The Experience Room Story 04 Pt. 06

Chapter 6 - Arriving For The Dental Appointment

The last time that I was at the dentist was about six months ago and they were in a different location. I remember there being a notice about them opening a new office. The name over the door is the same as I remember, only there is another name added to it. On one side of the sign, it says Dentist, on the other Orthodontist.

When I enter, there is a nice waiting room with very comfortable modern chairs and couches lining the walls. The reception desk is in the middle with hallways on each side of it leading to the treatment rooms. There are a few people sitting in the waiting room in a range of ages, just what you would expect to see in an office of this type.

I walk up to the desk and tap next to my name on the computer pad there, confirming that I have arrived for my appointment. The lady sitting behind the desk looks up at me and smiles, revealing a mouthful of metal brackets.

"Thank you for arriving on time. We have fallen behind a little today and I hope that we can rearrange the order that we will do things for you today. I see that you are scheduled for a check-up and cleaning. We have time to do the X-rays right now, but the hygenist and dentist are both a little behind right now. Would you mind if we did the X-rays first, then get you settled into a chair to wait?"

I haven't been giving what she has been saying my full attention, so rather than ask her to repeat it, just say "Yes, that will be fine." I have been distracted by watching her lips cover and uncover the metal on her teeth. I haven't seen anyone with brackets that big in a long time and the wire seems to be quite thick. Each bracket has a hook on it, including the teeth in the front. She has bright pink powerchains on both the top and bottom jaws and I notice that they match her lipstick and when she places her hands on the desktop above the keyboard, her fingernails match too.

Her desk is unusual in design, seeming to wrap around her with an opening behind her chair. Everything that she needs to do her job is within easy reach just by her turning to the side. It also is built up on a platform so that she is at a convenient height to talk to the people coming to her desk.

"Everyone else is busy right now and you are the last patient for a while, so I will take you back and get you started. If the phone rings or someone comes in, I will just leave you for a while to take care of them."

It isn't until she rolls herself back from the desk that I realize she is in a wheelchair. It isn't one of those hospital-type chairs with the high back and handles so that it can be pushed. Hers has a low backrest that supports her lower back and no sides, allowing her easy access to the wheels. I can tell by looking at it, that it has been customized for her, having been painted in a variety of bold feminine colours. Even the small amount of fabric that I can see is soft feminine colours.

She spins her chair around behind the desk and rolls to the back of the raised area that gently slopes down to meet the floor. As I walk around the desk to meet her, I realize that the floor slopes up slightly to the same level as the area behind the desk, making the whole area completely handicapped accessible to both the staff and patients. That is the first time that I get a look at her from the waist down. When I was talking to her at the desk, I had noticed that her upper body was toned, well-muscled and fit, with small firm-looking breasts, all professionally covered by a tailored multi-coloured dental blouse.

As she meets me at the end of the desk, I see why she is in a wheelchair. Her right leg has a leg-brace on it that goes from her foot, up her leg and underneath her matching tailored skirt. I can tell that it extends all the way up her leg, the telltale bulges of the band fastening it to her leg showing through the material of her skirt at the top of her thigh. It isn't one of the formed-plastic ones that are more commonly seen. Hers is sculpted from metal and leather. This one doesn't look like it came off a shelf somewhere, hers is shaped to fit her leg elegantly and the leather has the look of hand tooling.

Her other leg is different, ending just above the knee. Her legs are covered in opaque pink nylon the same shade as the power-chains on her braces and the polish on her nails. The shoe attached to the bottom of her leg-brace isn't a typical orthopedic shoe, hers is an open-toed four-inch high-heeled shoe with a two-inch platform sole.

I must have a stunned look on my face because, as she leads me down the hall, she has a big smile on her face. She takes me into the room with the X-ray and scanning machines lining the walls. All the machines have controls that can be adjusted to the height of the operator, making the whole room accessible to her from her wheelchair. She presses a button and the head of the X-ray drops down to her level so that she can put a new bite-wand on for me, then presses another one to return it to the operating height. When I put the wand between my teeth and bite into it, then grasp the handles, the machine whirs a couple of times, adjusting to my height. She rolls backwards through the door and there is a click as the machine begins to rotate around my head.

She rolls back into the room and has me move to a second machine. "This one is going to take a three-dimensional computer scan of your teeth and mouth. This will enable us to find anything that might be missed during the check-up. We use this one more with our orthodontic patients to make things like retainers and palate expanders." Once again, she sets up the machine for me and I place my face into the machine for it to do its thing.

There is a screen on the wall that shows the scan of my mouth as it is being taken. She turns her upper body in her chair to face the screen and I have a good view of her face from the side. Her teeth look nice and straight and seem to line up nicely top to bottom. She is close enough to me that I can see just how much of her teeth are covered by the big brackets and the pink powerchain. She really does have a nice smile. When she catches me looking at her from the corner of her eye, she just smiles bigger.

My gaze is drawn lower to where her legs are. When she turned her upper body to look at the screen, her lower body shifted so that the tip of her stump is no longer resting completely against the front of the chair. I can see it making small movements, helping her to maintain her balance. I am probably spending more time looking at her than I am looking at the screen. Finally, the scan is completed and she is satisfied with the quality of the image. She releases me from the machine and says, "Let's go and see if we can find you a treatment chair to relax in while you wait for the next part of your appointment."

I follow her around to the dental side of the office and she looks into all the rooms, looking for an empty chair to put me in. The rooms are all in use, so she looks up at me and asks, "Would it be alright if I put you on the orthodontic side? The rooms are set up the same on that side of the office so that we can use them for either purpose. It might be more convenient than having you wait out front."

I nod agreement and she takes me around to the other side and has me sit down in an empty chair, then reclines it to a comfortable position. Just then the phone begins to ring. "Excuse me for a moment while I answer that," she says, before rolling out of the room.

I look around the room, taking note of the pictures on the walls. It doesn't look like what I expected, having a more feminine touch to how it is decorated. Instead of pictures that show dental and orthodontic procedures and the typical do's and don'ts, the pictures on the walls here are of real people with real smiles displaying their improving teeth in a variety of normal settings. Even the shades of the paint show a gentler, more soothing touch.