The Pen is Mightier

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Why don’t we find out?” she pouted, tweaking one nipple between her thumb and forefinger.

  8

  “You sure you’re worn out?” she asked, playing with me after we’d finished. We hadn’t taken up the whole hour, but it was close. And I’d have stayed, but at the same time, I was pretty sure I was at my limits. As much as I wanted to keep fucking her, little me needed a break.

  “Yes,” I said even though I’d literally never wanted to do anything more in my life but stay here with this goddess, but little me would not get with the program. Fuck. Why was my body so lame?

  “Okay,” she said, sadness etching into her words as she bent down and picked up my shirt. “You will probably need this then.” She offered it to me.

  “Thanks,” I said taking it from her and putting it on.

  The sad thing was, even though I could smell her on the shirt, I wasn’t happy about it at all. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted my dick to be back at attention. It just wasn’t going to happen. Three times was too many times, even for it.

  “Can I at least drive you?” she asked as she pulled her shirt on. “I’d like that.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” I said.

  “Good.” She finished dressing and moved to the tray, pausing long enough to grab a strip of bacon from the room service platter. As she bit into the strip, my stomach grumbled in a way that let me know I was starving. So, as I followed her outside, I snagged my own handful of cold bacon strips. Shoving them into my mouth, we hurried to the elevator and headed down.

  “This was really great, Amy,” I said as though the words could somehow convey how amazing everything had been. Just one facet of the gemstone of the last few hours would have been enough, but the whole thing? It was insane. Crazy. A deluded daydream. Shit like this just didn’t happen. At least not to me.

  “The ending wasn’t what I’d planned. In my head, you can keep going and going.” She shook her head, causing her mousy curls to frame her face. “Maybe we can pick up later?” She gave me a wry grin. “I’m free this evening.”

  “I would like that more than anything in the world.” I smiled at her, envisioning what another night would be like. It was almost enough to spur little me back to life.

  “Good. I’ll wear something nice.” She nodded, smiling to herself as the elevator dinged, unleashing us into the hallway beside the lobby. “Let’s hurry.” She touched my arm. “I don’t want you to be late.”

  “I won’t be late,” I laughed as we moved through the lobby. “I’ll be there with bells on.”

  “I meant to your class.” She smacked my ass, hurrying me toward the Lexus.

  “Oh, yeah.” In my excitement, I’d almost forgotten about my stupid class.

  “Say, I have an idea,” she said as she unlocked the car. “Maybe you can drive?”

  “Me?” I asked, confused as she moved toward the passenger side. “Drive your Lexus?”

  “Yeah.” She gave me a wry smile. “I don’t know the way to your school.” Her cheeks flushed.

  Amy slid into the passenger seat, and as I stood there confused, I shrugged. If she wanted me to drive her awesome car. I was just going to go with it.

  Seizing my chance, I opened the driver’s side door and slid into the seat. Only as I started it, she leaned over and looked at me.

  “Now pay attention to the road, okay? I don’t want to end up dead,” she said, giving me a strange look.

  “Um… okay. I’m a pretty good driver,” I said, pulling out of the parking space and heading toward the exit.

  “Maybe.” She grinned at me. “But I’m really good at giving blowjobs.”

  9

  “Nice of you to join us, Mr. Stevens,” my teacher, Ms. Mattu said as I burst into the room with only twenty minutes until class ended. That was the problem with the forty-five-minute classes. Even being a little bit late could cost you a lot of class time.

  Every other student had their head down, scribbling furiously on a piece of pink paper, and the sight of them made my stomach lurch. Even from here I could tell there were so many questions on the quiz, I’d have barely finished even if I’d had the full period. This was going to be a bloodbath. Still, I had to try. You always have to try.

  “Sorry, I’m late. I got caught up with work,” I said, hustling toward her, one hand outstretched to take a quiz.

  “I’m sorry too,” she said, looking me over from behind her large glasses. Her eyes seemed huge and bug-like, magnifying the pity in them. “You can still take it, but you won’t have enough time, and I can’t make exceptions.” She offered me a packet of papers. “At least it’s multiple choice.” She offered me a faint smile, and I got the impression that even though she was in her fifties, she’d probably been incredibly beautiful when she was younger.

  Hell, she was still pretty attractive in that old lady sort of way, what with her long dark hair, and general, well, poise.

  “Thanks for letting me take it,” I wheezed, my heart hammering as I struggled to catch my breath. I’d sprinted all the way here from the parking lot, and while I’d gotten as close as I could to the building, in retrospect, Amy’s ministrations hadn’t helped things. In fact, it’d cost me an extra five minutes, but honestly, it was still worth it.

  “I guess I have a soft spot for people who work hard.” She nodded at me. “Now hurry. You’re wasting what little time you have.”

  She was right, so I whipped around and headed to the first empty desk I saw. It was toward the back corner, near the door. Sliding into the seat, I plopped the test down in front of myself and went to reach for my bag. Only as I did, I realized it was still back in my car behind the superstore. What the hell was I supposed to do?

  As I stared at the test in front of me, unsure of what to do because I had nothing to write with, I started to move, to get to my feet so I could go ask to borrow a pen. That was when I remembered the pen I’d gotten from the midget. It had been in my pocket when I’d gone into work.

  Reaching into my pocket, I quickly found it and pulled it out. The pen still looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care. It would write, and that was what I needed.

  Turning my attention to the test, I began to work as quickly as I could. The first couple questions were easy, copied straight out of the homework as usual. Ms. Mattu often did that as a way to check to see if anyone actually did the assignments. Unfortunately, those were the only easy ones.

  As I stared at the next problem, trying to remember a formula I’d normally have committed to memory the morning before the exam and then hurriedly scribbled on the test the moment I got it, I felt my mind starting to wander over to the other activities. It was weird because my life had already changed so much, and while I wasn’t sure what Amy and I were destined to be, I was excited to find out.

  “Five minutes left,” Ms. Mattu announced. The closeness of her voice shocked me out of my memory. I stared down at my test in horror. I’d barely gotten a third of the way through the problems. Jesus, I needed to hurry.

  Setting my mind to work, I calculus’ed the fuck out of the test. Or at least tried to calculus the fuck out of it.

  Unfortunately, when she called the two-minute warning, I had over half the test remaining, and by the time she called one minute, I made an executive decision. I was going to guess. Turning my attention to the answer sheet, I quickly circled answers as time ran out.

  “Pencils down,” Ms. Mattu said from the front of the room. “Everyone pass your papers forward.”

  I did as I was told, chest heaving as dread filled my gut. I felt like I was going to throw up, and I could barely breathe. I’d totally bombed that test. Even if every problem I’d worked out was correct, I’d had to guess on almost half the test. With that many problems left to chance, I’d be lucky to pull a passing grade. No, it was much more likely I’d have a high F.

  Rubbing my temples with my thumbs, I watched as Ms. Mattu handed the stack of papers to her assistant to grade and began her wrap up lecture.
I barely listened as she went over each problem from the test because I already knew I’d gotten three of them wrong. It was stupid mistakes really, grabbing the answer that was almost right because I’d forgot to carry a negative sign through or whatever, but wrong was wrong, and since it was multiple choice, there was no partial credit.

  By the time she finished, I wanted to find a hole to crawl inside and die. I had no idea how many of the answers I’d guessed at were right, but either way, there was no way I could salvage this test through luck. There would be no high F for me. No, with the way things seemed, I’d be lucky to nab twenty percent.

  “Um… Ms. Mattu?” my teacher’s assistant said, getting to her feet and taking a quick step toward the professor. “Something is wrong.”

  “What do you mean?” Ms. Mattu asked, turning toward the girl, Charlene. She was a graduate student who helped Ms. Mattu with research, and while not particularly attractive, I’d always found her nice enough. However, none of that would explain why she kept taking furtive glances at me. So far, our interaction had been incredibly limited.

  “Mr. Stevens got a perfect score.” She swallowed as she held out the paper like it was a viper, but I was barely paying attention because I was almost too shocked to breathe.

  I knew I’d gotten questions wrong, and besides, I’d guessed on a ton of the test. How could I possibly have gotten a perfect score? It didn’t make any damned sense.

  “Really?” Ms. Mattu said, surprise filling her voice. “I guess you’re a good guesser.” She gave me a “you got lucky” look. “I still don’t see why that’s a problem. Chance could allow—”

  “Ricky missed almost every question.” She held up Ricky’s paper, and my jaw dropped. Ricky aced everything. He’d been breaking the curve forever. That he’d missed almost every question was unthinkable.

  “I did not!” Ricky snarled, leaping to his feet and charging forward like a bull on parade. “I worked them all out three times.”

  He was a shorter guy with dark black hair and clothes that cost way too much for him to be at a place like this unless he wanted to. While our school wasn’t bad per se, it was local, and judging from the way the guy dressed, he could have afforded Harvard or somewhere more ivy league. It made it doubly frustrating that he was doing so well.

  The thing was though. Looking at him stand there, fists clenching and unclenching, I almost felt sad for him. Blowing the test would kill his grade, and while that’d lower the overall curve, I kind of agreed with him. He should have aced it. He usually aced it.

  “The answer sheet doesn’t lie,” Charlene said right before Ricky snatched the test from her. He glared at the offending answer sheet.

  “How can this be?” he snarled, tearing his eyes from the answer sheet and looking to his own. His eyes went wide, and his lips started to quiver. Then he flipped away his answer sheet and stared at the first piece of scratch paper he’d had. “I worked it out correctly.” He pointed at the sheet.

  “It seems you did,” Ms. Mattu said, looking over his shoulder. “It looks like you just copied the answers incorrectly to the sheet.” She sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “You can’t really fail me for that, can you?” he asked, and the crack in his voice made me swallow hard. I actually felt bad for him, which was crazy because if our positions were swapped, he wouldn’t have given a handful of warm shit about my plight.

  “Let’s talk about this after class,” Ms. Mattu said, giving him a calming smile. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” Ricky said, still standing there as she collected the test from him.

  Ms. Mattu turned her attention back to Charlene. “How did everyone else do?”

  “It’s a lot lower than normal.” Charlene bit her lip. “And that’s the other problem.”

  “Oh?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

  “A lot of people did the same thing as Ricky.” She pointed to the stack of tests. “I checked, and a lot of students have the work right but somehow wrote the wrong thing down on the answer sheet.”

  The whole class let out a collective groan, and as they did, I didn’t know what to think. I’d somehow aced a test I wrote down random answers for, and at the same time, the whole class had failed because they’d done the work correctly and written down the wrong answers? How was that even possible?

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Ms. Mattu said, eyes scrunching up in confusion. “How could a whole class just transcribe the answer down incorrectly?”

  “I… um…” Charlene looked at her shoes. “I can go through it again?”

  “That’s probably a good idea. I’d like to look it over as well.” Our teacher turned back to us as class time ran out. “Would you all mind if I handed these back tomorrow? Don’t worry.” She paused, settling her eyes on me. “I’m not sure what is going on, but I aim to find out.”

  I took a deep breath as the entire class rose and made a death march toward the exit. Only, I stayed there for a minute, confusion filling me. Nothing made sense. I never had luck like this. Hell, I always had the worst luck.

  Or at least I had until I’d met the crazy midget who had been like “write down your desires.”

  I stopped.

  My eyes fell to the pen on my desk. Could it be?

  No. That was crazy? It couldn’t have made my answers right, could it?

  As I stared at it, my mind drifted to last night, and as my heart nearly leapt into my throat, I reached into my pocket and jerked out the moleskin from my pocket. Flipping it open, I found myself staring at one of the lines I’d written in the notebook.

  I want my boss Amy to really appreciate my hard work and then have crazy sex with me.

  Then I’d underlined appreciate six times. I blinked, suddenly feeling sick.

  Had I? No. I was not going down that road. I refused to believe a pen had made her change her attitude toward me so abruptly. It was just a pen for god sakes.

  The crazy thing was, I felt ridiculous thinking that because as I stared at the notepad, I realized that might very well be the case because I hadn’t written anything about the quiz. No… I’d just used the pen to circle the right answers. Had that been enough to make my answers the right ones? Could the pen really affect things that much?

  If it could…

  I stopped and stared at it for a moment.

  If it could do that, was that why they had attacked the midget with so much force? To get the pen?

  My heart started to hammer. Did that mean they would come after me next?

  Only that was crazy. There was no way I had a magic pen. Still, it would be easy enough to find out for sure. I had to test it.

  Make the terrorists from the carnival unable to find me.

  The words stared back at me, completely normal, and while that should have made me feel better, I still didn’t know if the pen was actually magical nor if it had actually done anything.

  No, I had to test it on something that I could easily observe. Only… only I didn’t know what to test it on.

  Looking up toward the front of the room where Ms. Mattu and Charlene were going over the tests, I decided to just try it. Turning my eyes back to the pad, I picked up the pen, but as I went to write something, my phone rang.

  Without thinking, I fished out my phone and looked at the number. My heart sank. It was the scholarship office. Great. Just great.

  10

  Because I had an hour before my next class, and the automated message had informed me I should come in as soon as possible, I made my way there. Part of me still wanted to try the pen out again, but I wasn’t sure what to write, and what’s more, I didn’t know its limits. What if it did work, and I wasted its power on something dumb?

  After all, it already seemed like I’d used the power to rewrite the fabric of space and time to give myself a perfect score on a test. Had that used up all its mojo? I wasn’t sure, but as I approached the scholarship office, I decided to wait and find out. After all, the
re was one other thing I’d written down.

  I want my scholarship fully funded.

  I could feel the words burning a hole through the moleskin in my pocket as I opened the door to the scholarship office, eliciting the jingle-jangle of the bell above. There were only a couple of people inside, both staring at their phones and doing their best not to look annoyed with their situations. I’d never actually heard of the scholarship office calling anyone for good things, but if today was any indication, I was seriously hoping this time might be different.

  Sidling up to the counter, I smiled at the student clerk behind the desk. He had olive-colored skin and was busy tapping away at the keyboard in front of him with his index fingers.

  “Hunt and peck, that’s my jam,” I said and immediately wished I hadn’t as he looked up at me and frowned. “Admittedly, that sounded better in my head.”

  He shrugged, giving me a conciliatory smile. “I tried to learn to type once, but I could never get the hang of it.” He adjusted his glasses slightly, gaze flicking back toward the screen for a second. “How can I help you?”

  “I got a call asking me to come in,” I said, nodding to him. “So here I am, ready to get fucked in the ass.” I winced. “I just hope they brought some lube this time.”

  “Don’t we all,” he mumbled, turning his attention to the computer. “What’s your name?”

  “Roger Stevens,” I said before telling him my student ID. Then I watched him type it all in. He was surprisingly fast even with his two fingers.

  “I can’t see what they want you for, but there’re only two people ahead of you.” He nodded to the pair of students in the chairs. “I doubt it’ll take more than thirty, if you have time. If not, I can make an appointment.”