He sits watching the child intently, hungrily. She’s been left on her own, her mother thinking she is safe where she is. He watched her as she left, agitated, forgetful,  grabbing her bag and running through the gap in the hedge and up the path. The child thinks she is safe too, she is hunched over on the seat, bent to her task, oblivious to his piercing gaze.

He takes in the tight flaxen curls that shimmer in the pale afternoon light, the smooth, creamy flesh and flushed cheeks. The dress she wears is a light cornflower blue, from his vantage point it ruffles cheerfully in the air like a patch of sky that has skipped off duty. There is the slightest smear of mud on her chubby knees as she swings her legs from the edge of the bench.

He is a monster.

He takes a deep breath and the loamy fragrance of the copse he stands in fills his nostrils. He knows what he is about to do is wrong…very wrong but still he peers again through the leaves and sees that this part of the park is deserted. A high hedge of hawthorn lays like a wall between them and the children at play on the swings and roundabouts. Their gleeful cries fill the air  along with the gentle trilling of an ice cream van parked nearby. The sounds will help smother her protests.

He calculates these things instantly with an intuitive cunning. He is a monster, he knows that, even those closest to him acknowledge it. It is something he is reminded of constantly. In the suspicious unsparing scrutiny of family and neighbours, the muttered comments, the disapproving glares.

Sometimes he gets scared. If they knew even the half of it, the things he’s gotten away with, the secrets he has. There are times when he genuinely feels shame and remorse but too often the overwhelming compulsion seduces him and he welcomes it even though he doesn’t fully understand why. Like a naughty friend that leads him astray it whispers to him of forbidden pleasures and excitement to be had. He heard it faintly as he watched her disappear through the gap leaving the girl sitting there alone. Now it grows more insistent, enticing him.

 He moves from the shady cover of the large spreading oaks. His face stripped of shadow like a mosaic emerging beneath dark excavated earth. His eyes glitter, full lips parting to release a tongue that ranges and probes lasciviously.

The voices in his head battle and war, filling his mind with chaos.

It’s wrong.

But I want to.

It’s bad.

But….I have to.

I’m a monster.

Before he even realises it he is crossing the grass, taking one last look around then fixing on her like a guided laser shearing towards it’s target. The compulsion is  beyond all reason, blotting out past and future, foresight and consequence and shrinking his world down to this boiling moment.

When he is almost upon her she looks up. At first her face is only calm, questioning but then some childlike instinct blooms and fear widens her eyes as she realises what he means to do.

‘No!’ Her high, clear voice rises in protest but he is on her, grabbing her arms and raising them. He looks at her plump, creamy wrists, hands clutching protectively, twisting, trying to break free from his grasp. He darts his head forward.

Her scream is like a thin silver spike that ruptures the calm afternoon air. How can something so little and weak produce such a torrent of noise. He releases one arm and clamps her open mouth with his free hand.

He feels her quick fearful breaths punch hot against his palm, is dimly aware of the writhing mouth like soft velvet against his flesh but the first bite has overwhelmed him, he must have more. Again he bends his head, his mouth snapping brutally. The taste is soft and exquisite, flaring through his senses, the tiny writhing form beneath him becomes little more than a means to an end, a conduit to his  pleasure. Thick viscous liquid spills down his chin, coating it in a vivid scarlet smear and he feels the briefest moment of triumph and power.

Then a woman’s scream shatters the moment, harsh and terrible, crashing against his ears like a battering wave.

He lets go of the child and without turning to look breaks into an awkward run. Something soft and wet spatters on the ground and the girls agonised cries blossom as they are liberated from his smothering hand. Already the incandescent feeling has withered in an icy blast of fear and shame.

He feels hunted, doomed by regret.  He promised to himself he would never do anything like this again. Still though he runs blindly, desperate to evade his rightful fate, back towards the sanctuary of the trees and their comforting, ambivalent shadows.
 
He is almost there when he feels a pounding tattoo of feet, the back of his neck strafed by hot vengeful breath. Suddenly he is rising, his legs kicking out blindly against air rather than earth.

‘You little…’ Her voice is as harsh as a dragons hiss as she hoists him up with one hand and spins him around to face her. She is terrible in her wrath he feels as small and powerless as a leaf before a great storm.

‘I ask you to wait one minute while I get my purse and go back to get yours and pay. But you couldn’t even do that could you,‘ she bellows.

She drops him with a rude thud on the grass and brandishes an ice cream cornet piled high and thick, richly coated in raspberry sauce. Just like the one his little sister had been eating, the one his impatient five year old mind had greedily coveted.

‘Well now you’ve eaten half and the rest is on the floor she can have this and you can go without.

She goes over to his sister. Her tears dissolve instantly as she tucks in, the remnants of the earlier one melting at her feet.

He wails and stamps and punches the air in frustration.

Serves you right!’ His mother admonishes. ‘You’re a little monster!’