In the bar, elbows flat on the wood, the dentist held himself up with another drink. He sipped the shot of Sambuca, and wondered about the three girls sitting next to him. Not the arrogant one closest to him, but the plump one in the middle. He watched her face in the reflection of the beer tap, almost hoping that she would look into the brass plate and see his desperation. He would not turn away; exhaustion had made him brave. His friend said something. The voice was droning far away. Yes, said the dentist, let's go, guessing correctly the gist of the mumbling.
He got home and hustled his empty carcass-shell up the back stairs, noticing the light under the door in apartment #2 where a large Vietnamese family lived. He fought with them about parking after they moved in. One of the girls was thin and moved with insect angularity, gesticulating with pointed black forearms. He liked her aura and imagined her feeding on him, ripping away his suit and scooping up parts of muscle from off the bone. He would choke her little head and thin throat with all his flesh.
He reached the top floor and the cold hit his body but fatigue numbed him well enough. Photos, slides and transparencies lay about the fold-out table in the kitchen. The photos were dark and depicted stitched-up gums at various stages of the operation. From out of the spidery mucosa erupted metallic prongs, the implants themselves. The dentures would snap over these implants after healing was complete. He did not have much time to finish the presentation and the thought of his impending doom rushed in and warmed his groin. He would have to do something, plead general malaise in order to escape his obligation. Would they believe him? No, he should just finish the presentation and get it over with tomorrow. He did not care so much to become a partner in the dental practice at that moment but knew that tomorrow morning he would indeed care very much. He stared at a photo and lost himself in the dark tunnel of throat. The darkness crept toward him crawling over the tongue and hung behind the pillared implants like an exotic caged animal. Then sleep.
The phone rang shrilly, waking him up. He did not answer. It was Marge. Her voice came out of the answering machine, asking about the presentation. If he needed any help. Marge was the obese dental assistant who helped the dentist beyond the call of duty. She was the one who inserted the plastic retractors that stretched the lips into a silent howl. She liked her job, and ended the message with a demanding entreaty for the dentist to call her back. Yes, why not, he would call her over. She would motivate him to finish. She always said that he had no guts. The gutless wonder, she called him, when he sniveled and kissed up to the older partners in the office. She guided him in and out of rooms, telling him what to do all day. He wanted to prove her wrong. So he called her up.
"Marge, got your message. How about coming over tomorrow morning and we can wrap up the presentation before nine?"
"How about I come over now, while I still have the good will in me," she said, and the dentist quickly acquiesced.
He hauled himself into the bathroom and looked at himself in the splotched mirror. He turned his head sideways and carefully noticed the prematurely graying hairs that people relentlessly brought to his attention. He noticed several black strands reaching outward from his nostril. He clipped them and began plucking the eyebrow hairs that seemed to grow back with vigorous spurts, making his brow join over the nose. The dentist was a swarthy man, darker and hairier than either of his parents. He attributed his physical appearance as well as his restlessness and sexual obsessions to over-abundance of testosterone. Often he dreamt of castration. It would solve many of his problems, he was sure, but he knew that enough courage would never muster. Also, he was not sure that life amounted to anything more than the basic sexual urges driving the world 'round. Without his sex, maybe life would end.
The dentist thought about masturbating but decided that there would not be enough time. Marge lived only one town over and would arrive within fifteen minutes. He did not like to rush the job, so he began doing other things to get ready for his visitor. Under a faucet releasing steaming water, he massaged the grease off of yesterday's dishes. He was thinking of Marge in her white uniform, her breasts leaping out as she bent over to suction away the viscous saliva and blood soup. She enjoyed the surgeries -- blood was something she was very comfortable with. She also enjoyed her time alone with the patients in recovery. In order to speed recovery, she pinched their ears with all her force. She smiled down as the pain penetrated the fleeting anesthesia and contorted the faces of the writhing victims, wordless protestations.. The other partners liked her efficiency. Our dentist protagonist knew better, and liked her for a different reason. The buzzer rang with a muffled and wasp-like sound, and the dentist released the door, saying suavely into the intercom that she should come up, apologizing for the lack of an elevator.
Her mammoth steps creaked the stairs and he could hear her asthmatic breaths as she approached his door. He opened the door, and she squeezed herself into the room smelling of strong perfume and cigarettes. She looked around for a place to sit. The dentist offered her a chair.
"You look β¦. Your hair is down. That's what it is."