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It hurts me. Pains. Just the thought of it has my dumbhand placatingly stroking my jaw as imaginary panging blows cannonade through my gums, twisting and turning everything inside of me against the world. I have to close my eyes and gently punch myself a couple of times on the mandible before I am able to shake the disharmony caused by the memory and even then it doesn’t leave me completely.
Ironically, it has left a stain on me.
To think that a few days have already passed since the last time I was released from that most excruciating chair! This sense of ‘freedom’ - experienced by being allowed to stand up from another biannual sentencing - is best compared to waking up from a ferocious bender; in the immediate thereafter, it is difficult to tell whether being compos mentis again is even desirable. Perhaps that is why I feel compelled to give the experience words; so that it can hopefully take on a life of its own and in that way leave me for good.
***
No one is expected to enjoy going to the dentist.
But if you can get that appointment booked in, baby, you better clock in. That’s what my partner kept telling me. I was glad she was there with me. Regina, on the other hand, was awfully annoyed about the wait and that the appointment had been delayed for nearly an hour didn’t help. Meanwhile, I was caught up in a book about Dresden and what happened there. Anything to keep my mind from thinking about the slaughtering that would soon commence.
Two fillings and a clean: how bad could it be? They’ll bloody find a way though. They always do.
Appleby.
That’s you baby.
Is it?
Thank god Regina was always there to remind me it was.
Thank you, baby.
Leave your book here.
Oui.
This way please.
Understood.
See you soon.
The pearly white walls and the comfortable chair are deceiving veneers. If ever there was a time and place to go and lie in a bath it would make sense in the work arena of a dentist. You could just go in ‘the bloodbath’ and after it had been soaked in your blood and your spit, a beautiful woman could run the bath and make you whole again. Turn patients into clients and give them a good time. Isn’t that what capitalism is supposed to do in these situations? I’m probably just too poor to know.
Bonjour, Monsieur Appleby.
Ça va, Doctor.
Why do so many dentists - both in horror films and real life - look so alike? And why do their say-nothing assistants always have braces?
Last time round he’d said his name was ‘K-’, with the hyphen and everything, but I prefer ‘Doctor’, he added.
I do not recall if any of it was said in jest.
His first instructions were reassuring.
Just raise your hand if it feels too sensitive.
Sweet, I instinctually responded. We’d established something of a safe word between us; it was a great start to any healthy relationship. Only then did I think that my response may have come across a tad too familiar and then mumbled - his latex fingers already beginning to moisten in my mouth - “ank u, octor”.
One is never really positive in that seat but I suppose I was in the right frame of mind in the sense that I was planning on being brave today. If it hurt too much, by which I mean traumatic pain, I would say something. I knew it would be uncomfortable. God, uncomfortable, what an improvement that would be. Was it my cousin who had said recently that he didn’t really mind going to the dentist even though it could sometimes be a little uncomfortable? Total knobhead, just by the way, so he probably wasn’t even telling the truth… But yes, OK, I shall be putting up my hand when the inevitable unbearable pain starts pinching. That was my mindset going in. I was ready and I wouldn’t simply be bullied into submission.
Like a race car driver testing the throttle before a race, K- made sure all his power tools sounded as intimidating as they were supposed to. Zoom zoom zoom. Nice one. Zoom zoom zoom. Check. That’s a big one. Tick tick tick. Wait, is that new? What is that?
Anyway, I must have been looking pretty terrified by then because there was this murderous smirk on the doctor’s face - not that he definitely was evil but he looked it and I hated him immediately and began to make all sorts of assumptions about the man. I bet he probably liked to sterilise these tools in a special room at home where no one except for him has ever been in. Why wasn’t he wearing a mask? Here was a man who probably got off on the smell of bad bacteria and decay. If there is one person for whom an air of mystery doesn’t do any favours, for whom it’s not a good look to be so far from obvious, then it was this maskless grinning dentist, who, I was ready to bet, was in fact a professional masochist. Sure, I might have been getting paranoid at that point but that doesn’t make my memory of it any less real: Every time he twisted in his seat to grab a new steely tool I could feel his erect penis slap me on the shoulder. Beyond the clove oil, the acrylic and the formaldehyde, I swear I thought I could smell the man’s dirty balls. My fears were burgeoning alright. All I could think to do was to have a conversation with myself but that didn’t keep me calm for very long -
Never any fun this.
None of it.
Passionate hate.
This man and his stupid assistant.
She’s just sat there with that sucking straw that I swear is doing nothing other than making my spit go everywhere she’s not even looking at my mouth.
What is she doing?
Is her hand on his shoulder?
And why does the spit go everywhere like that? I mean, it is positively pissing on the doc’s face and he still hasn’t bothered to put on the mask that’s hanging on his chin.
Something’s brewing there.
I saw that too, they just exchanged glances.
He’s told her to do something.
Telepathy.
Yeah, she’s nodding.
Where is she going?
She’s walking away and he’s looking at her ass.
The fucking drill is still in my mouth though.
OK, she’s coming back.
He’s put on his mask.
Is that why he’s stopped?
No, he’s just swapped one tool for the other.
There goes his cock again.
Straight onto the shoulder.
Maybe he’s showing off.
It is big.
It’s definitely a boner.
But I’m not sure it’s for me anymore.
Still, his face is so close to mine it’s bizarre.
God what was that?
That didn’t feel right.
Raise your hand!
No.
Don’t be a puss.
You can raise it when you’re absolutely…
OK what was that?
Put up your hand!
He just said it’s almost over, don’t get in the way, let it play out and be done with it. Shit wait no that is not right, code red!
OK I am raising my hand.
Why isn’t he stopping then? He’s just moved his drill inches away from where it was…
Slightly more bearable to be fair.
But that wasn’t the agreement, was it?
Who knows how consent works nowadays.
Why are you lowering your hand?
I don’t know.
You’ve submitted.
Remember what you said! Do it!
OK!
***
“Octor!” I finally let out though I could hardly have sounded assertive.
And done! He was smiling as he said that. I could see through his mask when he gesticulated to the glass of water that his assistant was holding in her slightly limp hand.
Please rinse your mouth. She could speak, it turned out - definitely foreign, but none of that mattered.
I swallowed.
Only rinse! It was K- this time. He’d seen me. The dominatrix didn’t like that, so help me god.
Sorry doctor. I pleaded.
He nodded twice. First to me and then to his once more silent accomplice, who then brought me the smallest bottle of water I’d ever seen. I took a sip and then a deep breath.
Down. He ordered and I obeyed.
Talking to myself wasn’t helping so it was time to try a different tact. Meditation. Let’s go somewhere else like the Slow Burning Tavern or The Clock Maker’s Library, please, take me to a place that is far away from this psychopath, his sycophantic mentee, the drilling and the lascivious cock turning; anywhere else, I beg Thee! Closing my eyes would be a good start, an inner voice suggested, and so I did and began searching for that alien planet -
In front of me is a black screen. White lines are drawn. It’s an etch-a-sketch of sorts.
A man is sitting in front of a television screen.
He stands up, walks into the kitchen and microwaves his food.
But the microwave and the television are somehow the same object. And then it also turns into a microphone and then the man is holding the camera which is broadcasting the show that he was supposed to be watching.
Everything becomes snowy.
Silent snow.
There is no thinking. Not acting. Nor listening. Not as much as a single feeling, it is nothing. Cut black. Just black…
And red...
No, that’s not it.
More red.
Wait a second that is definitely not right!
“Octor!”
Far too much to bear. I raised my hand once more, but there was no stopping him this time, the fucker was about to climax! I moved my face away, incidentally pushing my elbow right into his crotch, trying to win back those inches he’d offered me minutes ago.
“Ahh!” I moaned, trying to fight back.
Just a little more! The sadistic prick dared declare. I wanted to murder him but then I reckoned he probably got off on such notions of vengeance too so I tried to go back to the black and I’m not sure what happened then -
Black. Cross-legged. Nothingness.
“Rightio!”
K- had finally stopped and the mechanical chair pushed me back up, into the light.
Please, rinse your mouth.
Yes, doctor. And I did as I’d been told. I stayed upright for a few more seconds then, trying to regain a sense of composure.
Are you OK?
I don’t know if he was being sarcastic. I just let out a nervous laugh. Every man has a breaking point. He laughed too. And then the mechanical chair lowered me back down into the pit.
Please god no. Was what I wanted to say but I believe I merely said thank you again. What a tool.
For some reason I felt relieved that he had put away his auger and was now readying his scavenging scalpel. Until he began to scrape away, insidiously.
I’d given up on conversations with myself, meditation, and so too raising my hand. My mind had drifted off on its own and was enduring on my behalf. The experience reminded me of the time in Amsterdam when I’d snorted far too much ketamine in one go.
Hi ho.
I’m not sure what happened then either.
Had I passed out?
***
Please, rinse your mouth.
Oui.
Can you feel your tooth?
I brushed my tongue over all the death that had accrued in my mouth. It resembled the fugal sojourn I had inadvertently undertaken: vacancy. As if that wasn’t enough, he showed me a high definition photograph on a big screen, allowing me to peruse the big fucking hole in magnificent detail.
Can you see that?
I really did not know what to say and so I simply nodded.
I will now clean the other tooth before we fill this one up.
Understood.
***
And… Voila! He was finished and I didn’t even have to appeal for a reprieve. Mercy is the virtue of forgiveness.
As I was about to get up and walk out of that room for the last time, Dr K with a hyphen wanted me to know that there was a possibility that, due to the size of the cavity, it might have been a better idea to have treated me with a root canal instead.
I had to laugh.
If your gums begin to swell, we will know, he said.
Believe it or not, I thanked him again. And then I walked into the reception area where I had to settle the bill that looked suitably large since in a way I supposed I was paying for an amputation.
Before I left, the lady at the front desk, with whom Regina was now having a deep and yet genial conversation, bravely asked me to fill out a feedback form. It looked like this:
Under name, I’d written ‘Who It Concerned’ and of course I refrained from colouring any of the childish stars but it took me a minute or two to decide what to write in the comment section.
It was in that moment that I was prompted to create this paean, to K-, and so I wrote-
“With all possible respect, why don’t you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut, in fact, why don’t you take a flying fuck at the moooooon!”
Oh, and I took the pen with me too.