OPEN WIDE

I hate going to the dentist. The thought of lying in that chair, under that one bulb of the blinding white light while my mouth is surveyed excessively by a team, is icky. Why should they get to judge which brownie I had last night? The milkshake I had before coming does not deserve their scrutiny. Even the dentist, the doctor – as was made abundantly clear by my dentist uncle – is often rude in her investigation.

“Open wide”, she says. She knows that I’ve never been able to say this phrase to a girl and mocks my virginity despite being 25. She looks at me with a smirk and condescension which the mask hides, as she observes what makes me a virgin. The taunts of boarding school and subtle chuckles of university students morph into her exasperation. “Open wide!” she repeats. The tray she uses to store her tools - her weapons - slides over my belly. It’s next to it, so it doesn’t cover it. My t-shirt is alone in its efforts to do so. Lying down, though, makes my belly appear flatter. I like it. I’m sure she attributes my virginity to it. She’s exactly like the boys and students of my past and present. Couldn’t they have just texted or emailed me? It’s pretty rude to morph into a dentist to chuckle at my virginity. The t-shirt I’m currently wearing is fading. Not long before it exposes my belly. So, I scrolled over the H&M and Zara websites before coming because I needed a new t-shirt. But how did she know I was looking at the people I aspire to resemble? In her examination of my mouth, I can see her thoughts. I’m sure she’s thinking about the impossibility of me moulding an image of the models. She doesn’t scoff. I think she’s trying to be polite, but constantly enlarges her eyes to express exhaustion. It could be hopelessness. I’ve been sitting on that chair for eight minutes. She’s made a fool of my looks and virginity in under ten minutes. You see why I dislike dentists. They’re incredibly judgemental.

After she’s lost hope of me being able to undo my lack of sex appeal, she moves on to offer a ridiculous pacifism. “I’m going to give you an injection of anesthesia but it won’t hurt.” I’m going to quote my best friend here, “balls!” If I were 4, I’d have coped with the pain by getting a lollipop after. I would’ve still whined and howled when at the dentist, but when you’re the chubby 4-year-old, everything’s adorable. The volume and pitch of your shriek always warrant a treat. When you’re the chubby, or better put by my dentist uncle, ‘too-fat-for-the-family’ 25-year-old, even a brief whiff makes the headlines of the family newspapers. Like a wildfire ignited by burning those newspapers, the headlines transcend into friends and even the most distant relatives grandma only visits for custom. The moment she shows me the injection, I know I’m screwed. Ironic. I know I’m about to enter an experience of significant pain but cannot do anything to win. I’m like England in the World Cup. The only thing coming home would be news of a crying 25-year-old. “But you won’t feel anything after the anesthesia”, she says in an attempt to compose me. But after isn’t the problem. It is the now. It is the current. Pretty impolite, right? First, you mock my virginity – which let’s be fair is a social construct so a lack of success should not define one’s character, even though none of my friends will agree – and then you pierce me with an injection!

If you recorded a time-lapse of my time sitting on the chair, you’d see why I’m the victim. You can see it in my eyes. With the pressure they put on my lips, there’s really no way else for me to emote. The mockery doesn’t stop, because all of the cleaning is an interrogation. She scrapes the back of my teeth, screech! And asks: “You don’t have a gag reflex right?” When will this stop? Yes ok doc, I am a virgin. I’ve never said this to a girl, unlike my friends, so they’re better than me. I wonder which one of them requested her to defame me on this Tuesday afternoon? Those nincompoops. I can see that she’s afraid too. She’s afraid I’ll find out who she truly works for. She’s afraid I’ll expose her espionage mission which is to ridicule me in the disguise of this dental checkup. I know that because before I can finish comprehending my thoughts, she scrapes my teeth: Screech, creak. Forcing me to wince. I think she can read my mind. Professor X at my disposal, la-di-da.

It’s not like I have a particularly optimistic outlook on my chances of, as that same best friend calls it, “scoring.” He’s also been single all his life, except in the lies he tells in the university dorm when he’s barely tipsy. He should’ve been interrogated instead. To call this a ‘treatment’ is a bald-faced lie. She’s made me worse. That reclining seat has disheveled my hair, sullen my t-shirt, dried my mouth, and even made me dizzy – damn those lights. At least the anesthesia injection helped my eyes sparkle. Even a crying 25-year-old can look pretty. She lets me escape after the anesthesia does its job to numb the experience. Helped with that insane white light, the moment becomes a blur. I should’ve gotten a lawyer for this humiliating interrogation. Why would a 53-year-old, married – I think – woman be amused by my virginity? “Thanks, doctor”, I say. “Don’t eat anything for the next four hours. Nothing in the mouth!”, she replies. See. It doesn’t stop! The mocking is relentless. I dislike dentists. Hate going to them. But the brownies and milkshakes are invincible. So I stop at the bakery next to the clinic, and treat myself to an upgraded lollipop; red velvet. In a horrifically cyclical tale, she follows me. She could be talking to a patient. But I’m sure that twenty-three-year-old – I think – girl, brown, curly-haired, five-foot-three, is a plant. A fake patient who’s helping this dentist detective. Upon seeing me exit with a slice, the doc says: “See you soon!” The plant, the decoy laughs. Unemployment must be hot right now for people to be this idle. Some saliva drips from the numb, right side of my mouth. Having not eaten for the last seven hours, it could simply be the drool at seeing the cake. The doc knows no girl’s been able to drool for me. Need an anesthesia for her mockery.

Devarya is a writer based in Toronto. His essays have been featured in Acta Victoriana, Trinity Times and The Varsity. His poems appear in the UC Review, The Varsity Magazine, The Spectatorial, and The Cyril and Methodius Review. He also serves as the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Woodsworth Review.