flushed. The grimace on his face messed up his pretty boy looks. He propped himself up on his elbows. I massaged the touch of skin between his cock and his arse where the marker pen stuck out, wavering slightly with his trembling breath. He felt around, grabbed a red pen from the side. When he reached out to me, I leant forward, let him write living words on me. Kiyosi wrote hesitantly over the skin of my stomach. The words became round and distorted.

Suck me, he wrote. It was upside-down, but I could still read it clearly.

"Please."

"Okay." I turned, stretched out over him in a straightened sixty-nine. I braced my hands on either side of his thighs. His cock was in my mouth in seconds. My tongue swirled in wet motions. I felt Kiyosi reach under the pleated folds of my skirt to slide my knickers down over the swell of my backside. Fingers touched me, slim with the bump of his silver ring adding to the sensations. Over and again, the little ridge of metal made me see flashes behind my eyes. His thumb rubbed my clit, little wet shoves that finally drove me over the edge. I stilled as I came. Something was released inside: words tumbled out of my mouth that made no sense at all. I said things I could never write, because I can't get a grunt, or a shaking wail down on paper. All I could do was suck harder, draw my lips over the veins that squiggled up and down his cock. I traced his lines with my tongue. My marker pen almost disappeared inside Kiyosi's arse; I fished it out before it finally went all the way in. The movement was enough to make him come, flooding my mouth with bitterness. I spat most of it into my hand. The creamy-white pool settled in my palm.

When I was in prison, there used to be a pen friend scheme, based on the U.S. model. But unlike the U.S., British folks hardly ever wrote to prisoners; I don't know if people were too stuck-up, or just too damn lazy. The few letters I received were mostly from creepy nutters. I missed reading. I missed writing. I looked down at the cooling glob of cum. I swirled a finger in it, and then drew it over Kiyosi's hips, over the bare skin above the scrunched fabric of his trousers. I painted flowers and smiley faces over his hairless stomach, little stars over his side.

"The marker pens," Kiyosi said with a dreamy expression on his face. His eyes were warm, content. "Take as many as you like. Think of them as a gift."

I looked around the storeroom, at the boxes of goods that were just out of my reach. I thought of the sleek German writing instruments I'd drooled over earlier. I saw the future: me on my back, legs spread wide, with a Mont Blanc pen in my mouth.

"The pen in the front window, it looks real nice. Could I have one as a gift as well?"

Kiyosi's face took on a frown. "Sorry, lady but those are display only. They're copies," he said with a shrug. "Good copies, but copies all the same. Ever try to insure a pen?"

I sat back, amazed. "So what happens when someone actually wants to buy one?"

"There's a waiting list as long as my arm. We send off to the suppliers who give us a real one, but that takes weeks."

"Well, that's me screwed then." I couldn't believe I'd had a crush on a fake. I stood, but Kiyosi reached out a hand, holding on to my skirt.

"This is mine." He held up a pen. "It's an Onoto classic. Please take it."

Like Ruth, this little beauty had a gold nib, but unlike Ruth, it had an interesting weave over its curvaceous body. I took the pen, ran it over my lips. It tasted of expensive cars, of designer suits, and weekends spent in exclusive hotels. It felt like stacks and stacks of money in the palm of my hand. I grinned. "This will do nicely." I'd give this pen a Japanese name, as soon as I could think of one.

Kiyosi smiled at me. "You may be strange, but lady, you've got good taste."

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