Dr. Joseph's Office Ch. 02

Part 2: Marsha

Going to the dentist always made Marsha feel nervous. Of course, most things that involved leaving her home made her nervous. She could deal with work, but that wasn't very frequent. Most of the time, her boss allowed her to work from home, but every so often, she had to actually come in to the actual office.

"Jesus, Marsha," her boss would say, "you've gotta find some way to get over your problems." And she would promise to try to come in more often, and promptly ignore that promise. The only reason she was still employed was that no one else in the office could match her when it came to editing.

She didn't even know the names of her neighbors. They probably barely noticed she existed. Certainly, she doubted they knew what she looked like. Everyone else around her seemed to go off to work or school with no hesitation. The few times she'd bothered to go outside, everything around her seemed still and quiet, like everyone had vanished.

Sometimes she wondered when exactly things had gone wrong for her. There wasn't really a defining incident that had pushed her into being so agoraphobic. Some agoraphobes had a sad story about being raped, or some other trauma that kept them from functioning normally in public. Marsha just didn't like going out in public. She was just naturally shy, and a few bad experiences over the years, combined with a personal tendency to drift without an external impetus, as well as the ability to telecommute, had turned her into someone who could barely leave her house without a great deal of preparation and worry.

It had taken her all morning to get herself ready for this appointment. Not because she expected any trouble. Just because she was seeing a completely new dentist, didn't mean that anything at all was wrong. But for two hours, she'd been at the edge of hyperventilating just from the thought of going outside.

Cautiously, slowly, she made her way towards the garage door. Napoleon, her grizzled tabby cat, eyed her from his perch atop the a bookcase in the living room. He seemed to be saying,Boy, these hoomans are weird, aren't they?His partner-in-crime, Gibbon, a beefy all-black cat, sprawled on the kitchen floor in Marsha's path, as if he knew about the turmoil in her head, and was saying,You don't really want to go out, so why even bother? Just stay here and pet me.He purred like a buzz-saw and rolled over to show his furry tummy.

"That's really cute of you," Marsha said, kneeling down to pet Gibbon's belly. "But I've got to go out and get myself taken care of. I can't just lay around doing nothing, like you guys." She withdrew her hand, ignoring Gibbon's pitiful, entreating glances, and stood up straight.

Without further ado, she opened the door to the garage. Before either Napoleon or Gibbon could rise to their feet, Marsha shut the door and locked it. They'd both escaped before, and that had terrified Marsha. It had meant the dilemma of either wandering around outside, looking for a small animal with a natural talent for concealment, or sitting inside, trembling in fear at the possibility that they might just never come back.

She hopped into her car, opened the garage door, turned the key in the ignition, and started backing up down the driveway. All around her, her little suburban neighborhood was still and quiet.

Except that her next-door neighbor was out in the yard. Marsha didn't know much about her, except that she worked the night shift somewhere. Aside from that, all Marsha knew was that her name was Lacey, and she was at least a decade younger than Marsha. The few times Marsha had seen her, she'd been exercising in the front yard.

Marsha ignored Lacey's wave, and turned out of the driveway. She didn't have the time to socialize, or the inclination. Perhaps part of that was rationalization, but she really did need to get to her appointment.

The drive was much easier than getting out of her house had been. In her car, Marsha could at least pretend she was walled away from other people. Even if there were windows, she didn't really have to open up to anyone else. She was just one more person passing by in traffic.

She reached the dentist's office without incident and parked her car. After reassuring herself, multiple times, that she had everything she needed, Marsha stepped out of her car. The shopping center around the office seemed as though it were asleep. So much the better; that just meant she wouldn't run into anyone else.

The moment she stepped inside the office, Marsha started to worry about her choice of dentist. Perhaps she should've tried a different dentist. Surely there was another place she could go to, besides this one.

"Hiiiiii!" chirped the receptionist. She looked peppy and excited about being at work. She looked Arabic, to Marsha's somewhat practiced eye. But, most of all, she looked like one of the sluttiest bimbos Marsha had ever seen.

Her breasts were enormous, and mostly exposed, thanks to a deeply plunging neckline and an extremely sparing use of fabric below her nipples. At a certain point, some outfits became so pointlessly exposing, in Marsha's opinion, that their wearers ought to just walk around nude and be done with it. In this case, the receptionist seemed like she would've been just fine with that. If ravenous moths consumed all of her clothes, she, doubtless, wouldn't even bother to try covering herself.

"Um," Marsha said, timidly. "Um," she tried again. "I, um, I'm here for my appointment."

"Oooookay!" the receptionist replied, brightening. "That means you're, like, on this computey thingie." She waved a hand at the monitor on her desk, flashing her long, sparkly pink fingernails at Marsha. "Like, what's your name?"

"Marsha," Marsha said. "Marsha Smith." The receptionist stuck her tongue out and started carefully typing Marsha's name into the computer.

"That's, like, a rilly tough name," the receptionist observed. "My name's, like, so totes easy. It's just 'Noor'." Marsha thought, uncharitably but possibly truthfully, that Noor might not be able to remember a tougher name.

At last, Noor finished typing it in and triumphantly pressed "ENTER". She squinted at the screen and said, "Oh, okay! There you are, Maci! Dr. Joseph wants you in room 7! Okey-dokey?"

"Um, my name is Marsha," Marsha said. Noor nodded. "Right, your name is Maci. Go right on in, Maci!"

Marsha sighed and decided not to correct the receptionist. That seemed like a battle she'd already lost. Instead, she opened the door that led deeper into the office, and stepped through.

Maybe, she thought, Noor was just eye candy. Perhaps the hygienist would be better. Hell, it would be hard to be worse. She stepped into room 7 feeling cautiously optimistic.

"Hiiiiiii!" said the hygienist, a Chinese woman with the same overinflated curves as Noor. Marsha's heart sank, but she still took her seat in the exam chair. What choice did she have, at this point? Maybe it wouldn't be too bad.

As soon as she sat down and leaned back, the hygienist rushed up to her and leaned in close. Marsha felt the other woman's boobs rubbing up against her own chest. The hygienist grinned and, before Marsha could say anything, planted a big, wet kiss on Marsha's lips.

The kiss seemed to last forever, and Marsha struggled to get free, at first. Gradually, though, she felt something sapping her energy, and she relaxed into the bimbo's embrace. A silly smile spread across Marsha's face, as the hygienist withdrew. "Feeling better, Maci?"

Marsha wanted to protest that that was not her name, but she didn't have the energy for that. Instead, she giggled. It seemed like the right thing to do right now.

"My name is, like, Ming, and I'm sooooo glad to meetcha!" the hygienist said. She shook her boobs at Marsha, and Marsha giggled in reply. Her disgust and shyness had faded into the background, and she felt more relaxed than ever before.

As Ming fussed around, picking at Marsha's teeth, Marsha noticed something else. Her mind was still hazy, caught up in the contact between her and the bimbo-hygienist. But she was conscious enough to notice the smell that seemed to hang around her.

It was a heavy, musky scent, one that made Marsha think of embarrassing acts with men and women. She was vaguely surprised that she couldn't see curtains of scent hanging around her. Where could it come from? Was she just imagining it? And was there any way she could take that scent home with her?

Gradually, the heat within her, the scent around her, and the swing of Ming's pendulous breasts above her sent Marsha into a trance-like state. She floated through a sexual landscape within herself, picturing herself in previously inconceivable situations. Deep inside, she still had a vague sense of where she was. She still knew, deep down, that she was in a dentist's office. But the rest of her being hung suspended in an erotic fantasyland, caught in heated depths she couldn't have imagined before...

"Ahem," said a voice above her. Marsha blinked and found the haze of lust in her mind fading away, returning her to the real world. "I'm sorry to have to wake you like that," said the voice, "since you seemed so comfortable."

A man's face swam into view above her. Nothing about him seemed exceptional in any way. He was a very average-looking, middle-aged white guy. Brown hair, brown eyes, plastic-framed glasses. His nose wasn't anything special, his hair was neatly cut in a short, generic fashion, and he had a perfectly middling sort of body. He probably worked out, but he didn't look particularly muscled.

"Hi, Ms. Smith," he said. "Are you awake?" He smiled averagely at her, and set down a tool he'd been holding in his hand. "Ms. Smith, I'm Dr. Joseph, and I'm going to need you to open your mouth there. Ming said there was something I needed to take a look at, so here I am. Can I take a look at your teeth?"

"Oh- okay," Marsha stammered. She opened her mouth wide, and Dr. Joseph leaned in. "Yes, mm-hmm. Hmm," he murmured. "That does not look good."

He stood up straight, a sorrowful expression on his face. "It looks like you've got a fairly significant problem, Ms. Smith," he said. "Tell me, have you ever had any problems with your left upper molars?"

"Huh?" Marsha said intelligently. Then she shook herself and said, "Well, I don't remember anything, but I suppose it's possible. It's been a little while since I had a checkup."

"Despite which you managed to keep your teeth in quite good shape," Dr. Joseph said. "The only problem is that there's a subtle flaw in one of your left upper molars. It's all the way at the back, so you'd have trouble reaching it with a toothbrush. If you don't get it treated now, I expect you'll be back within a month or so, complaining about a bad toothache. Assuming, of course, that you don't chip it before then."

"So this happened since my last checkup?" Marsha asked, and Dr. Joseph nodded. "I wouldn't blame your last dentist for missing it. It's the sort of thing that's hard to find until it's nearly too late. You're very lucky that you came in when you did."

"And what do I have to do to fix it?" Marsha said, starting to run through her budget in her head. How much of the operation would her insurance cover? Was there going to be lots of paperwork involved? Would she need to take money from her savings account to pay for it?

"We can handle it here, if you don't mind coming back so soon," Dr. Joseph said. He pulled out a little notebook and consulted it. "It shouldn't take too long, but it will require general anesthesia. Do you have anyone who can pick you up from here?"

"Uh, no," Marsha said decisively. "No family? No friends?" Dr. Joseph persisted. "You can call a cab, but you really ought to try someone you know you can trust, if you can."

"I'll, um, see if I can find anyone," Marsha said. "But I will make that appointment." She felt as if she were glowing when she said that. It made her feel strong, like she wasn't the world's biggest shut-in. Of course, when all was said and done, she would probably go back home and feel all the same anxieties and nothing would change for her, ever.

"You do that," Dr. Joseph said. "Noor will handle you out front." That part made Marsha frown internally. She really didn't want to have anything to do with that bimbo, but apparently she had no choice.

Dr. Joseph left the room as Marsha sat up. Ming was hovering around in one corner of the room, a big bimbo grin on her stupid bimbo face. Marsha stuck out her tongue, and scurried out of the room, somewhat astonished at her own temerity. What had gotten into her today?

"Hiiiiii, Maci!" Noor said when Marsha stepped out into the front office. "You're gonna, like, make a 'ppointment an' stuff? Like, when are we gonna see you again?"

"Well, uh, when's the next opening?" Marsha asked, throttling down her aversion to bimbos. Dr. Joseph might be a halfway decent dentist, but he had a teenager's taste in women. Perhaps his surgery assistant wouldn't be quite as stupid.

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..." Noor said, neatly summing up the extent of her thought processes. "Ummmmmmm, there's, like, a slot next Tuesday. The computer says that's, like, um, one, two, three, four, five days away." The damn bimbo had to actually count to five using her fingers. What would happen if Marsha paid for her appointment in cash? Would Noor need to take off her shoes to count to twenty?

"Tuesday works," Marsha said curtly. "What time?"

"Uhhhhhhh..." Noor repeated. "Uhhhh, like, twelve noon?"

"That'll do," Marsha said, making a note of the time and date. "Do I need to pay anything right now?" She needed to get out of here and go home, where she definitely wasn't going to masturbate to the thought of Dr. Joseph taking her hard. Nope, she definitely wasn't about to do that.

"Nope!" Noor said perkily. "You're, like, totes covered! See ya later, Maci! Buh-bye!"

Marsha pushed the door open, barely restraining herself from correcting the bimbo. What was the fucking point? If some stupid Arabic bimbo wanted to call her a stupid bimbo name, Marsha wasn't going to bother correcting her. The damn bimbo would just forget, anyway.

All the way back in her car, Marsha was silent on the surface, but beneath, she seethed with barely suppressed lust. Little as she wanted to admit it, both Ming and Noor had been very attractive women. She'd never exactly been the sort of person to notice female beauty, or care about anyone's, even her own.

But for all their annoying bimbosity, Noor and Ming had been highly attractive women. Sure, they'd had the figures of cartoon women, but if any non-cartoons could pull off those kinds of proportions, it was Noor and Ming. Luscious, voluptuous women, with the faces to match their bosoms.

What had happened, Marsha wondered, that she was thinking of women in such a way? She had a vague memory of something about Ming, but she could've just imagined that. Surely someone as professional as Dr. Joseph wouldn't allow his hygienists to kiss his patients. She had a much harder time imagining that.

By the time she pulled into her driveway, Marsha was feeling very good. So much so that she didn't scurry away when she noticed Lacey walking over. Maybe she needed to try talking to someone new. It might help her break out of her old habits.

"Hello!" Lacey said, smiling. She looked just as gorgeous up close as she did from a distance. The younger woman had a petite frame, but a good set of curves in spite of that. Wavy blonde hair hung down past her shoulders, framing a fine-boned face with blue eyes and a snub nose. If there were ever an exhibition at a museum about "Wholesome-Looking American Girls", Lacey could be its centerpiece.

Marsha, in contrast, was all too aware of her own... subpar looks. She was a couple steps beyond "pudgy", but not quite downright "fat". Part of it was probably that she didn't get out much, which limited the amount she could exercise, though she did have a treadmill and an elliptical in her basement. The other part might have to do with her genetics.

Some women were just naturally prone to taking on fat. Which made sense, of course, from an evolutionary standpoint. But it was more than a bit awkward these days, when food was plentiful for Marsha and women like Lacey were the platonic ideal of womanhood. Marsha's grandmother had been fat, her aunts were even tubbier, and her mother, bless her heart, had eaten herself into a very large early grave. She tried to balance her natural tendencies with healthy, homemade food, but that only went so far. And making regular visits to the grocery store was a bit hard to manage for a shut-in.

All that explained why Marsha felt more than a bit envious of Lacey. If she had a good personality to go with her good looks, that would just make it worse for Marsha's self-esteem. Someone this beautiful should be an ugly bitch on the inside. Of course, she barely knew the woman. Maybe this was some kind of façade.

"Sorry to bother you," Lacey went on, "but I realized that I've been your neighbor for almost a year, and we've never talked in that time. I'm Lacey. You're Marsha, right?"

"Uh, yes," Marsha replied. It occurred to her that this was one of the first times she'd spoken to anyone in person for months. She tried not to fuck it up.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Marsha," Lacey went on, blithely unaware of Marsha's internal monologue. "I was just wondering if I could borrow some sugar so I can make a batch of my Mom's snickerdoodles. I just ran out, and I'd rather not make a grocery store run if I don't have to."

"Um, sure," Marsha said, stepping out of the car. She felt a chill run down her spine as she really stepped out of her comfort zone for the first time in ages. First Dr. Joseph's office, now this. She could only hope this sort of thing wasn't going to be a daily occurrence.

"So, I hardly ever see you leave, Marsha," Lacey said, following in the older woman's footsteps. "Do you work from home, or something?"

"Yeah," Marsha said, itching for an excuse to tell the girl to shut up. At least, she thought she was. For now, at least, she was going to pretend to be at ease.

"Yeah," she said again. "I'm an editor at a big publishing house, and I prefer to work on things from home." She unlocked the garage door and carefully opened it, making sure neither Napoleon nor Gibbon lurked near the door, seeking an escape route.

Marsha stepped inside, and Lacey followed. Napoleon appeared from nowhere right in front of the neighbor's feet, and she barely avoided tripping on him. "Hey there, kitty," she said. She knelt a bit and started scratching Napoleon behind his ears. He purred loudly and pushed into the friendly fingers.

Gibbon popped up from behind the couch, and waltzed over to Lacey's feet. She diverted one of her hands to Gibbon's neck, and he added his purr to Napoleon's. The two cats looked up at the neighbor happily, and Marsha looked on, feeling surprisingly happy. At least Lacey was good with cats, though she wasn't sure why that should be important at all.

"Here, you can have this bag of sugar," Marsha said, handing over a 2-pound bag of sugar. "I got it to use when I make coffee, but I hardly ever make coffee. Really, I don't need it."

"Well, thanks," Lacey replied. "And I'll bring some of the cookies over here when I finish, because I certainly can't eat a whole pan all by myself." She chuckled. "Well, I suppose I could," she added, "but I can't do it very often."

"Oh, you don't need to do that," Marsha protested weakly. Deep inside, she knew that she actually couldn't wait for the cookies to be finished, so that Lacey could come back over. But she couldn't just come out and say that. It was so against the grain for her to welcome company, that she automatically tried to avoid the possibility.