Dear Penthouse Forum . . .

The young woman who has been cleaning my teeth for several years is cute. She is attractive (even though I mostly see her with a dental mask obscuring much of her face) and she has a fun personality. Having my teeth cleaned by her has made the typically unpleasant experience of going to the dentist a little less unpleasant in recent years. She's married and has a young son. That having been said, there always seems to be a little bit of chemistry between us, at least for the 30 minutes twice a year that I spend with her in my mouth, err, working in my mouth. And it seems that almost every time I visit her, she says something during the course of my appointment that is ripe with sexual innuendo. But because I am a mature adult, I let those little tidbits go by without batting an eyelash. All right, that's not true. I probably bat both eyelashes and raise one eyebrow to much greater heights than its matching partner. But I don't say anything, and the little remarks just fade away as the six months pass between appointments. That is, until yesterday.

A typical appointment, complete with what I consider to be a little bit of friendly banter and perhaps a little flirting. The usual number of dental-issue-comments-slash-sexual-innuendos. Then she was using the Ultrasonic Superduper Teeth Scaler Thingee to clean my teeth, and she was explaining to me how some dental hygienists do not use the machine properly, leading to some discomfort for the patient. She was telling me that the head of the scaler vibrates and gets hot, and if you touch the vibrating tip to a place in the mouth for too long, then it burns the spot. Or something like that. While she was explaining the proper way to use the scaler, I just couldn't control myself anymore. I started laughing and I put my hand up in the air from my reclined position and simply said, "Stop. No more. Please." She started laughing herself and acknowledged that her explanation had taken us in the wrong direction.

It may very well have been my best visit to the dentist. Ever. And only six months until she and I can continue our bi-annual flirtation.