apple cider vinegar

        The Totem Pole Lodge leased four studio apartments, each with an outside walk-up to a private landing. These landings served as balconies. Even miniature patios, with railings. Room for one person and a chia pet.
        Brother Ambrose had resided in #203 for twelve months. He suffered a fifteen percent raise in the cost of being there from May through August. Tourist season. A rip-off. This chafed him. It was a take-it-or-leave it deal in an area with an accute housing shortage.
        Arriving home, he found his neighbor's cat Mugsy perched on his railing.
        "Skat, cat. Go home. Or I'll sell you to Wu Tang's restaurant."
        "Mugsy! Come away from that evil man!" Sonya Chekov shouted to  her prodigal charcoal tabby.
        She stood on her balcony next door. Clad in a grass skirt and a bra made of coconut half-shells. Her crowblack Innuit hair was streaked with Day-Glo purple and chopped in the style of a 1920s flapper. She faux-pouted. Then burst out laughing.
        "What's funny?" he quizzed.
        "Dunno. Me, I guess. Whatcha think o' my party costume?"
        "Costume?"


                                                                                       *


          He thought of her as he took a long pee. French roast coffee and bookshop chai.
          Part Sitka Russian, part native Innuit, Sonya Chekov had ebon hair straight as uncooked vermicelli, chopped high off the nape, as if prepared for the guillotine. Her eyes were epicanthric berries. Usually attired in a tank-top so oversized it threatened to slide from her body completely, she displayed creamy skin amazingly tattoo free.
           "Ah," he once smirked. "The booby trap."
           "You noticed. I thought you were a monk."


                                                                                      *


         That evening he secluded himself in the womblike comfort of his apartment. His trusty futon served as bed and sofa. He covered it with a bedspread from Bombay. On a low Japanese tea table a candle guttered with cranberry scents. He started reading "The Gnostic Gospels" by Elaine Pagels.
         A knock on the door.
         It was ten o'clock. Later than he had thought.
         Sonya in her booby trap. Cut-off jeans.
         She handed him a half-filled fifth of single-malt scotch. "This is all I had."
         "Oh, you bet. Come right in."
         He looked beyond her and queried: "No cat?"
         "Mugsy's out dancing for moths."
         He smiled expansively, looking at her pear-shaped boobs. Thinking, Nice little puppies, with their little brown noses.


                                                                              *


          Seated on the futon, he asked her, "So how did the party go?"
          "Fuh-gedda-bowdit."
          A previous tennent had painted a mural opposite the futon. Covering the wall was an enormous sun ball the color of "eat a peach." Sonya warbled, "I love that thing."
          "Yeah. It's great."
          "Try the whiskey."
          He sniffed its bouquet. Sonya informed him: "Listen, clueless. I'm gonna get you drunk and I'm gonna rape you."
          "That calls for some music."
          "Please no Enya."


                                                                                    *


          "Oh, my God," Sonya exclaimed, holding his dingus. "What happened here?"
          His groin was scarlett.
           "A calamity."
           "I should say," she cooed, stroking the foreskin.
           "Long story. A camping story. I poured apple cider vinegar down there. Full strength. Made things worse. MUCH worse."
           Her laughter began pealing the mural from the wall.
           Mingus.