Molly Yingling
He could be handsome but for the tooth. The shriveled front tooth that juts from his mouth: gray, dead, but stubbornly suctioned to his gums. It makes his grins menacing; grimaces.
He smiles across the table at me.
The walls around us are bricked with stacks of rye bottles that a slammed door could topple. The air is smoky with burnt butter and charred meat. Somewhere a saw is whirring, cracking bones for marrow.
Our waiter places three glasses of whiskey on the table between us; a tasting, forming a gradient from clear to caramel to coffee. The menu boasts candied pigs, pickled oranges, dumplinged rabbits. I order octopus, tonguing each soft cup of the tentacle as I swallow. I am hungry for pie.
He takes his steak rare, tooth and knife flashing between bites, his tongue lapping at his mismatched lips: the top, thin; the bottom, swollen—as if too many well-deserved blows had landed upon it. His dark eyes look past me. They are set too close together. They pinch the bridge of his nose, his hairline gradually retreating from them. Me retreating from him.
Years ago, he had first kissed me with my back against the stained carpet of a stair landing. His tapered tongue darted into me. I should have recoiled.
We grew apart together. With each year, the tooth festered, becoming more pronounced as his face aged around it. He branded me; it tainted me.
The surface of the darkest whiskey craters within the glass as he sets it back on the table. I seize it, downing the dregs. I salivate in gushes; swallowing, swallowing. I take a sip of water. It has soured, as though something expired far back in the piping and the death has trickled into my glass. But I am alive. And perfectly potent with booze.
I reach for his hand resting beside the steak knife and trace the tendons, strumming them over bone until he pulls away.
They sharpen the knives here regularly. I could pare away my fingernails, tips, and prints.
I reach for his hand again, squeezing the base of his thumb until the knuckle cracks. His mouth opens in a soft sigh.
I stare at the tooth and plunge the knife downward in three darting stabs. Warm, syrupy red droplets spray onto my face.
He reaches toward me. His hands are cold, his touch a shiver. He swipes at a drop on my chin with his fingers. His uneven lips part and I see the tooth. He could devour me, gnash at my flesh like a blunt blade. I feel the sticky smear of red, drying on my cheeks, near bloodless.
He raises his hand to his mouth (that tooth) and licks. “Mmm. Strawberry.”
His tongue scours the ridges of his fingerprints clean; I brush the crust crumbs from my lap and begin dessert.
Molly Yingling is a writer and attorney from central Pennsylvania. Molly enjoys writing longer fiction and creative nonfiction in addition to flash fiction. Molly is an alumna of Gettysburg College, Villanova University, and the University of Houston.
