Chapter 14
Aiden
“Hi, I have an appointment at ten thirty,” I say, approaching the desk at my new dental office in central Bath. “It’s just a checkup. I don’t need any fillings or anything like that. I rarely eat lollies or choccies, and I’m very good at brushing.”
The receptionist smiles in that polite and practiced way they do when someone like me comes along and overexplains everything. She waits for me to finish.
I can’t shut up for some reason. “My last dentist, Doctor West, told me I was an exceptional brusher, but obviously I don’t have Doctor West any more.”
“What’s the name?”
“Uh . . . Doctor Holt?”
She smiles again. Unsurprisingly, she has perfect teeth. “Your name, please, luv?”
“Oh.” God, why am I like this? “Aiden Campbell.” I’m already playing haunting reruns of this entire interaction inside my brain and it’s not even over yet.
“This is your first time at Collins Mills?” she says.
I nod and pinch my mouth closed to stop any more verbal diarrhoea. Hopefully she’ll mistake my weird behaviour as nerves, and not correctly pinpoint it to my general awkwardness.
“No problem. If you could just fill out this lifestyle questionnaire and an equality and diversity survey, and take a seat in the waiting area. Doctor Holt will be with you in a few minutes.” The receptionist hands me a clipboard and a pen.
The waiting room seats are stiff, but genuine leather, and the air smells of that weird dentist clean that makes me feel like I’m six years old again.
Chemicals and mouthwash and disinfectant, and that soapy, squeaky smell of latex gloves.
I hate it. On the walls, posters advertise the latest dental treatments and finance options for said treatments, and a nearby screen placed an inch from the ceiling plays UK daytime telly on mute with delayed and somewhat questionable subtitles.
The clock next to the TV reminds me I’ve arrived twenty-five minutes early for my appointment and will be stuck in this uncomfortable room for quite some time.
I fill out the first form. It’s mostly questions like, do I smoke, do I drink, how often do I exercise, et cetera.
I read each question two or three times, just in case one’s been designed to trick me and will make my new dentist point and laugh, but I’m accidentally a model student.
I don’t smoke, don’t binge drink—that often—don’t do drugs, don’t gamble, and I exercise for a living.
I’m sexually active, but always use protection, eat healthily most of the time, spend a lot of time with friends and visiting places of cultural enrichment.
Maybe I am winning at life after all. Though I have no spouse or dependents, and I think one day I might like both.
The second form, the equality and diversity monitoring survey, is the standard fare. I’ve already answered these questions hundreds of times before, and the answers are always black and white. No room for interpretation or trickery. Thank fuck.
Age? Twenty-three.
Ethnicity? White, from another background, in brackets Australian.
Gender? Male. Cis.
Disability? None.
Religion? Also none.
It’s when I get to the sexual orientation field that my pen hovers mid-air.
In the past, I would have checked the “heterosexual” box without putting much consideration into it.
I may have had thoughts about guys before, but it’d been easy to argue with myself that they’d meant nothing, and that everyone had those thoughts at some point.
After all, nobody’s in control of their brains one hundred per cent of the time.
But now I’ve had more than just thoughts . . . I’ve had actions.
I puff all the air out of my lungs slowly.
There’s a dark-haired man in the waiting room sitting opposite me. He doesn’t look up from his phone, but I know he’s watching me. I can sense it. Judging my inability to commit to a box.
“You’re not bisexual enough to check the bisexual box,” he’s thinking.
“You’re a fraud. A phoney. One semi-drunken wristie with your teammate doesn’t make you queer.
All guys have done that at some point. It’s camaraderie.
Everyone’s been sloshed and made their friends come.
Probably. You’re no different from any other straight dude. ”
I bring my pen down to the hetero box. Pause.
Fuck, why is this so hard? Why is my heart beating as though I’ve been on the pitch for eighty minutes without being subbed?
Memories of last week flood my brain. Of Eggo breaking, cum spraying from his cock, his words, “Oh, shit no, I’m coming.”
I wish I’d had the sense to watch his face, as he’d watched mine.
I have to cross my legs.
Dark-haired guy still doesn’t look up. Maybe I’ve got away with it. More likely he’s waiting for that moment to march over and slap the clipboard out of my hands.
I should just check the “straight” box and be fucking done with it.
His phone rings, and he answers in hushed tones. “Hey . . . No, I can’t really chat right now . . . No, I’m still waiting . . .”
Quickly, before anyone else notices me, I pull the hem of my shirt up over my mouth and whisper, “I’m not straight,” before scribbling an X in the bisexual check box, slamming my forms face down onto the seat next to me, and exhaling as slowly as possible.
I did it.
“Mr Campbell?” A woman in a white dentist’s coat leans into the waiting area.
“Yes,” I reply, getting to my feet and grinning from ear to ear.
I can’t believe I did it.