Moments in Time: Pen or Pencil?

Her face was all pearly luminescence in the dim light. The nape of her neck a glorious thing. But her voice had a mournful edge.

“Me?” she said, gazing into the swirling depths of her dirty martini. “Me? Please, I’m built like a pencil.”

He chewed the end of his swizzle stick, considering. “No,” he said. “Your figure is more akin to a fountain pen. An expensive fountain pen. Sleek, slender, silver. Fragile-looking to the eye but with a surprising and satisfying weight in your hand. And a mercurial roll in your fingers. It takes skill to hold it. It takes skill to write with it. But once you master the fountain pen you will never go back…”

She had slowly raised her delicate eyebrows as he spoke. Her chin titled, her lovely jawline catching the light as she deftly stabbed an olive with her sword-shaped toothpick and ate it.

“I’ll write down my number for you,” she said. “Do you have a pen?”

“Certainly,” he said, going for his inside pocket.