Our story begins the night I got into Cub Club and decided to kill myself. It was the eve of my thirty-first birthday. Physically I was turning thirty-one at least. Emotionally I stopped maturing around thirteen and had been faking it ever since. I had been feeling rather gloomy that night, as I did most nights. On this occasion I was haunted by the realization that I was yet another year closer to death and away from my internalized actualized self, triggering my age dysphoria and causing me to fall into thought loops concerning the failure of democracy and the inevitable entropic decay of the universe, forcing me to once again confront the unfortunate reality that nothing really mattered.

At times like these, I tend to turn to my vices: masturbation, shit-posting, drug use. Usually an awkward combination of all three… These past few nights revolved around sorting ketamine, looking up cub porn, and playing Deadlock–which is a great game if you enjoy being depressed.

It was just before midnight as I sat alone in my apartment, munching on a box of leftover Cheddar Bacon Loaded Tots® and coming down from a crack high. I stared at my computer screen with two browser tabs open. The first one contained porn. I had long since transitioned away from looking at ‘normal’ pornography involving heterosexual intercourse between two consenting adults. My favorite fetishes were not ones that turn me on but rather those that actively frighten me. ‘Urethral Fisting’ had been my previous obsession, but there was something about my recent discovery of ‘Recursive Pregnancy’ that caused me to lose a level of faith in humanity I didn’t even realize I still possessed. I think the worst offender in this regard has got to be an artist gallery containing several thousand drawings of various animals pressing their foot paws against car pedals. That was it. No porn, no plot, just thirty-five hundred depictions of hot paw-on-pedal action. It was fucking terrifying. And yet now I can’t seem to get off to anything else…

The second tab contained search results for various means of killing myself.

Earlier that evening, after accidentally feeding the enemy Doorman for the seventh or eighth time, I decided I was finally ready to commit suicide. This notion was not a new one but this time I had a definite plan which I intended to carry out. I spent the next several hours performing rigorous preparatory research–much longer than I had spent deciding to kill myself–and eventually settled on asphyxiation as the optimal method. All I needed for a suicide mask was a plastic bag, an inert gas, and some nylon straps–all of which were being conveniently advertised in a DIY kit online. Unfortunately, the website owner was demanding an exorbitant two-hundred dollars for this package. An amount which, although I could technically afford, I determined was an outrageous sum to charge someone desperate enough to kill themselves. I contacted the website owner on Telegram and was in the process of haggling down the price when I noticed the email–

Actually, before I continue, it occurs to me that we haven’t been properly introduced yet. I’m Tom, by the way. I guess that’s probably important… I suppose I should also talk a little bit about myself, let’s see… I’m an overweight unemployed diapered former sex offender with a penchant for infantilism and an exhibitionism fetish. I live on my own on the bad side of town in an apartment that’s about the size of two closets. My closest friend is a life-size Jack Russel Terrier plushie that I regularly have sex with. My hobbies include recreational drug use and shitting my pants. I’m also a rare skunk-fox hybrid which means I’m better than you and you’re not allowed to hurt my feelings. And I’ll be your narrator for the remainder of this story. Also, I’m a pedophile.

Anyway, like I was saying, the website owner rejected my claims that his extravagant fees were tantamount to highway robbery and negotiations further soured after he blocked me for making certain insensitive comments concerning his mother. In retaliation, I began posting dozens of negative reviews regarding the poor quality of his products. My fictional customers claimed that they were unaware the masks hadn’t been certified BPA-free, and not only had they failed to die as intended but were now in fact homosexuals. I was in the middle of registering another account when I noticed the unread email in my inbox.

At this point, I had written off the message as spam because I’m an unlikable asshole that nobody would interact with willingly. I was about to hit DELETE when the letter’s FROM address caught my eye. Curious, I clicked it.

I stared blankly at my monitor. Was this a dream? Had I been dreaming? I re-read the email. Blinked. Re-read it again. Got up. Splashed water on my face. Sat down again. The letter was still there. Eight years and seven months on the waitlist…endless forms…background checks…online interviews…tedious workshops…and the boredom, the sheer overwhelming boredom of it all–now it was finally happening. Cub Club. I had finally gotten in…

I took my hand off my dick.

I started to cry. I couldn’t help myself; I just sat there, weeping silently at my computer. And I’m not the type of person to completely lose it at half past midnight on a Tuesday. Usually, I prefer to wait until at least four or five AM.

Then I laughed. I threw my head back and laughed deeper and harder than I ever had before. I laughed long past the point where the neighbors yelled and banged on the walls, cackling like a madman as I booked the earliest available appointment that noon. I hooted and hollered as I grabbed my wallet and my plush and strapped on my shoes. I had done it. I had just achieved what might be the greatest accomplishment of my life. I was a member of Cub Club now and I knew things were going to be different, my life was finally headed in a healthy new direction. And I knew just the way to celebrate…

My drug dealer, Jack, was also conveniently my next-door neighbor. Next door and three floors removed. He moved here after getting kicked out of his sobriety home for making meth in the clothes dryer. Like me, he had found this place on Craiglist. Our apartment complex was advertised as an affordable renewed development featuring a ‘unique, varied, and overall minimalistic décor’–all of which are technically true. This building is unique among the places I’ve lived for the many varied ways it tends to minimize one’s overall life expectancy.

You know people often ask me why I moved here. I mean, they don’t really, that’s a lie. In the past two months, the only person to express even the slightest interest in my well-being has been the cashier at the convenience store across the street. But if I had real friends and wasn’t suffering from suicidal levels of social isolation one of them might ask me why I moved here. Not just my shitty apartment, but here, the town as a whole. And honestly, I don’t know where to begin, there’s just so much to like about this place…

There’s the mild climate, the excellent public transit system, the fact that this is the only city in America where I’m legally allowed to have sex with children. There’s the greenbelt, our wonderful public art installations, the historic city hall building where I’ll meet my caseworker in the morning to be paired with a child to have sex with. There’s the vibrant downtown nightlife, our fantastic live music scene, not to mention other signature cultural attractions like the Botanical Gardens, Performing Arts Center, and Avalon National Monument which commemorates what is widely regarded as the start of the modern MAP rights movement. You know, after moving here I was even surprised to discover that the city was testing out a new pilot program that allowed adults to legally engage in sexual relationships with minors, provided these relationships were routinely monitored, and provided the adult in question had been properly vetted and accepted into the program.

And I just had been…

I knocked on Jack’s door for a good fifteen minutes or so before deducing that he was either asleep or otherwise indisposed. Normally, I would hesitate to bother an acquaintance this late at night, but Jack and I had already developed an intimate rapport due to our many shared interests, like illegal drug use and wanting to fuck kids. He refused to give me his number though and I had no other way of contacting him so I just kept banging on the entrance to his flat until he finally opened up. The red-eyed otter stood shirtless in the doorway. He regarded me as one might regard a cockroach.

“Jack!” I exclaimed, offering a grin and a friendly paw. He glared down at it.

“What do you want, Tom?” he demanded, frowning at the plush under my arm.

“How’s it going, man?!” I asked, still holding out for a handshake.

“It’s one-thirty in the morning, Tom.”

“Is it really? I must have lost track of time…” I said, dropping my paw. “I just figured we hadn’t seen each other in a while and–”

“–You were here four hours ago,” Jack added suspiciously. “What happened to that gram of coke I sold you and why are you covered in baking soda?”

“No reason! Look, do you think I could pick something else up? Some Dilaudid maybe? It’s kind of a special occasion…”

“Your birthday, right?”

“Huh?”

“Today’s your birthday.”

“That’s tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow.”

“Sure, my birthday, sure.”

The sleepy otter scratched his neck with a yawn before stepping aside. I immediately plopped down on his couch, snagging a pair of irresistibly indulgent Marble Cookie Brownies™ from the coffee table–which were still decadently rich and moist, even after days of neglect. When I twisted back around Jack hurled a bag of pill bottles at my face.

“You can have two of the eights. Two.” he added sternly. “And that’s forty bucks as soon as you can pay it. Don’t get used to it; this is strictly a one-time thing. You’re already exceeding your tab…”

“Come on man, you know I’m good for it!” This wasn’t strictly true at the moment but Jack didn’t need to know that.

He tsked. “Whatever…happy birthday, Tom.”

“Hey, Jack!”

Jack was already retreating down the hall. He stiffened before taking a deep breath. “…yes, Tom?”

“I got into Cub Club today!”

The otter fell silent, cold. His eyes narrowed as he studied me. For a moment I thought I caught a flicker of something in his expression. Distrust? Disbelief? Envy? It was only a flicker. And after a while he reached over and flicked off the overhead lights.

“Goodnight, Tom.”

The bedroom door shut behind him, drenching the living room in darkness–save for the ghostly pale glow of my phone screen. I emptied out the Dilaudid and began grinding up the pills one by one.

Christians pray for salvation, Buddhists meditate for enlightenment, but I prefer to ingest my self-actualization eight milligrams at a time. I snorted the line I laid out on the table and snorted a second one to account for my existing tolerance. Then I snorted a third pill in case the first two were duds. Then I snorted a fourth because I don’t like ending things in odd-numbered steps.

I’m not Alvin.

Despite what you might be thinking, I don’t consider myself a particularly heavy drug user. After a hard day of work, I might relax with a drink or two. Like many young people, I’ve smoked weed once or twice in my adolescence. In the past I would partake in some light psychedelics: Psilocybin, LSD, 2CB, DMT (4aco). I have pretty severe ADHD so I usually use stimulants to help me focus: Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, Dexedrine, various forms of Desoxyn… And I’ve recently made great strides in treating my depression using prescription ketamine (not my prescription). MDMA did wonders for my social anxiety. And cocaine. And Xanax. Valium, Klonopin, Ativan, any of the benzodiazepines really… If my mood really tanks I might dabble in pain killers for a day or two. Kratom, 7-OH, Oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine–hydromorphone is what I prefer when I can get it–again, nothing too heavy…heroin, fentanyl when I can’t find anything else. And upon retrospect, I suppose it’s not entirely impossible that over the last few of years I may have begun developing a very minor case of crippling opioid addiction.

Now that might sound pretty bad but I assure you it is in fact a living nightmare. And if you really want to know who I am what you need to understand is that it’s not like I want to constantly be on drugs all the time. It’s just that I need to or else I won’t get high. And I’m willing to become addicted to anything that distracts me from the fact that I exist. Sometimes I pop random pills I find laying on the street in the hopes they’ll do something. All recreational drugs can be antidepressants if you use them the right way. And yes, I know I’d probably be a lot happier if I gravitated towards a healthier coping mechanism, like cutting myself. But it turns out I’m a complete wimp when it comes to physical pain so unfortunately as of right now my self-harm remains entirely verbal.

And Dilaudid is the fucking best! Hydromorphone outranks all other opioids in spades. It really is the perfect pleasure drug, Aldous Huxley be damned. When I first tried Dilaudid it felt like finally dating someone I had a crush on for years. It’s like sex, except better, because I’m actually able to have it. But even that is a shallow comparison. It’s a true panacea, the solution to every problem. Poverty, loneliness, anxiety, failure–it melts them all away. Drugs don’t always have to make you feel ‘good’; sometimes it’s enough that they make you feel ‘normal’. And that’s like buying happiness with cash.

I have a darkness inside of me I think. I guess it has always been there, probably because I’m a “Minor Attracted Person”… I don’t usually tell people that because when I do they tend to get the wrong impression. Even though I’m not dangerous…even though I’ve never been ‘dangerous’…people like my mother will still look at me in horror. Like I’ve done something wrong. Or I guess…maybe it’s because I am something wrong. Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. If you’re reading this that probably means you’re something wrong too.

People used to tell me “It gets better.” I’m thirty-one years old now and it has only ever gotten worse.

I grabbed my plush and curled up on the couch as a blanket of warmth enveloped me. I closed my eyes and let the world fade away, replaced by that familiar textured nothingness I craved so desperately. As I lay there, abandoned to the company of my dark impulses, my thoughts increasingly returned to my match. Just who was this cub I was going to meet soon? How old was he? What did he look like? His name? His species? Did we have similar interests? Would we go along? Oh God, please…just please let us get along.

In my dreams, the boy I’m paired with has bright eyes and an easy smile. He confides in me his questions and entrusts me with his secrets. We go everywhere together. To the mall. To the grocery store. To soccer practice. He knows I’m a pervert but trusts me anyway. And at night, when we’re in bed together, he squirms, whines, howls, humps, pants, and makes happy noises. And looks me in the eyes and tells me he isn’t afraid.

I smiled as my cub and I drifted through our dreams together. Wondering with dreams this good if I really wanted to wake up again in the morning.