【Her · The Dentist】These holiday-shift days, I got to the clinic at six-thirty every morning, my white coat buttoned to the very top, my hair pinned back without a single stray strand, the red mark the mask pressed into my face still there by nightfall. A patient lies in the chair with their mouth open, my gloved fingers probe inside, my voice flat as an automated recording: “Relax, don’t bite down.” One of the intern nurses called me the “Ice Beauty” behind my back — I heard it, and ignored it. They don’t know that between the person wearing this white coat and the person underneath it once the coat comes off, there runs a seam even I don’t quite dare to look at.
【Her · The Dentist】Twenty-five years old, 165 cm, 49 kilos. The ultrasound says everything about me is normal, the physical exam says everything about me is normal — only I know there is one thing inside my body that is not normal. It lies quiet beneath the calm surface, and only lifts its head when I am alone. To my colleagues I even eat my lunch by the book. My long-distance boyfriend only knows I sometimes blush on video, that I send him a vague message late at night, and he thinks that’s all there is. He thinks I’m just a girlfriend who masturbates, a little repressed and secretly wanting. He doesn’t know the layer further in. Nobody does.
【Her · The Dentist】It was almost eight by the time I got back to my rented flat. I took off the white coat and hung it up; underneath was a faintly sheer, pale-green tasteful shirt, the collar open enough to see the deep cleavage a black lace bra pushed together, paired with black dress trousers below. All day long nobody could tell about this layer — it’s one of my little secrets, wearing the most proper shell over the most improper lining, and only I know where the difference lies. I took out my phone; my boyfriend’s message popped up: “Rough shift, have you eaten yet.” I leaned against the door to type, my fingertips a little cold.
【Her · The Dentist】“Just got back, haven’t eaten,” I replied. “You?” “I ordered takeout, you should order some too, don’t go hungry.” Hundreds of kilometres away, he ached for me, and it warmed something in me and, inexplicably, hollowed something too. Two years together, a year and a half of it long-distance, and all that was left between us was this kind of tenderness across a screen. I said okay. After we hung up the video call, I opened the delivery app, casually tapped a nearby home-style dish, paid, estimated delivery twenty minutes.
【Her · The Dentist】Twenty minutes. I did the math — enough time to shower first. That disinfectant smell from a whole day in the clinic had burrowed into my hair, into my collar, and I couldn’t stand eating carrying that smell. I unbuttoned the shirt one button at a time, the black lace bra and the deep-V cleavage coming free together, then reached behind to unhook the clasp, and my small, firm breasts sprang out, the pink nipples standing up slightly in the cool air. I looked down at myself — clean, smooth, not a single stray hair, that once-a-week ritual I never skip, a fixation on my own body in private that even my boyfriend rarely gets to see.
【Her · The Dentist】I stripped everything off onto the chair outside the bathroom, walked in naked, and took my phone in with me while I was at it — I have a habit of playing music while I shower, so I propped the phone on the rack by the sink and turned the volume up. The hot water came down, and a whole day’s stiffness ran down from the back of my neck. Eyes closed, I lathered foam all over myself, my fingertips gliding across my chest, my belly, the joins of my thighs, and that slick, clean sensation always let the thing inside me settle into a quiet satisfaction. Only when I’m alone am I my complete self — a line I’ve never said to a single soul.
【Her · The Dentist】The water was too loud; at first I didn’t hear it. Only after I’d rinsed the foam off my head and reached out to shut off the showerhead did I hear the phone buzzing on the rack — a call. I grabbed it with wet hands; the screen showed the delivery platform’s number. I hit answer and wedged the phone between my ear and shoulder, the steam still swirling around the bathroom.
【Him · The Delivery Guy】“Hello, your takeout’s here,” I said, standing in the third-floor corridor of her building, the still-hot food bag in my hand. “I’ve been knocking a while and nobody answered.” On the other end was running water and faint music, and a woman’s voice, cool and detached, nice to listen to: “Sorry, I’m in the shower, just leave it at the door, thanks.” I said sure, left it at the door. But after I hung up I didn’t leave — the corridor’s motion light had gone out, I couldn’t be bothered to move, so I crouched by the shoe cabinet outside her door and scrolled my phone a while, figuring I’d head down once the light came back on. It was just that much of a coincidence.
【Her · The Dentist】I assumed he set it down and left. After maybe a dozen seconds, guessing he’d gone downstairs, I grabbed a white towel off the hook and dabbed at myself a couple of careless times, barely wrapping my dripping body — the towel wasn’t big, only enough to cover from my chest to the tops of my thighs, both wet legs bare, my chest still wet and dripping. I padded barefoot across the cool floor and trotted out to open the door, thinking only of getting the food inside while it was hot.
【Her · The Dentist】The moment I pulled the door open, I froze on the spot. The takeout wasn’t sitting alone at the door — someone was crouched there — that delivery guy hadn’t left, his head tilted up, facing me directly. The corridor’s motion light, startled by something, had flicked on, lighting me up perfectly clearly: wet hair plastered to my cheeks, water still rolling down below my collarbone, my body barely wrapped in a towel, both legs bare. He froze, I froze, and in that instant it was quiet enough to hear my own heartbeat.
【Her · The Dentist】“…Thanks.” Almost by instinct I bent to snatch up the food bag from the floor, my face flaring hot at once, one hand pressed down hard on the length of towel at my chest for fear it would slip, and turned to carry the food inside. “Sorry about this,” he said, standing up, his voice young, with a hint of a laugh, “the light went out, I’ll head off in a bit.” I didn’t dare turn around, gave a vague grunt, and slammed the door shut behind me, then stood with my back against it, panting, my heart pounding hard. Shame poured over me like hot water from head to toe — and yet, right at the very bottom of that shame, the thing that lies so quietly inside my body suddenly gave the faintest, most secret little shiver. I didn’t even have time to curse myself.
【Him · The Delivery Guy】It was only the moment the door shut that I realized I was still holding my phone up. In that instant the light came on just now, I’d pressed the shutter without thinking. I looked down at the screen — an image sat in the album, frighteningly clear: a beautiful woman wrapped in a white towel, hair wet, legs snow-pale, standing at her own door, her face captured perfectly. My heart was beating a little fast. I knew I shouldn’t keep this photo, but my finger didn’t go to delete it. I stuffed the phone into my pocket and went down the stairs slowly, and all night those three seconds were all that was in my head. That cool, detached beauty of hers, and the body the towel couldn’t hide — like a splinter, once it drives in, you can’t pull it out.
【Her · The Dentist】That night I barely tasted the food. I sat at the table, my hair still half-wet, replaying those three seconds at the door over and over — the way he looked up at me, that single instant the motion light lit me up. I told myself it was nothing; who doesn’t have an awkward moment, he’s just a delivery guy, he’d forget it the moment he turned around. But after I turned off the light and lay down, my body was more honest than my head — the joins of my thighs went sore and hot, and when I slid my hand down, my fingertips came away wet at once. In the dark I bit my lower lip, shame tangled with another thing I couldn’t put into words, and I hated myself, and couldn’t stop. I thought it was just an accident, that it would pass soon. I was wrong.