On the ceiling, Patrick Star runs the rolling hills of Jellyfish Fields, a bamboo jellyfishing net grasped firmly in his fingerless fist. Below, Kyoko K climbs into the scrunching leather dental chair and opens wide.

At twenty-seven, K is nearly two decades older than the rest of Dr. Fred’s regular patients, but since Topine Family Dental is the only dental practice in town that accepts her crappy health insurance, she’s here in this empty office tonight, staring at the Spongebob stickers on the walls, waiting for Dr. Fred to start drilling the cavity in her bottom right molar.

“Hello again, Mrs. K,” Dr. Fred says, towering over K like a skyscraper. “So it’s just the one filling tonight? You’re sure I can’t interest you in a two-for-one deal? You are our last customer for the night.”

Without giving K a chance to answer, Dr. Fred laughs a booming laugh and pulls up a stool. As he snaps on a pair of latex gloves, a thirty-year-old woman in turquoise scrubs enters the room and delivers a tray of glinting steel dental tools and a small syringe.

“You’re the best, Janny-poo,” Dr. Fred says, winking at the woman. The woman gives him a mischievous smile and runs her hand along his shoulders and leaves the room. Following the woman’s exit, the thick, fruity smell of strawberry perfume hangs in the air.

Dr. Fred breathes a contented sigh and picks up the syringe. As he leans over K’s open mouth, his cheeks flush red; his eyes go glazed and watery; his lips behind his clear face shield curl into a sloppy grin. Though it worries K to see her dentist devolve into something resembling a drunken frat boy just before drilling into her teeth, she tells herself it’s nothing and lets it go. After moving into a new house with her husband Nick last month and starting a part-time job working the cash register at the Value King supermarket down the street, the last thing K needs right now is more stress.

“Just a little pinch to numb the pain,” Dr. Fred says, raising the syringe.

Moments before K feels the bite of the needle, Dr. Fred turns his head and looks at something in the hallway. Worried, K follows his gaze and sees the woman in the turquoise scrubs bent over in front of a supply closet, her rear end sticking out into the hallway. As if sensing their eyes on her, the woman looks over her shoulder, raises her eyebrows at Dr. Fred, and licks her lips.

Dr. Fred groans softly and gives K the shot of lidocaine. But with his gaze still fixed on the woman in the hallway, he misses K’s gums and jams the syringe into the side of her tongue instead.

“Mmmmmm,” K says, moaning in pain. She presses her eyes closed and crushes the dental chair’s armrests. Hot tears slide down her cheeks and leak into her ears.

“Yup, ah, that’s perfect, just like that,” Dr. Fred says, his voice soft and breathy and distant.

With her tongue roaring in pain and her blood beating in her ears, K raises her right leg and slams her heel against the footrest of the dental chair. The loud metallic clang jolts Dr. Fred from his reverie and he calmly removes the syringe from K’s mouth.

“Okay, so while we wait for the lidocaine to take effect, we’ll get everything else ready to go,” Dr. Fred says, finally tearing his gaze from the woman in the turquoise scrubs. Then he slides his stool in front of the computer behind K and starts typing.

K spits a rope of blood into the rinsing bowl and groans in pain. Despite the presence of the lidocaine, the sharp, throbbing pain in her tongue gets more intense by the minute. Then, as she turns around and tries to get Dr. Fred’s attention to tell him about this pain, she catches a glimpse of the woman in the hallway. The woman is still rummaging through the supply closet just as before, but now the top of her turquoise scrubs is gone, and her black bra is in full view of anyone who might walk into the office. Threaded into her brown hair and draped over her bare shoulders are long white strings of dental floss.

“What the hell is going on here?” K tries to say, but her tongue flops huge and stupid in her mouth, slurring her words into nonsense. Dr. Fred ignores K. His fingers swarm the keyboard, creating a symphony of clattering keystrokes. The woman in the hallway keeps rummaging through the supply closet.

Enraged by this nonsense and worried about her quickly swelling tongue, K climbs out of the dental chair and taps Dr. Fred on the shoulder. When he doesn’t turn around or acknowledge her presence, K looks at the computer. On the screen she sees a word document quickly filling with words. Thinking he’s writing a report about the injury to her tongue, K reads a few lines.

and then the incredibly sexy and naughty dental assistant who just can’t get enough of the studly doctor Frankfooter’s superhot spankings goes over to the supply closet for more of the necessary unwaxed dental floss and

“My God,” K grunts to herself, her tongue too swollen to fit inside her mouth anymore. “This is an office for children! How sick can you be?”

A fat droplet of drool snaps off the end of K’s giant tongue and plops onto the back of Dr. Fred’s neck, but he ignores her and continues typing.

Disgusted that she’s ever associated herself with these people, K turns around and walks toward the exit of the office. But before she can leave the exam room, the woman in the turquoise scrubs appears in the doorway and blocks her path.

“Please be patient, Mrs. K,” The woman says, her voice pleasant and professional. The top of her scrubs is still missing. “Dr. Frankfooter is just about to start the procedure.”

K gapes at the woman in disbelief and points to her own aching mouth. Like a dead animal draped over a hunter’s shoulder, K’s massive tongue hangs limp and heavy, its pink mass extending down to her waist.

“Can you not see this? I have to go to the hospital!” K says, her words tumbling from her mouth as garbled gibberish.

“Yes, I agree, it’s a beautiful tongue,” the woman says, smiling at K. “The studly Dr. Frankfooter does wonderful work. He’s a great, great man.”

The woman lets out a contented sigh and walks past K and leans her head on Dr. Fred’s shoulder. Then she wraps her arms around his chest and stares at the screen as he continues his furious typing. Sensing her opportunity to escape this place, K hurries down the hallway and strides into the lobby. But just before she arrives at the front door of the office, the woman in the turquoise scrubs screams at her from behind.

“You goddamn little thief,” the woman shouts, her voice scratchy and shrill. “I know exactly what you’re doing. Using your feminine wiles to con my studly Dr. Frankfooter into giving you tongue-augmentation surgery for free. Disgusting. I bet you think you’re so smart. But I’ve got news for you, lady. You’re not going to get away with it this time.”

Strings of dental floss flutter from the woman’s shoulders as she darts past K with surprising speed. Before K can react, the woman shoves a heavy couch in front of the exit and clambers over the vacant reception desk. In seconds the woman is screaming into the telephone, demanding that the police arrest the dangerous individual who is burglarizing her dental office.

In a panic K presses her shoulder against the couch and starts to push. But the drool dripping from her massive tongue slicks the wood floor with liquid, and she crashes to the ground. Soon the quiet calm of the office fills with the wail of approaching police sirens.

K scrambles to her hands and knees and heaves her gargantuan tongue over her shoulder. As she pushes the couch out of the way, she feels a series of sharp jabs in her arms and legs. Looking around the lobby for the source, K sees the woman in the turquoise scrubs sitting on the edge of the reception desk. The woman is talking on the phone and lazily winging pens at K.

“Yup, uh huh, sure thing, baby,” the woman says in a bored monotone. She flings a blue gel pen at K’s knee and runs her hand through her tangled brown hair. Strands of dental floss float to the desk like oblong snowflakes.

With the woman distracted, K bursts through the front door and scrambles out into the night. The woman in the turquoise scrubs watches without interest and picks up a black pen and tosses it at K’s back. The pen plinks against the wall beside the door and falls between the cushions of the couch. The woman sighs into the phone.

“Yeah, we should be done soon, baby. The last patient we had was a nightmare. Just wait until you hear the kind of nonsense she tried to pull. It’s absolutely incredible. I swear, Chris. Sometimes these people make me want to slam my head against the wall. It’s so frustrating.”

Steve Gergley is a writer and runner based in Warwick, New York. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Cleaver Magazine, Hobart, Pithead Chapel, After the Pause, Barren Magazine, and others. In addition to writing fiction, he has composed and recorded five albums of original music. His fiction can be found at: https://stevegergleyauthor.wordpress.com/