It’s only a tooth, goddamn it! How hard can it be?

She tried again, swollen eyes spilling over from effort and from pain, but an innate and instinctive desire to protect her body from wilful mutilation kicked in, and she had to stop. Laura realised she was not going to be able to pull the tooth out without some creativity.

Haunted by the image of her darling Bobby with his arms wrapped around a mystery man, she searched for, and found, more alcohol, and a small wrap of cannabis that her boyfriend had hidden on top of a kitchen cabinet. She rolled a large, messy spliff, and fantasized about what she would do, when she was free of it all. A house by the sea, perhaps. A dog. Maybe even a child, one day. The possibilities were limitless, if she could only break free of this terrible bondage, this terrible pact she had somehow entered into. Command, and obey. Suffer, in silence. An eye for an eye.

A tooth for a tooth.

She picked up the pliers again.

And this time, she didn’t stop.

19.

Her boyfriend found her lying on the floor of her kitchenette, blood everywhere, a single, broken molar lying in the palm of her hand. He stared, speechless, as she lay in her own mess, conscious, but unmoving. Her nose was swollen and lopsided, her eyes were two large black shadows in her face, and her mouth dribbled congealed blood and splinters of tooth. In a panic, he called an ambulance, which took her to the hospital, where he stayed with her as they reset her nose and patched up her mouth. He was angry, confused, and aware suddenly that Laura had secrets beyond his comprehension.

Unbeknownst to him, a tall man in a dark blue t-shirt ambled up and down the car-park outside the accident and emergency ward, pulling a now very old black and white collie dog behind him. He did this for hours, until Laura was discharged, and watched as she left in a taxi with her boyfriend.

Then, he left, and the collie left with him.

Laura broke her relationship off four days later. A parting of ways had been brewing for a while, anyway, largely due to her own fear of intimacy. And she realised that she just couldn’t bear to let anyone else into the sad, desperate triangle that was Bobby, X and her. Her ex seemed relieved: she’d thought he might, after their trip to the hospital. Who would want to date a woman who pulled out her own, perfectly healthy, teeth? He wished her well, politely, and she did the same, and that was that. She was alone again.

Apart from X.

The tooth she wrapped in cling film, and left in a small alcove in the wall near her apartment’s front door. One hour later, the tooth was gone, and she allowed herself to tentatively hope for a small respite, as X enjoyed the fruits of her labour.