Writing practice. Dentist. 10 minutes.

I never wanted to be a dentist, tasting through their nostrils the breath of cavities and phlegm, bloody root canals, halitosis and tartar mixed with saliva sauce. Why would anyone care that much about teeth? Or cats? Or cars? But not about me? You left me. We used to make love every Sunday afternoon in your apartment above the dentist's clinic, with the ugly name. Dr Can Tooth, something or other. Some bad clinic name we laughed about each time we saw it. But Richard lays now where I used to beside you. Richard reeks of beer through his sweat pores. And you deserve each other because each time I kissed you, my love allowed me to love the cigarette on your tongue, and the nicotine in your gums. I did not gag but tasted fully your deep, and the stale coffee in the back of your mouth. I loved it. I loved you. I loved the inside of your mouth. Loved every inch of it. I loved the inside of your cheeks, the warmth there. I cleansed your mouth every Sunday afternoon and Richard stinks of beer. Still I remember your sad smile, your teeth that are stubbornly whiter than mine though I brush after every meal with baking soda, sometimes even after there's no meal. The taste of your body fluids down my throat that the dentist needs to clean because some get trapped between my teeth or the underside of my tongue. Keep it. "Leave it alone," I tell the doc. "Doc, that's the only souvenir of Jeff. Of our Sundays together, lying together, naked, a tumble of legs and arms, before Richard came to take my place. Don't take those away, Doc. Let them fill the sugared cavities of my aching heart. Thank you, Doc. Thank you for understanding. Has your heart ever been broken, Doc?" And the dentist leaned a little closer over me as I laid out on his chair, helpless, defenseless, and whispered a secret. "Sunday afternoons," the dentist said, "The clinic's closed. There are no patients and I am alone. I take some of the morphine so I forget the pain." I understand you, Doc. I understand you, the pain. But the morphine is only gum-deep. Gum-deep. And my heart is made of calcified teeth that no anaesthetic can reach. I am here, I smile, teeth white. I tell you, I can smile at your memory now, Jeff, from my heart. This is true, and this is deep. Deeper than the drill, the mirror, the light, the laughter, the mucus of all the pus-filled hate once had for you. I can live now with the joy of being strapped to a chair