In her darkened bedroom, Cindy pulls Tweedside past a mountain of dirty clothes, tugging at the handle of his titanium sword case. She loses her grip and falls onto the bed in a giggly clump.
“Lessee that sword, Mr. Treedslide,” she says.
He backs away a couple of steps, looking around for signs of the cat, fighting off a sneeze. “I need to use the bathroom,” he says.
Cindy rolls over and reaches for a bedside table, where she flicks on the dimmest of nightlights. In the hazy pink glow, Tweedside watches wide-eyed as she shimmies out of her jeans without giving him a second thought. He’s still fully dressed, sweating in the hot apartment, but Cindy’s down to knee socks and a thong.
She flops to her back and hugs a towel to her naked chest, her hair spread on the pillow behind her like a dirty halo. She points toward the bathroom door with a foot. “Go pee,” she says. “And make it snappy, pappy.”
::
When Tweedside was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder at the age of ten, his parents and doctor weren’t all that upset. They worried more about his attention deficits and guessed that his neat-freakishness might even come in handy. And they were right. All through adolescence, Tweedside kept the family home in tip-top shape, though he did develop a phobia about dirty toilets from having been trapped in a Porta Potty for twenty minutes. They still give him hives.
But nothing in life has prepared Tim Tweedside for the shit storm that is Cindy something’s own personal bathroom. When he slinks through the door and flips on the switch, he might as well be dropping his brain into an electric blender. His first breath sucks in the damp of litterbox cat piss laced with mildew. With the second breath, a fluorescent ceiling fixture buzzes to life revealing fake tile walls, crusty mold in the shower, a scummy mirror, and rust streaked hair gobs splattered in the sink. The dryer door gapes open, a dark wet mouth of mixed up clothes spilling to the floor beside an over-ripe litter box.
He switches on the ceiling fan, in search of fresh air. It clatters then fizzles, doing nothing to clear the smell. Hiking up his kilt, he approaches the rancid toilet, holding his sword like a crutch. He calms himself, lets his bladder loose.
Unlike men who shake after peeing, Tim Tweedside is a wiper, with a strong preference for two folded squares of paper. But the toilet paper holder in this bathroom is empty, a cardboard tube wrapped in a snarl of tissue that's covered with lint. It hasn’t been changed in months.
He leans to open the vanity door under the sink, looking for a fresh roll. A screaming snarl and hiss rip through the room as the spread of black claws flash out nowhere, tearing four white streaks into the back of his hand. He watches as the streaks slowly spread, four red rivers breaching their fragile banks.
“God damn it.” He rushes to the sink to drench his hand. Cold water blasts from the faucet, splattering across the front of his gray Utilikilt. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” He stares into the filthy mirror, barely breathing.
Calming himself for action, Tweedside steps back into the bedroom, wary of the invisible cat. Cindy something is right where he left her. Toes still pointing to the bathroom door, hugging a towel, slack-jawed, snoring.
His eye zeroes in on her private parts, fleshy pale lips split by a satiny purple thong. He leans for a closer look, his manhood almost stirring beneath the folds of his kilt. There’s not a pubic hair in sight.
