Originally published in No Agency’s No Erotica #3, that features writing by Sean Thor Conroe, Patrick McGraw, Todd Michael Shultz, and more.

I’ve been a total simp lately. Anything Dasha from Red Scare has asked of me, I’ve done. It’s been so pathetic, I’m so ashamed of myself. I can’t believe things got this bad….

 

The other day, even, she brought home some Kratom from the bodegita.

“Just try it, it’ll help you relax,” she said.

 

“It’s drugs. It’s like doing heroin. Don’t you remember when Dagsen went through those really bad Kratom withdrawals in 2020?”

“Why would I remember that?”

 

But despite my protests, she was just so pretty, I couldn’t help myself. “Fine. Let me see it.” It was a tiny little bottle, about 1 ounce, like one of those turmeric ginger “immunity shots” I’m famous for getting at Whole Foods Market.

 

“And what’s in this? How do I know it’s even real Kratom and not Fentanyl?”

 

“You can’t drink fentanyl, retard.”

 

“You would know,” I mumbled back.

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing.” I raised my voice. “Look, I’m gonna drink it. Ooh, look at me! I’m gonna drink the bodegita kratom!” I unscrewed the cap and chugged it swiftly and gratefully.

 

“Was that so bad?” she asked.

 

It was awful. It tasted like dirt, worse than I even imagine coffee (which I’ve never had before) probably tastes like.

 

But within minutes I began to feel a certain weightlessness, like I was free from all the myriad anxieties and debilitating neuroses that have plagued me, both the real ones, which I have as a result of my traumatic upbringing and Ashkenazi ancestry, and the feigned ones, which I have as a result of my fetishization and impersonation of “funny jews” like Woody Allen and Nick Kroll.

 

But on Kratom, there was nothing Jewish about me. I was simply free. I lay on my leather couch and smiled. “This is great, Dashi,” I said to her.

 

“I told you. You needed to loosen up, hon.”

 

“And it’s really helping with the chronic pain I got from twenty years of working as a plumber.”

 

She walked into the kitchen to get a beer out of my fridge (she loves beer and donuts; a lot of people don’t know this about her). “Oh, Alex Tsebelis is coming over to take some pics of me. That’s okay, right?”

 

“I’m on kratom, baby. Everything is okay.” It was really a stunning feeling. Total painlessness.

 

She sat beside me, sipping Modelo, running her hands through my hair.

 

“I wanna try every drug,” I said, looking up at her. “This feels so good, I don’t even care that Fox fired Tucker for absolutely no reason this morning. The pain is just gone. I feel free. I don’t even miss my foreskin…”

 

I dozed off for a bit and when I woke up, Alex Tsebelis, Chloe Mackey, Soph, and some Russian woman with dark circles under her eyes were all sitting in my apartment, along with Dasha from Red Scare.

 

“Aww…. Is widdle Maffyou waking up fwom his kwaytom,” Dasha said, making them all laugh.

 

“I feel kinda sick to my stomach,” I replied, sitting up slightly.

Alex, in his signature stimmed up manner, started shaking his head at me twitchily. “He did Kratom? That’s gonna fuck him up good, Dash.”

 

Soph chimed in, “You mean slaytom?”

 

They all laughed at this. But I wasn’t laughing. I was furious that Soph was in my house for seemingly no reason.

 

I went to get some cold water from the sink while Alex pointed a big Canon camera at me and said, “oh, this is gonna be great.” Then turned the camera to Soph and the Russian heroin addict and said “Soph, I want you to French Oksana a bit. Really get the tongues out there, though, they should be visible.” At some point, they’d both spilled water all over their white tee shirts, which were now transparent. Revealing nip, areola, and more.

 

“There’s water all over my floor guys. Why did you get water all over my floor? So you could do a raunchy photoshoot in my house? And who is this even for? For gay men to masturbate to?”

 

Dasha rolled her eyes. “He’s in the cranky phase of the kratom.”

 

A pang of fear ran through me. Dasha? Thinking I’m cranky? No, no. “No I’m not. I’m just kidding. I’m in the kray-hole, ha ha! Nothing hurts anymore, remember?”

 

“Yeah, right,” she scoffed.

 

“You know what,” Alex added, “Matthew should model the new sweatpants. We all know he has that monster.”

Everyone laughed at this. Laughing at my body.

 

“Why do you have to be so crude all the time, Alex?” I wondered aloud.

 

“He’s just kidding,” Dasha said. “We all know you would never do the Gray Sweatpants Challenge for us.”

 

Something in her voice really bothered me. “I’ll do it. You think I won’t do it? Tsebi, get me a pair of those new sweatpants, medium.”

 

Alex dug into his duffel bag and took out a pair of gray sweatpants that said “THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS” along the sides of each leg in an exaggerated gothic font, it was really not very readable, too many letters too poorly placed on the garment. Just my two cents.

 

Dasha led me into the bedroom, teased me a bit until I was “excited,” then handed me the pants to change into. I slipped them on and strutted out confidently, still ecstatic from the lingering Kratom high I’d subjected myself to a few hours earlier.

 

The ladies’ jaws dropped when they saw me in these sweatpants. Alex, too, seemed impressed, tenting his fingers and saying “Excellent. This is going to move merchandise,” before picking up his camera and pointing it at me.

 

“What? Can you really see everything? Is it true what they say about gray sweatpants?”

 

“Oh hunny…” Soph started, “if I weren’t married…”

 

I looked down at myself and realized you really could see everything. But before I knew it? The camera was already flashing. “Uhh… I’m not really comfortable with this,” I tried saying, but it was no use.

 

“You look so hot, Matthew,” Dasha said, “you look like a hot drug addict in your gray sweatpants. Everyone’s gonna love these pics.”

 

But that’s not the point. I am a Trad Cath and I shouldn’t be posing for photos like this. Especially if gay guys are going to masturbate to the photos. So please, if you see the pics of me in the No Agency x Red Scare gray sweatpants, don’t look at them. Don’t masturbate to them. I was on drugs when they were taken. I got groomed.