Dental Hygiene

by Steve Toase

Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:

The morning we find the hidden hollow in the bathroom, the postal van drives up our street in the direction opposite from its usual. Three years we’d owned the house, and every morning they drove in from the left end of the road and exited to the right. That day, they enter from the left. I know then the day is not going to be normal.

Two clips hold in the back panel of the bathroom cabinet. Two metal clips. Two rusted metal clips that stain my fingers red when I grasp them. They do not come out when I pull, the strength of the sprung steel too much for the little bit of grip I have.

From my toolkit I take out a flat bladed screwdriver, forcing the tip behind the first of the clips. I can see myself in the mirrors that front the cabinet. My face repeats again and again. Slow, revolving, doppelgangers. I turn back to the clips and watch as one is loosened and clatters into the sink where it collects dried toothpaste and old hair.

The second clip flourishes out and joins its twin in the dry sink where they lie side by side like lovers. Now free, the weight of the panel is against my hands. I do not know what is behind. I slowly lower it toward me, place it on the bathmat, then stand up once more.

Two shallow shelves are revealed, both holding their contents back with a slack piece of string, thick with stilled dust and dead insects. These are the objects held in place:

Two used toothbrushes, bristles splayed by the teeth of their long dead owners. The handles are bone, the bristles from some kind of animal pelt. I am not sure what creature, but I run my finger over them. They are firm and unyielding. In between the hairs I see fragments of paste clumping together at the roots and dead flies caught like the last meal of a desiccated, flesh-eating plant.

A single pair of scissors. Each edge is rusted. When I open them there is a slight pause as the blades separate. I run a finger across the metal. Time and corrosion has dulled them, and they do not open my skin.

A pack of razorblades wrapped in greaseproof paper. Several have been removed and used, so when I lift the packet free, the remaining blades clatter into the sink, and one slides out and hits my bare ankle where it nicks my skin. I watch a single bubble of blood emerge, soften back into the tiny wound and begin to scab.

On the lowest shelf are two blocks of used soap. One is for shaving. The other smells slightly of lavender. Time has aged the fragrance so the scent is now more like rotting flowers. The shaving soap has a vague hint of sandalwood, now faded to almost nothing. The surfaces of both have congealed with age.

A single pair of plain cufflinks. They are hidden behind the soap. Gilding is flaking off with age, and all the joints are clogged with the sickly green of verdigris.

I spend far too long staring at my discoveries and take the cufflinks first.

Carrie asks what I’m doing. I see her blurred reflection in the metal’s surface. I show her the inside of the old rag on my lap, the cufflinks lying in the centre surrounded by pale green flakes detached by my cleaning.

“Where did you find those?” she asks, picking one up and trying not to flinch at the sensation of corrosion against her skin.

I explain to her, then I show her, and then I see her expression in the mirror.

“Seal it back up,” she says with no space for debate in her voice, so I place the panel back in place, the clips sliding in more easily than when I removed them, and I shut the cabinet doors. I keep the cufflinks.

We decide to go out to dinner. Sitting in the bedroom, I fasten up my shirt, freshly laundered, the creases down the sleeves too sharp, and a little too much starch in the collar. I pick up the cufflinks. Despite my best attempts, pockets of verdigris remain. My cleaning has scrubbed away more of the thin gilding than the corrosion. I hesitate, then slide them through the cuff holes. Carrie calls me, and I go downstairs fiddling with my shirt as we wait for the taxi.

When we come back from an unsatisfying evening, I sit on the sofa and take off my tie and the cufflinks. Precise green marks like graffiti stain the cotton. I stare at the lines made by my gestures during our meal as I ate. I try to translate them into the evening. Which ones mean spooning soup into my mouth, which ones were from curling pasta onto my tongue, and which were from holding Carrie’s hair as we kissed against the restaurant wall.

While I remember, I run my tongue against my teeth. The slight sour taste of cheese trapped against my gum turns my stomach. I stand up and go to the bathroom.

The panel is lying shattered on the floor, worms of dust sliding down from the exposed shelves. I stand and stare at the two blocks of soap and the razorblades. The two worn and stained toothbrushes.

I take the toothbrush on the left and run my finger over the flattened bristles. Dried white powder clogs the hair together. A yellow mineral-like substance obscures the bone fissures, plaque like limescale petals. I pick it free, watching the first lump tumble down the plug hole; then I place the second fragment on my tongue.

I do not know why I do this. Although Carrie and I shared a bottle of wine with our meal, I am not drunk, and I have full knowledge of what I am doing. The plaque tastes bitter and I move it between my teeth, crunching and grinding until it is a paste. I swallow and picture the person whose teeth the accretion once coated.

The toothbrush is still in my hand, and I can still taste the sour milk of the cheese. Staring at the shelves in front of me, I separate my lips and press the toothbrush into my mouth.

I taste the bone as the bristles slide between my teeth, catching in the gaps that aren’t really wide enough. I move the brush around my mouth, thinking about the marrow that once filled the bone, and feel several follicles tear free and stick in the gaps. Hair roots once buried in skin, now long since rotted away, tickle the inside of my cheek.

I taste the brush, running my tongue over the handle. Flavours both sweet and sour fill me, and I bite down, grinding into the bone until my jaws ache.

I do not notice Carrie standing behind me until she taps my shoulder. I turn, stop brushing, then lean in close and kiss her, letting the flavours of age and rot and decay slide from my mouth into hers. The taste of brittle bone carved and shaped, the slight sweetness of long dried toothpaste, and the bitterness of plaque shift between us.

She sits down on the floor. I reach behind me for the second brush, soften it in my own mouth, then slide it into hers.

Her teeth and smile are perfect, and the bristles glide over the enamel. She picks up the first brush and runs it once more over my own broken teeth. I taste blood in my throat as she scrubs away the decay, bruising my jaw. I tickle her soft palate, feel her shudder, her free hand sliding into mine, grinding her fingernails into my wrist.

I bite down once more, as does she, and as she bites, the toothbrush handle resists, the pristine enamel chipping until the nerves at the heart of her teeth are exposed, and I only notice that my teeth have shattered when the cold pain lances through my jaw and does not stop.

We kiss and the enamel splinters slide between our mouths, I feel them embed in my gums, and when I open my eyes, she has my blood on her cheek. I look back at the cabinet then to Carrie. She is lying on the bathroom floor, chewing with her eyes closed.

I push Carrie’s skirt up to her waist, my cold hands against her skin. Not bothering to dampen the shaving soap, I run the congealed surface over her calves, stopping at her knees. Soon, her lower legs are coated in a thin grease. I imagine the fat the soap once was, the stench as it was rendered down and the tang of the lye.

Picking up the chipped razor blade I run the edge over her legs, scraping off the soap, the broken blade leaving red weals cutting into her beautiful skin. When I am done, she smells of tanneries and rotten flowers, and when I tell her, she kisses me on the cheek, and holds me until I come, staining the cuff of her blouse.

We wake up in each other’s arms, and it is dark. She rolls over, straddling my waist, and I feel her against me for a moment before she stands. She switches on the overhead light, but the glow is faint. I can see tiny cuts all over her legs like flea bites. The razorblade lies off to one side. I reach out and touch the edge, feeling the metal open up my fingertip, rust and blood mixing.

She rolls me onto my stomach and straddles me. I feel the scabs on her skin rub loose against my back. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her pick up the razorblade, then she starts to cut away my hair. The blade is dull and chipped, so only some is sliced away. She pulls large chunks from my scalp, lifting my head up and letting it fall as she does.

When she is finished, she lies down upon me, pressed against my spine, her face against my bleeding scalp. We stay like that for the rest of the day. When we wake, she picks up the lavender soap and rubs the bar over my head, the thin smear of suds stinging each minute wound, and when I swear, she pushes the soap into my mouth until I choke on the foam.

We sleep again. When we wake a second time, we notice the toothbrushes lie broken, the bone of the handles snapped like a childhood injury. We both feel the room watching us. Each corner and shattered tile a gaze watching our guilt. Carrie volunteers first, but I say no. She is perfect now. To cut open her muscles and slide out her bones would be committing heresy.

I volunteer, too, but she feels the same, kissing my wounds to show how sacred they are, and in this agreement, we both stay free of blasphemy. We hear the doorbell, the button at the gate far from the house. I pull on a dressing gown and pick up one of the fallen razorblades.

I see the postman walking down the path with a parcel for me. In my hand I can feel the metal, breaks in the edge like broken teeth.

It seems appropriate. He started this. Drove the opposite way down the road outside my house and changed the true order of things. I open the door and wave. He smiles. I wonder how long it will take his damp bones to dry.

He says a name I only vaguely recognise as mine and holds out the box. I ask if he can carry it in for me. My back’s playing up, you see. He smiles again and runs his fingers through his beard. I think about how the bristles will feel against the teeth of the next person to find the hollow in the bathroom.

I stand aside as he steps in. There is plenty of bone to practice with inside a man’s skeleton. I close the door behind me, grab him by the throat, and as he struggles, I slowly begin to cut.

Want another gripping story by Steve Toase? Read “Húsið Mitt” in Horrific Scribes, October 2025.

EXHIBIT FOUR: Return to “A Promising Void: The Memo-morphosis”

Proceed to the next Gallery Four: Controllers attraction, “Chrysalis”