“The only reason I am here is because it is a small filling. If it were a big one, I’d procrastinate until it turned into a massive root canal.”
The dental assistant frowns. “Really?”
“Yup. That’s a perfectly normal thought process when you are afraid of going to the dentist.”
“You are too funny,” Registered Dental Assistant says. Her thin eyelashes etch upwards with perfect mascara – or maybe they’re falsies, glued on.
She’s one of those graduates from the school of Classic Dental Clones. Her scrubs are plain and her hair is twisted into a perky bun, not a hair out of place. Her pearly smile is plastered on a cheerleader’s face, and she is an insipid conversationalist. She flutters between the trays and files with the efficient, whispering hands of someone trained to sterilize.
She turns to write an important note in my chart, something like “Patient Seems Tense. Use Extra Novocain.”
The dentist bounds in. I detect sizable, tanned biceps under his navy scrubs; he could pass for a construction worker. He’s an attractive dentist – until he puts on spectacles with plastic black rims and an extra set of goggle lenses for magnification. He looks like he has enormous clown eyes attached by springs, transforming him into a nerd, and one that is eager to use his super vision.
“Is it a buckle?” he asks the assistant.
An electric hum vibrates my chair as it is lowered to a downward plank incline. Blood shifts away from my feet and squeezes into my temples. I can hear the pulse of my heart pounding with a strangled, constricted beat. The noise momentarily stills my random thoughts about yoga positions, porn in dental offices, sedative drugs, and a disturbing vision of a swash-buckling dentist wearing a pirate hat.
“How are you?” Dentist asks, sounding surprised, as if he just noticed that I am human.
“Fine. This is exactly where I want to be at eight in the morning.” It is an awkward joke, and I can tell he doesn’t know how to respond.
He shrugs. “It is a small filling. You will be out of here soon.”
“There was a time when a visit to the dentist was always a cleaning.” I complain. “Now I hear words like crown, ditching, pockets, and fractures.”
He nods. “It is all part of the natural wear and tear.”
Getting old, I think to myself.
The Dental Assistant places her blue, latex finger in my mouth and uses a cotton swab to rub a topical numbing agent over the roots of my teeth, teeth that are held in place by my receding gum line. The dentist is merrily scooting around on his wheeled stool. When he returns, he holds up a fine, three-inch stainless steel needle, just like in the horror movies. He squirts liquid into the air and aims the needle at my mouth that is frozen in a cavernous howl.
“This won’t hurt at all,” I imagine him saying.
I close my eyes and wait for peals of sardonic laughter, but all I hear is the popping and tweaking crunch of cartilage as the needle delves deep into my gum tissue. I don’t feel pain because the dentist tugs indelicately at my lip, twisting and flapping it up and down to distract me.
He needn’t bother. I have my own relaxation technique. I concentrate on clenching the sphincter muscles of my butt-hole until my entire body is rigid and immutable. The dentist swivels the needle in different directions before pulling it out. Prickles of anesthetic skip along my lip as the skin toughens and thickens and coldness spreads inside the bone of my chin.
“Are you okay?” The dentist pauses, seemingly concerned. It is rhetorical. He doesn’t acknowledge my weak finger wave.
“I’m going to roughen you up at bit.” He winks at me through his double bottle glasses.
“Go for it,” I answer, flirting as he stretches my lower lip wide with a little metal spatula. My attempt at an impish grin becomes distorted, like a Cheshire-cat smile. Rivulets of moisture pool in the corners of my throat because the lining of my cheeks release copious amounts of saliva. The dentist rattles around in the wetness there, spinning his cold mirror. Then he moves forward and peers intently up my nostril.
It is that time of the year. My dentist is a construction worker and I am like an old wall in need of repairs because of a troublesome hole that needs patching in a hard to reach spot.
Fixer.
Adhesive.
Apply heat.
Polish.
They could use nicer words. It would make it a better experience.
When I open my eyes again I see Daniel Craig bursting into the room. There is a haze of dust around him, but he is unperturbed. His long fingers fiddle with his cuff links as he shrugs and straightens his shirtsleeve. His eyes are a blaze of blue and, suddenly, he is looking directly at me.
“The Dental Goddess everyone is after, I presume?” He has a wry smile on his face.
He leans over, caressing my hair. He is pleased to find me. I am the Bond girl he has been sent to rescue.
“What have they done to you?” He looks dismissively at the Dental Assistant. Compared to me, she is an innocuous trollop.
“Rejuvenating elixir!” he barks at her.
He snatches a syringe and tears the plastic top off with his teeth. He deftly administers the toxin to my brow. With his other hand, he unties the ropes around my cold, stiffening hands.
Wrinkles fade; my nose becomes thinner, and my chin, more prepossessing.
The dentist stands up, alarmed. “What the hell? You again. I thought I got rid of you once already.” He reaches for his Glock, tucked in the waistband of his scrubs. He points the gun at Bond. “Back off. She is mine.”
But Bond is not in the mood for conversation. He kicks the Dentist in the ribs and, as the Dentist tips forward, Bond double sucker punches him in the jaw. The Doctor is thrown into the corner of the room, out cold. His magnifying glasses are askew and he sits sprawled upright like a broken doll.
Someone is pressing a strong, ripped torso into me. I feel the heat.
“You are the only Bonding Agent I will ever need,” James murmurs in my ear. He pulls me free from the torture chair. “Let’s get out of this place, shall we?”
I run after him effortlessly in my stilettos. Outside, the sun is momentarily blinding, casting our shadows, lean and long, across the parking lot.
There is shouting. It is the office personnel, closing in on us, clipboards in hand. I cannot hear what they are saying because getaway music is blaring in my ears, lots of percussion and brass.
“There!” James points to a convertible. It is small and red and polished. It is this year’s model; only the best for someone like James. He opens the door and I slide onto the smooth leather. James hops into the driver’s seat beside me.
“You will never go to a place like that again!” James assures me, revving the engine. I could not be more relieved. We speed away from suburbia heading into a world of safety and martinis – and steaming hot showers.
Judy Kohnen is from neither here nor there but those places in between. She is a cross-cultural writer whose works are unified by themes of identity, loss, and belonging. She adds spice to her suburban life by spending hours in front of her computer, typing stories, much to the dismay of her starving family. On occasion, she’ll take a break to haunt her cemetery of poems and unfinished manuscripts, located in Claremont, California, under her bed.
Tags: dental assistant, dentist, fiction, flash fiction, Judy Kohnen