Late August was always the hardest time of year for me. The summer was officially over, and fall had really yet to start. Most of my friends had headed back to college already, which is what found me sitting alone in an empty apartment, flipping through the channels, on a lonely Wednesday afternoon.

Infomercial…

*Click*

…Infomercial…

*Click*

…Infomercial…

*Click

I was only half paying attention to the inane diatribe issuing from the idiot box before me. My mind wandered to my life, the pathway that brought me here, squatting in a friend’s guest room.

It had been three years since I walked out of my parents’ home because my Dad didn’t understand me.

“Out of my mind,” he called me after I spent part of my college fund on what Ended up being a truly subpar Red Panda fursuit…

…and “Faggot”, he called me as I loaded my 280z with my crates of gear on the day I left.

My mother begged me not to leave. She told me that without a college education I would never amount to anything, but I could no longer live under that man’s thumb.

She cried as I pulled the car from the driveway, my dad just turned his back and walked in to the house.

The rest of the college money didn’t last long, and I had been bouncing from couch to couch ever since. Right now Robert and Kenji were letting me camp out here, and I was thankful for it. It kept me off the streets, but frankly I was just fucking bored with my existence.

The last couple weeks I had spent a lot of time on Roberts laptop chatting with random boys on different sites, it was when I met Crash Huskie and Gunner fox that my interest was piqued.

I had met Gunner On twitter, who in turn had introduced me to his partner. The three of us had been talking now for a few weeks and their interests seemed to match mine in regards to play and such.

The issue was that they were in the Midwest, and I was currently in a guestroom in queens… Not really congruent with meeting new people when one was as broke as I… So I wrote it off as an Internet interest that would never come to fruition, and moved on…

It had been few days since I had last talked to them, when an email arrived in my Hotmail box:

Andres,

Crash and I were talking, and know you have never been to a con. We have decided that we would like you to join us to in helping our friends launch a new one in Chicago on the 10th. It’s called MurrCon. We expect it to draw quite a crowd so would appreciate your help if you were able to.

Another friend of ours, Chaz Cougar. Will be traveling down from Maine next week, and would be happy to pick you up on his way, just let us know.

Gunner

With a swiftly growing smile, I replied “I would really like that”, and sent it off. This was just the break of scenery I needed, and who knows, perhaps I would just stay in Chicago afterwards, or bunk in with Crash and Gunner…

The next few weeks flew buy in a flash, as it seemed like it was no time before I was standing beside that beat up blue pickup that smelled like it had missed its last three emissions appointments.

The passenger door flew open revealing a hulk of a man behind the wheel. “Hey there, you must be Andres, I’m Chaz!”

He extended out a monstrous paw, which upon my weak attempt at a handshake, latched on and dragged me in to the cab. “Common’ kiddo, we got to get going, the guys are waitin, and we got a lot a road ahead of us.”

Closing the door, I set my knapsack on the floorboards and did up my seatbelt. I wasn’t so sure about this Chaz guy, he seemed a bit forward and crass, but if Gunner and Crash liked him I guess I could give him a chance.

As the truck pulled from the curb and headed down towards the end of the block, Chaz looked over at me with a big smile, “So, Robert, you like bondage?”

Cut to the chase, typical cat. I could see that this was going to be a long trip…

(This post is a fundraiser for Mr Bill. If you would like to see more, please donate to his GoFundMe for his surgery)

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