Mental Hygiene
It’s no secret or surprise that we’re creatures of ingrained habits. We all have our quirks, our mannerisms, our particular obsessions. It’s our way of dealing with the whirring wheels of the world and all the madness that lurks in-between the gears, just waiting for the right moment to catch us off-guard and devour everything we are.
A lot of things were holy for Luke Graham and, as strange as that may sound to most of you, there was nothing he valued more than his toothpaste. It was a fundamental part of his ritualized Self, a memory of yonder days that had grown with his body and mind into the sometimes surprisingly tough days of adulthood. He had been using that particular brand for more than twenty years and he never once contemplated the prospect of change in that matter.
Then, he met Jenna and the delight of her blue eyes, curly, brown hair and slender body; Jenna, who made his heart jump with a sense of completeness one can only hope to find in the presence of a genuine soul mate; Jenna, the dental hygienist whose smile was warm enough to melt the Polar ice caps in no more than a couple of seconds and that liked everything about him except a certain discoloration of his teeth.
“We have to do something about that,” she said one day whilst they snuggled against each other in a comfy bed. It was right around the sixth month of their acquaintance and only fifteen days after they decided to live together in his apartment.
“Like what?” he asked, breathing softly on her neck and feeling the delicacy of her breasts with his fingers.
“You’ll see,” she responded and kissed him lusciously.
On the next day, when she got home from work, the first thing she did was to go inside the master bathroom and replace his toothpaste, brush and plastic cup with products she had brought from the clinic. Luke was bewildered by the fact and more than slightly annoyed too, but she said it was all for the sake of his dental care whilst teasing him with the buttons of her satin shirt.
“Trust me.” she cooed, exposing a portion of her cleavage and giving him just a hint of her laced, black bra with one hand whilst sliding the other all over his jeans until the engorging hardness softened his frustration. He did what she asked and started using the new stuff, though he wasn’t entirely pleased with the fact.
There were many things he didn’t like about the new toothpaste. The first was its unintelligible chemical composition, with all sorts of strange ingredients he couldn’t pronounce or spell properly; the second was the white texture itself but most especially the small crystals mixed within that seemed to change colour every time he applied the paste on the brush; the third was its minty flavour, that was far more intense than he was used to; and finally, there was the fact that whenever he finished brushing, he usually felt very hazy, to the point that, sometimes when he looked at the mirror, all he saw was a blur of himself and not a real man.
It took him a week but, naturally, he ended up telling Jenna all about it. The conversation took place in the living room, on their black sofa.
“I want my old toothpaste back, honey. I know you meant well, but this one isn’t working for me.”
She pouted at his remark.
“Allow me to differ. Have you looked at your smile lately? It’s so much livelier than before! You can’t stop now!”
“But I feel bad when I use it, don’t you get it?”
“It’s all in your head, honey. You had been using that toothpaste of yours for so long now that you’re having difficulties coping up with the change. Please, baby, just try it out for a bit longer and you’ll feel better, I promise!”
“I don’t think I can…” he said truthfully and averted eye contact. “I’m sorry, Jenna.”
She got up, exasperated.
“Sorry? Sorry isn’t going to cut it, Luke. I’m trying to look out for you, here and suddenly I’m getting the feeling that you don’t trust my good judgment on this issue! The ‘why’ is beyond me, but if you go forward with your idea, you won’t get to kiss me ever again, that’s for sure!”
“Hmmm… aren’t you overreacting a bit?”
“No, I’m not. I want you to be at your best in everything and yet you seem to settle for something less when it comes to your oral hygiene. Given my line of work, that hurts a lot, you know?”
“Jenna… I…”
“We’re done, now!” she exclaimed, walking away from him. “I’m going out for a while. I need to get some air.”
And so Luke was left alone, genuinely disturbed with the fact that something so simple could bring about such a fuss…. When Jenna returned an hour later, she didn’t say a word to him and went to sleep in the other bedroom. In the middle of the night, he heard her cry and it tore his heart apart.
The very next day, Luke looked at the ill-fated toothpaste tube and, when confronted with remembrances of the past and the affection and joy he had in the present, he chose the latter. As he brushed his teeth with the odd mixture, Jenna came from behind and kissed him gently on his right cheek.
“Thank you,” she said. “I love you, Luke!”
“I love you too, Jenna,” he thought as she slid away. “More than anything in the world….”
Luke still uses the toothpaste today and, just like she told him, after a while his smile got whiter, prettier and simply perfect. Jenna was overjoyed with the progress made, most especially in the side effects department. For you see, now, whenever he finishes taking care of his teeth, he is, in fact, one with the blur he glimpsed in the mirror, a much more pliable person, a properly trained drudge in the arts of devotion to a superior woman. The love she has for him in his normal state is nothing by comparison to the pleasure she feels when he’s completely at her beck and call.
And it is customary for scenes like the one depicted below to happen on a regular basis. When he goes to the bathroom, Jenna slips into a sexy outfit, usually a crotchless one, and purrs:
“Are you done, pet?”
“Yes, Mistress,” he replies dreamily as he’s confronted with her exposed sex and feels his knees trembling in anticipation.
“Then you may come and kiss my lips….” she orders as he sinks to the floor, wanting nothing more than to please.
