Oral hygiene

When I am sexually aroused, I usually run my tongue around my mouth. I don't let it hang out or lick my lips, because that's just a bit creepy - and clichéd, and I try to avoid clichés like the plague. But I do run my tongue around the inside of my mouth. Maybe this is an automatic thing. I'd like to think it's a precursor to oral sex. And I do love oral sex.

However, when I am sexually aroused this week, the usual end result is me in quite a lot of pain around my lower jaw. There is a mouth ulcer directly in the middle of the flap of skin that joins the inside of my lower lip to my lower gum and it hurts like buggery to do anything that involves moving it - including talking, singing, shaving, or - tragically - eating, which meant that dinner tonight was a nightmare, especially when the stalk of a lettuce leaf hit it directly, like a finger pressing a button, and I would have screamed, but for a combination of good table manners and the common sense to know that screaming would have hurt even more.

Yes, I am a wimp. I'm hypersensitive. Shut up and pity me.

It's a good thing nobody's trying to kiss me or I may end up crying during the kiss, and not in the whole romantic way.

The top lip - or what I'm going to refer to now as the safe bit of my mouth - is actually incredibly sensitive, and to lick the bit in the middle directly under the philtrum (on a girl, at least) produces a sensation of being licked over a lot of nerve endings, similar to being stimulated in that way via the clitoris (apparently). It doesn't work for everyone (on me, licking my top lip just tickles, but then again I'm ticklish practically everywhere), but I like to think of it as a good indication that what you want to be doing after the kiss is to lick said clitoris. This has never been an idea that hasn't gone down well. "Philtrum," after all, is Greek for "love potion", so there.

However, I think it highly unlikely that I'm going to subsist on top lip kisses forever, and that if I don't want to project a scream of mortal agony into cutieloveheartgirl's mouth next time we kiss I need to get rid of this ulcer - if, indeed, it is an ulcer. It may just be benign and what is hurting is actually my lower gum itself, which would be the sort of ironic thing that happens to me. But in any case, I am becoming a slave to oral hygiene.

I've never really slacked off oral hygiene. I know you're meant to brush your teeth at least twice a day and yes, I rarely ever manage this, but I do manage at least once a day, and when I feel I need it, I do get that chewing gum with the teeth-cleaning granules in it. I have and use a tongue scraper almost religiously, I love swilling mouthwash (although mostly because it looks like I am expectorating some sort of corrosive acid afterwards and can therefore I can pretend I'm a supervillain who has that as his power), I steal my sister's plaque disclosing tablets from time to time, and all in all, I love my mouth (even when it hurts). Why some of my teeth still appear slightly yellow is a mystery which plagues me. It's one of the things about my body I hate, like my stomach bulge, the fact that my thighs rub together as I walk and my moobs. But I digress.

Oral hygiene is important to me and thus I have bought a tube of gel. I've never used gel before, preferring instead to suck Rinstead pastilles. But this is desperate. Okay, so I don't have a fixed date for seeing cutieloveheartgirl again, and I'm sure I could still kiss without being in too much distress. I could probably deliver perfectly adequate oral sex too. But I wouldn't be at my best... and considering the fact that I don't have much else going for me, this is not acceptable!

So... gel it is, then. Brushing, disclosure, brushing, tongue scrape, mouthwash and gel. It sounds like a kink.

Cleaning my teeth is going to be interesting tonight.