by Lynn Red
As soon as she had stripped down and dumped an appropriate amount of chemical-laden bubble bath into the water, which really irritated her mom, Rika’s ancient cell phone started buzzing in the other room. It was one of the ones she had to flip open and press actual buttons to use. She trotted into the other room, and almost had a coronary when she saw “DR MELTON DENT” on the screen. It was too small to display the entire word dentist.
She furrowed her brow and answered. “Hello?”
Expecting his secretary, when that leathery, gruff voice slid through her crackly phone speaker, she just about melted. There aren’t a lot of people who list ‘going to the dentist’ as one of their favorite pastimes but then again, most people didn’t see this guy.
“Hello?” she asked, her voice unexpectedly husky. “Oh sorry, I already said that.”
Dr. Melton chuckled. “That’s all right,” he said. “Listen, Paprika, there are some, er, scheduling conflicts today.” In the background, she heard a whistle, like the whistle of a train? “I’m afraid I’ll have to reschedule your consultation.”
She picked at one of her incisors. “It’s pretty bad,” she said. “They popped back out.”
He chuckled again. Damn it why does he have to laugh hot? She imagined those dark brown eyes, his slightly shaggy hair, and the way his left cheek dimpled when he smiled. More than once, she’d thought about some bedside service to go with his bedside manner, but she forced herself not to think about that. Down to business, Paprika, stop getting all breathy.
“Oh, hm,” another train whistle sounded behind him.
“Are you traveling somewhere?” she asked.
“Me? No, I’m... what do you mean?”
“Nothing, I can just hear trains. Must be my phone being ten years old and shitty.”
Suddenly the trains stopped. Paprika quirked an eyebrow. “No clue,” Dr. Melton said, obviously ignoring something. “So would you be able to come by earlier instead of later? And how about we just skip the consult. We both know why you’re coming in. And anyway, I can’t wait to see you. You’re like digging through a trashcan and finding a box of sealed Twinkies and a triple meat cheeseburger wrapped in foil. And, uh, the garbage can is—”
“Huh?” Rika asked. “Was that an attempted compliment?”
He laughed, easily and carelessly, despite having just tried to compliment Paprika by comparing her to a lucky dumpster dive. “Oh, you know, bear thing,” he said, then chuckled a little more. “One man’s trash is one bear’s—“
“Yeah, yeah,” she said with a little more eagerness than she meant. “I won’t take offense at being called a Twinkie, but the line is drawn at trash.”
He sounded a little flustered when he apologized, and even that was cute. The two of them chuckled, both a little uneasy. There was something between them – there had always been something between them, from the very first visit she had. She smiled and said goodbye, and that was that. Rika let out a long sigh.
“It’s one of those days,” she told her little friend. “You know what I mean.”
If it could have answered, the pink rod with the ball bearings and several points of what the package called “intimate stimulation” would have nodded. Oh God yeah I know what you mean, it would have said. Just remember to change the batteries outside the tub this time.
As she settled in, closed her eyes, and began to imagine how it would feel to have Thor’s arms around her, to curl his long, brown curls around her fingers, to have his hands rake through her hair. The buzzing started, and she was already halfway to her toes curling up and goosebumps replacing that blush.
That time, when the tiny furs on the back of her neck started sprouting, and her teeth got a little longer? That time, Paprika didn’t mind one bit.
-2-
“You didn’t even have to give me the giggle gas to make me do that. I must be going nuts, huh?”
-Rika
“Paprika Lewis?”
The words rang out like a church bell ripping through what would otherwise be a perfectly normal, sane, restful Sunday morning. It’s a pretty sound – even a pleasant one – but they always seem to hit at exactly the wrong times.
Like now, Rika had just started reading a really juicy scandal article from a six-year-old copy of The Cedar Falls Examiner that she found stashed in Dr. Melton’s magazine rack. How it got there, she’d never been able to guess, since the office had only existed for three years. The article in question was an in-depth expose about some rock act that came through town. Turns out, they lined the pockets of the town councilman in charge of vetting permits. He let them play past midnight!
As you know, Rika’s sister Petunia once said, the only good reason to be out after midnight is because you’re getting into some real trouble. Like, the fun kind. That nugget of wisdom came the morning after Paprika wired her entire life savings to her sister to bail her out of jail. Petunia gave her a list of charges, but she was almost sure half of them weren’t real, and the other half were dialed down. Either way, she’d learned how damn hard it was to get a wire transfer at midnight.
Turns out, she tried to burn down a carrot farm or something out of some displaced anti-maternal rage, and had also tried to kidnap a bear shifter. The details were a little hazy, and in her defense, Tuna – that’s what Rika always called her as a little girl, and it stuck – had been going through some pretty serious shit back then. Back then being about six months in the past.
“Ms. Lewis?”
Abby, Dr. Melton’s hygienist – yeah the only one – who sometimes moonlighted as his assistant when whoever the newest hire was invariably failed to show, appeared at the door. Or, Paprika thought, from the way she was pursing her lips, she’d probably been standing there a while. And she couldn’t even use the “oh I thought you were calling someone else” line, because the whole damn place was bereft of life.
“Sorry,” she said bashfully, going with the honest route. “Reading some article about a corrupt politician.”
Abby snorted a laugh. “Ain’t they all? Say, do you have any idea how that paper got here? I’ve always wondered.”
Rika shrugged and smiled as they went back to room three on the left.
After she was all polished up, Abby rose from her chair, excused herself and exited stage left.
Without a newspaper to gawk at, the passage of time between her exit and his entrance seemed to stretch into infinity. She just stared, her brain zoned completely into the back of the short, industrial-looking green garbage can outside the window. It was framed on either side by honeysuckle she could smell through the glass, but the blank green space gave her thoughts a screen on which to appear.
She’d always done that when she had things on the brain. Just stare and stare and stare until something made sense. Or, as the case often was, until she realized that she probably needed to sleep more. She just didn’t know what to do – it wasn’t like life was bad or anything, but living at home at almost thirty, not finding any damn job at all, much less one that would use the sociology degree she’d gotten six years before? It’s enough to beat a girl down pretty hard.
And then there was the constant contact with her mother, who she dearly loved, but come on – vibrator moving? She was worried about her sister, too. Petunia had never been the most rock-solid stable bun in the bunch, and even though it seemed like she was happier out in whatever that town was – Jamestown? Jeffsburg? Something like that – Rika still wanted to make sure her big sister was okay.
And then there was all the mate business. She wanted one – obviously, judging from how much use Henry had gotten lately – but it was a complicated thing. If she shacked up with a human, that’d be okay even if the kids only had a half shot at shifting.
“Jesus, Rika,” she said, laughing softly. “Haven’t even found the mate yet and you’re already thinking about kids.”
“Getting ahead of yourself is about as dangerous a thing as you can do,” Dr. Melton said, his entrance marked b
y the smell of boot leather, the faint aroma of a manly, impossible-to-hide-from-rabbit-senses musk, and a touch of very reasonably applied CK1.
“Sorry,” he said, sitting down on his rolling stool. “Bear ears, they pick things up. Anyway, kids are fun. You don’t have any, if I recall?”
Paprika shook her head, subconsciously trying to cool her blushing before it crept out of her shirt. This close to Thor though it was almost impossible, especially with the oh my God please throw me against this wall or bend me over this table full of teeth models and do me right here pheromones he was throwing off. So instead, she just smiled, trying very hard not to show him her buckteeth.
He nodded. “Right, so what brings you in? Not that I mind since... well obviously business is pretty slow.”
“Teeth,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s what I normally do take care of. What’s up with yours?”
“They popped out again, won’t go back. “
“Ah hah. Well, let’s take a look. Shifter problems,” he said absently, as he slid the paper mask over his nose. “Well, good thing you have someone to see about this stuff. Although I’d kinda love to hear a human’s reaction to ‘jeez doc, I turned into a rabbit, my teeth popped out and broke my retainer, and now I can’t get them to go back’.”
A laugh – really more of a honking snort – burst out of Rika. Dr. Melton was smiling too, she could tell by the way his eyes crinkled just a little in the corners and sparkled. If he didn’t have that mask on, she woulda seen him twitch the corner of his mouth, his own little spoiler move for an upcoming joke.
“Guess we do kinda stick together, huh?” she asked, eager to keep the tension broken. If she didn’t, Paprika was a little afraid of her own imagination. What if she started imagining... things happening? What if she just lost all sense of decency and just jumped his bones? That wasn’t too likely, but better safe than sorry, right?
A noncommittal grunt was his answer, though she could see he was still smiling behind the mask.
“How did you say this happens?” he was just idling chatting, but he couldn’t possibly have asked a more horrifying question.
“I dunno,” Paprika said. “Happens at night mostly. I’ll wake up, retainer’s broken and my teeth are out. It’s like I’m shifting in my sleep or something.”
“Mm-hmm,” he sailed right on past.
For a few moments, he worked in silence, checking for cavities she never had, and then taking a handful of X-rays since it had apparently been a year since the last set. They came back clear. About ten minutes of idle chit-chat and small talk and dentistry later, he turned the boat back around. “What kind of dreams do you have?”
“Hunh?” Paprika said, almost swallowing the mouthful of fluoride she was supposed to spit in the sink. “Dreams? What do you mean—Oh,“ she said. “Oh, uh... I didn’t say that.”
She spat, several times. Had to make sure that goo was all gone. And also had to make sure she didn’t say anything ridiculous, such as telling the truth. Oh nothing much, just sex dreams where you spank me and sometimes I scratch you some and then you spank me harder.
There it went, the blush. It crept up her stomach and flushed her cheeks, turning the sides of her neck bright red.
“Well,” his voice was soft, but there was a little huskiness to it, a little gravel in the stream. “If it happens at night, it’s probably tied to a dream.” His fingertips brushed along Paprika’s jaw. Or at least that’s what she thought. Really he was checking alignment – her mother had TMJ – but to her, it was a light, sensual brush of his fingertips against her jaw, then her neck.
Okay, pretty sure neck brushes aren’t part of a normal dental exam.
She looked up, squinting against the overhead exam light. Dr. Melton was staring down at her, fingers curling absently against her neck. “Oh!” he said with a start. “Sorry about that, I, uh,” he trailed off.
“Yeah, dreams,” she said, saving him from being awkward that time. “They’re usually just regular ones, you know, the things people dream.”
Okay that sounded about as stupid as my poetry in middle school.
“Right,” Thor whispered. “Regular dreams. Flying? That sort of thing?”
What is going on? Like what is really going on here? First I’m having weird sex dreams about my mysterious, thirty-something bear-shifting dentist and now he’s apparently doing the same thing?
She let out a nervous giggle and decided to test the water. “Well I guess they might’ve been a little steamy.”
That was innocuous enough. Right? Right? Oh God why isn’t he talking? Did I just offend the—
“Incredible,” he whispered. Those dark eyes were trained straight on Paprika’s, like he was drilling holes straight into her soul. The warmth she felt was unmistakable, the tingling that ran up her spine, then down her legs? She didn’t want to imagine what was going to happen thirty seconds from now if one of them didn’t get some common sense.
“Fuck it,” she said out loud. Paprika, red coils of hair splayed all over the exam chair, reached up and grabbed her bear by his ears since that was all she could reach. She opened her mouth, expecting a kiss, but got a mouthful of soft, but rough, paper surgical mask.
For a second, the two just sat there, lips pressed against each other, through a mask, and then Paprika first, Thor second, both of them started laughing. What else was there to do? The choices were laugh, get all embarrassed, or admit the reality that she just grabbed a guy she didn’t know past the twinkle in his eyes and the glint of laughter in the tiny crinkles at the corners of his eyes, and kissed him in the middle of an exam.
“I’m... I’m sorry, I have no idea what the hell I was thinking, Dr. Melton,” she said. “I guess I just started thinking about being a Twinkie or a cheeseburger or whatever it was, and—“
Taking off his mask, he was all smiles. “Nothing to worry about. I admit that I don’t usually stroke the necks of my clients. Something came over me,” he paused for a second. “I was staring at your eyes, and your hair, and those beautiful teeth, and—“
“Wait, did you just say beautiful teeth? That’s, okay well that’s a little weird in any case, but mine are far from beautiful. They stick out like a cartoon rabbit.”
He shook his head and immediately looked distracted, like he’d gone about four steps too far, which he had, although in this case, it wasn’t really him that took those first steps straight off the edge of appropriate and into possible-court-date town.
For that though, someone needed to be upset.
“But they’re you,” he said finally. “They’re nothing to be ashamed about. Looking at you, I—“ He cut himself off. “You know, this is a game I won’t win. I play it with myself, with my heart. And I’m doing it again.”
“That took a turn for the dark,” Paprika said, still smiling with one corner of her mouth. “Do you wanna, like, get a coffee or something?”
“I think I’m moving,” he said. “Business is dying down, and I’ve been looking at new places. I saw a job posting online that was vague and weird, but honestly? It sounds pretty good right about now.”
“Whoa, whoa, wait a second. Stop the press. Why are you telling me this?”
He scrunched up his forehead. “Because you’re going to have to find another dentist?”
“No, I mean, why are you telling me this now? We hardly even know each other, I got all excited and kissed you through a mask and then you said some stuff about me being beautiful and then you announced you were leaving. It’s all kind of fast paced, you know?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking down, obviously thinking about something else and wishing he’d never said half the stuff he said. “I’m not used to dealing with, you know, not-bears. We’re kinda direct.”
“Yeah,” Rika said with a chuckle and a playful grin. “Yeah, I kinda get that. If my mom knew what just happened she’d probably already be planning a wedding and four baby showers.”
He cocked an eye
brow. “Four?”
“Big litters in my family.”
It was Thor’s turn to let out a booming laugh. When he really got going, he leaned his head back all the way and just roared.
“I talk when I’m nervous,” Rika offered, like she was extending a sympathetic hand. “And also kiss, apparently.”
“I do too. Terrible habit. I have the even worse habit of seeing something I want and refusing to let go until it’s mine.” His voice went all growly and gravely and so sexy it almost hurt.
“Like trashcan Twinkies?”
He watched her face, his look hungry and intense. “Yeah,” he said.
She was starting to get so flushed and flustered that if she didn’t do something quick, Paprika was going to take her public display of desperation to a whole new level. A kiss was one thing, but pushing her dentist over and actually jumping on him? Probably somewhere over the line.
“Hey,” she cut in, “uh, you said something about finding a job ad online? Where are you looking to go?” I’ll go with you, God as my witness, I don’t care where we go, I’ll go with you is what she wanted to say.
He furrowed his brow again, a deep frown line crinkling his forehead. “Weirdest thing. I’m not sure. There was a job posting, and all it said was something vague about mountains, and then gave a number to call if you were interested.
“That’s not normal. Wait, was this in one of our papers?” Shifters, weres, whatever they’re called, have “for them” papers that usually contain old news stories about this bear or that tiger making the draft in the NFL, or a seal getting elected to the US Senate. But they also had job postings that, if you looked at them with the slightest squint, seemed like creepy sex ads you’d find in a vintage 1976 corner paper in Vegas.
He shook his head. “Well, mine.”
She quirked an eyebrow. It had worked. Apparently. Thank God.
“Dental journal. You know, job ads for dentists.”
