The Extraction

She sat back in the black leather chair. Anna hadn’t been to the dentist since the unspeakable happened; the dentist started reclining the chair to peer into her mouth and Anna dreaded every moment of it.

“We will need to pull this tooth,” the dentist said, his voice muffled by the face mask. The face mask reminded her of the mask the perpetrator—god, now she was sounding like those detective shows she loved to watch—except in real life, not everything ended with a happy ending of a criminal going to jail like on the TV.

“Here’s Novocain. You won’t feel a thing.”

Anna opened her mouth wide and felt the prick of the needle. She began to feel trapped by the memory. Anna shook as the dentist began to tug. Painful, it almost felt like the exam afterward—she had always heard losing one’s virginity felt like that, but she just couldn’t remember much from that night except for some degradation. She was knocked out.

The dentist gave Anna more Novocain. She closed her eyes, trying to forget which resulted in recurring nightmares.

“Ah,” the dentist exclaims, awakening her. The chair is raised. The tooth is handed over. She survived. Again.