Those teeth

Thom Skree's teeth conjured both predator and prey. They blinked briefly from beneath his mustache; the thin, long dentition of a carnivore that evoked bones blanched in the sun. He tapped his finger on the desk, or rather on the manuscript laying before him, breaking Harold's transfixion.

"Mr. Bansay. Harold, may I call you Harold? Good. Now..." Skree went on speaking as Harold slipped away again, staring at the movements of the face across the mahogany table. He was not alone, neither on his side of the desk or in his staring, as his mother beside him was equally preoccupied.

'Those teeth,' Harold's mother thought.

'That mustache,' Harold thought.

"Harold," Mr. Skree's voice cut into Harold's reverie. "Please understand, your piece is... unique. Provoking, but..." Skree's fingers emulated his teeth in length and impeccability. Their cuticles brushed invisible lint from his lapels. His tongue ran over his incisors, bulging out his mustache like a mouse under straw. "Given your recent... difficulties, our publishing house has policies regarding business with anyone involved as a defendant in pending felony charges."

Those "difficulties" played through Harold Bansay's daydream as he gazed at Mr. Skree's upper lip. The first, several weeks ago, involved the server at a creperie. According to the police report, the dust-up originated over a dispute of billing, but Harold knew better.

The second, only yesterday, was, in Harold's view, more of a misunderstanding. A miscommunication, really, a folly that under other circumstances would have been a forgettable nonevent easily laughed off, had the other party not been a member of the greater metro police force.

"And," Skree continued. "To be perfectly honest, this isn't really marketable. It's not really Sci-Fi, not suspense, well... We just don't know how to sell this."

Sweat beaded on the bridge of Harold's nose and nostrils. His mother shifted in her seat uncomfortably.

Skree cleared his throat. "Inventive as it is, a story about people who's mustaches control what they say is... AHHHHHHH!" Skree's calm demeanor was shattered as Harold suddenly vaulted across the desk, a glimmering strait razor glinting in his fingers.

Harold's poor mother was aggressively shoved aside as two burley men appeared from nowhere to subdue the ranting author. "I can cut it off, Mr. Skree! You don't know what you're saying! Let me cut it off, Mr. Skree! It's making you say these things!"

After the disarming and forcible removal of Harold from the office, Skree and Mrs. Bansay sat silently contemplating one another. "Mrs. Bansay... Um, I believe your son will be at the police station on 3rd and Morris." He offered a pained smile of consolation. "May I validate your parking?"

'Those teeth,' thought Harold's mother.