Musty with subtle undertones of… What is that? Maple Syrup? My tastebuds soak each follicle with saliva. Fine hairs coat the tip of my tongue as it reaches something smooth, leathery. It feels worn. My teeth grasp and immediately crush the object, which releases a thick oily substance. Bright, effervescent with notes of pine and ammonia. “Dennis.” It burns my tongue. Probably flea killer. “Dennis, please.” I glance up, my teeth still clutching the animal’s collar. “Focus. This is important.” I release my grasp and the office’s emotional support feline leaps from my lap onto the carpet, clawing an abundance of tiny holes into the corduroy. “It’s been a week since our last appointment,” The Doctor, says. I run my fingers over the holes in my pants, wondering without hesitation what the animal’s toenails might taste like, what the keratin might feel like between my teeth. “You’ve gained weight,” she sighs. “As a psychiatrist, I don’t normally say that to my patients, but this situation is dire.” She rambles on for a while about obsessive-compulsive disorder and myriad other diagnoses I am certain are false. She mentions some new medications to try, thumbing through her thick prescription pad, licking her finger between each page. My mouth waters. I swallow hard, grab the scripts, and leave.
            In my car, I’m able to relax again. My senses have become hypersensitive as my condition has progressed. The scent of the faux leather interior and years of skin cells and body odor form a delectable concoction that would be entirely irresistible if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve already sampled every surface of the vehicle twice over. I shuffle through the prescriptions: Clomipramine, Fluoxetine, Sertraline, Quetiapine. A dribble of saliva oozes out of the corner of my mouth. I don’t want to get better. I never have. I finger the corners of the pages, locating the edges still damp with The Doctor’s spit. I exhale shakily and lift the slips of paper to my face, just close enough to interact with my olfactory. A pleasant aroma: the fibrous scent of paper, the saccharine ball-point pen ink, and the savory, distinctly human essence of DNA left on their edges. I roll them into a tube about a quarter inch in diameter and slide them gingerly between my molars. I bite down hard. This gives the tube time to absorb my saliva, infuse it with their flavor. With a thick slurp, I drain them of their fluid.
              The gooey wad floats between my teeth and tongue like a deflated buoy as I maneuver my car into its compact space. I enter my apartment and spit the blob of prescriptions into the planter by the front door where it joins its saturated brethren in a mass grave of grey fibers. I flop onto the couch and switch on my smart phone. The Doctor thinks it would be beneficial for me to have some kind of intimate human interaction on occasion. Reluctantly, I navigate to my text messages. “See you at 7 :),” one message taunts. Her name is Susan. Some flaccid looking receptionist I met on Tinder. I’ll be picking her up, obviously. I can’t risk anyone seeing the gnawed contents of my dwelling, let alone someone I’m supposedly supposed to sleep with. I shower and dress, gathering my belongings before heading out. I clean up nice when I try, my only tangible flaw being my teeth, which are irreversibly cracked and stained from the years of trauma. I pick her up and we drive to the restaurant: some shitty Italian place down the street from her house (Susan’s suggestion). Dinner is fine, and I’m able to sneak off to the bathroom a few times to choke down a couple of toilet paper rolls and a handful of pennies. “Wanna come over?” she says through a mouthful of linguini. “Sure,” I say.
Susan the Receptionist is annoyingly drunk already, but pours us both a glass of wine, which she downs in a matter of minutes. I’ve been stealthily retrieving stray hairs from her shirt collar throughout the night as a snack, so I’m familiar with its scent when she leans in to kiss me. Head and Shoulders, shampoo, and skin. Her tongue is hot and tastes of dehydration and wine. I slip my tongue between her lips and maneuver it between each tooth, searching desperately for some leftover morsel to make my own. I can smell her. The inside of her. I inhale deeply, stomach acid, saliva, mucus, blood. My jaw tightens involuntarily, and she gasps. A crimson smear streaks across her thin lips. “It’s okay. I’ll get a tissue,” she laughs. Before Susan the Receptionist has the chance to move, I wrap my fingers around her tangled locks and pull hard, jerking her face toward mine. I rip a generous chunk of hair from her scalp in the process, creating a disgustingly satisfying sound, comparable to Velcro. My chipped incisors become the perfect tool to separate her facial musculature from its protective covering. The slab of skin hangs delicately from my teeth, filling my mouth with a warm gush of blood. Copper, iron, salt; the flavor profile of a human being conveniently packaged in one slick fluid. My moans of pleasure harmonize with her screams. I laugh. She tries to run, but it’s too late. I’ve got a solid grip on her ankle and am already tearing at her Achilles. It snaps, and I absorb it with a theatrical slurp. She’s dead after a few minutes, skinned and gutted within the hour. I lie parallel to her on the couch using her misshapen breasts as a pillow.
 
I wonder if I should start taking my meds.