"My Evil Tooth Fairy" A short Story by Osnar Chávez

 

Do not order it. Not the crunchy cookie for dessert.

“The chocolate delight, please," she orders to the waitress.

Shit! The date was going like a charm. Nod the waitress seconding my companion.

I hide my concern.

"Why that face?"

Damn. She is very aware.

"Let’s change it for the cake," she proposes condescendingly.

She raises her hand to regain the waitress' attention.

“Sorry. I just wouldn’t be able to taste it," I explain.

A concern glance.

Eventually she will find out. I remove my teeth. Grin with the single tooth that survives in my gums. She does not judge, just foresees a story.

***

1991. My mother inspected my elementary school graduation portrait with disappointment. Unbeatable hairstyle, shiny shoes, and wrinkle-free clothes like baby skin. Was my smile what originated her reaction, it showed off a hole. The void was not a molar that can be concealed on the sidelines, was in the foreground.

I grinned at her. She despised my dental gap.

"No," she determined.

The still warm photo disappeared in her bag. Not immortalized like that of me next to the monument of the dancing dogs. Bizarre, but it pleased my mother because, behind the gesture of my raised fist, the perfect smile could be glimpsed.

My mother made my mouth her existence’s mission. Never knew why.

Brushed my teeth identically every time, not two or three times a day, but five or six. After each meal, even after each drink. Whatever toothpaste you could find was insufficient, a special whitener one was indispensable. My toothbrush required weekly renovations. It was complemented with mouthwash. As a closing act, a meter of dental floss that until being buried in food did not perform as an exit pass. A reinforcement of rinsing and brushing was randomly demanded, reaching the symmetric climax of a dentist orgasm.

Upon my graduation, the moment that would perpetuate her labor, I lost my last baby tooth. Fruitless months of crunchy and fibrous food loosen it up. The plausibility of uprooting it was considered. Yet, almost predestined, it occurred that day.

It did not bother me. I had a tooth to deposit under my pillow which impeccable condition, according to my mother's, in retrospect, manipulative teachings would be compensated with cash. Capitalism imposes since childhood.

That night the Western pride failed. I woke up to discover the tooth. Years of sacrifice without retribution. Unnuanced anger. I presented to my mother the logistical inconveniences the Tooth Fairy had to overcome. She prevented me from detailing the technicalities of my thesis.

For ten nights I offered my incisor. Every morning it saluted me. Until the eleventh night, which I had determined as my final attempt.

 

Woke up. Not because of an alarm or my mother. The cushion moved. Opened my eyes.

A light beam was sneaking through the window I had not left unlocked, and now it was. It unveiled a skeletal, decrepit figure. His perfume was soap aversion. His heavy aura pressed me against the bed. The icing on the cake was the costume, two sizes below his, of a sexy dentist; once white was now gray with stain, the neckline boasted a collarbone with more dirt than muscle and in certain positions the miniskirt revealed a haired scrotum.

Anticipating, he pressed his lanky index finger against my mouth. The stench of semen and mud that permeated my lips was effective in silencing me. I behold him until he freed the tooth from the oppression of my head. Examined it by supporting it with his boney phalanges. He evoked Gollum with the One Ring.

"Wait," he muttered, convinced that his gesticulated whispers on the border of the indecipherable would not make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

He took out a hundred-dollar bill. Beyond my conceivable economic power at the time.

He granted it to me. I snatched it away.

"For someone with white teeth like yours, there's a lot more to it. Come with me.”

He stood. His arthritis echoed in my mirror-filled room designed to make me extremely aware of my appearance. The individual tried smirking. His few cavities-filled molars robbed an aesthetic moment.

Held out his hand to me.

“But, my mom...”

"We'll be back before she notices."

I believed him.

 

I greeted the dawn with a rat bite. Not the Teeth Mouse to whom I had given in despite its limited coverage and fees.

The warehouse, inconsequential at night, with early morning eyes was a subhuman prison. Dried bodily fluids adhere my shoes to the floor. Metal furniture with long-distance tetanus-infecting capabilities. The mattress full of diapers coerced my septum to restrict my air intake.

I was alone.

A shackle suppressed my runaway attempt. A noisy clatter. My Tooth Fairy appeared shocked, punishing me. Carried food from a street stall that threatened with salmonella, as well as an obscene dose of oral health products. His behavior resembled that of a teenager who just discovered porn.

Same dynamic for days. He assaulted me, fed me with the crappiest promises of a third world country metropolis, and demanded impetuous oral hygiene, ridiculing my mother's. He frequently vanished. I spent hours with the singular company of rodents and pestilence, now the sequel of my own physiology. No one noticed my presence from outside. The scope of my senses, outside of my captivity place, was restricted to glimpsing the statue of dancing dogs.

On a special night, my drunken Tooth Fairy displayed me a necklace of shells that suggested it came from beach artisans. They were teeth. Deliberately neglecting my dental hygiene after this revelation was attempted, but my captor and old habits restricted me.

Took a snapshot of me intended for my mother, demanding a ransom. I posed with my fist in front of me, replicating the posture exhibited in her favorite photograph.

 

Emancipation Day. Absolute joy. A week like this and you become thrilled with little. My shackle-sovereign hand made me flexible as a contortionist. The stench of shit became synonym of freedom (my patriotism still emerges in the toilet).

My fairy crushed me on a moldy bench that supported, on the verge of disassembly, the weight of a malnourished child. I bet on the cuteness of my dilated pupils begging for some kindness. My captor privileged me with his smiley endeavor. Wielded a wrench that, even when in comparison attributed my seat a brand-new appearance, the adjustment nut worked.

He settled into my lap, holding me back.

He forced my jaw by pulling my hair and inserted the crank. Manipulated my tooth like a pipe. A sharp shot spread through my entire nervous system, shutting off my brain for a second. He possessed mastery, he did not even tore the enamel, extracted it whole. My skull reverberated like a pre-Hispanic drum in a ritualistic sacrifice, role I was also playing.

He repeated with a canine. Found his ideal placing, allowing my scarlet fluid to drown me, and thus preventing my squeals.

First upper right molar bounced off the ground. An explosion of pain in my mouth.

Another of my fangs succumbed to the supremacy of the lever. No anesthesia.

My molars paraded in an orderly fashion, leaving the gum. A puddle, amalgam of urine and blood, lightly splattered with every piece of dental calcium that hit the floor.

Sirens approaching.

The smaller lower premolars were pulled out in pairs. Pragmatism and professionalism characterized his technique, as well as a lack of interest in the well-being of the patient.

Flashing blue and red headlights covered us.

His enterprise did not stop. Doubled the speed and torture without compromising the quality of the work.

A megaphone. (Really? Useless.)

My cavities were burning. I assumed that at least it was over. No. He wanted my last tooth. That promise that in the last fortnight refused to emerge more than a couple millimeters.

It was a challenge. He failed.

The police gently knocked on the door. (For Christ’s sake come in!)

My Tooth Fairy stood up. Pushed me. Landed on my back. Blood does not cushion.

He picked up as many teeth as he could from the reddish mud.

My brain blood fused with the one from my gums.

Officers burst in. (At last!)

My custodian swiveled. Stumbled over my fluids.

An officer shouted. Shot. Metal impact.

The Tooth Fairy used magic to vanish.

I remember, before the hospital, a roll of bills overlooked by my captor. My payment for the perfect denture.