Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons—living, dead, high, comatose, inebriated, or incarcerated—is purely coincidental.
Got it? ;-) Riiight.

One

He was a monster. The kind society despises with a vengeance. But that didn't keep him from being in the holiday spirit.

Strings of streetlights
Even stoplights
Blink a bright red and green

He hummed the chestnut quietly to himself as he waited for the light to turn. Then, when at last it did blink a bright shade of green, he hit the gas, speeding up in order to merge onto Atlanta’s busy outer loop.

But there was no room in the inn. Er... no room, that is, for his ‘93, dirty, white, badly-in-need-of-a-paint-job, Ford Econoline, cargo work van to squeeze in anywhere. Last minute Christmas shoppers, fatigued truckers, and every Jane and Joe Blow who got off work at five o’clock (and that, evidently, included everyone in the entire Western Hemisphere) were plugging the path to freedom. Westbound I-285 was a six-lane parking lot.

“Unh, unh, unh…would you look at this,” he said in an exasperated tone, shaking his head.

But that was purely for show. This afternoon he was, quite possibly, the only commuter among the Perimeter’s daily quarter of a million commuters not to be in a rush to get somewhere. No, Dude, no rush whatsoever. In fact, the only place he’d rather be right now was about thirty-six inches farther to his right where, slouched against the passenger side door, sat the lovely and limp nymphet of his dreams.

‘I like my women the way I like my whiskey,’ he quipped to himself, ‘twelve years old and mixed up with coke.’

He often quipped that line to himself. It was on a t-shirt he had seen somewhere on the Internet. Not that it applied to this situation. No. After all, it wasn’t coke (cocaine, that is) or whiskey. It was vodka. And she wasn’t twelve. Of course not, don’t be silly. No, she was fourteen, heck, fifteen in just one month.

And an angelic vision at any rate, he thought. Slender—no, make that skinny, definitely skinny—about five feet, two inches tall, with laughing blue eyes, shiny, shoulder length, light ash brown hair, and even-all-over honey-beige skin. Absolutely beautiful from head to toe, no doubt about it. But it was that face—oh, my God, that gorgeous, perfectly proportioned, delicately formed, little pixie face with the long, dark eyelashes, and shy smile that had first caught his artist’s eye, slaying him, ripping his heart to shreds from the very first moment he met her. She was just three years old at the time (yeah, three) and the next year he had taken so many photos of her at the family Christmas party that she actually stopped for a moment, looked up from her toys, and chastised him in the tiniest of little voices. “You take TOO many pictures.” But he cherished each and every one of them. And now, almost twelve years later, he found her image had never, ever left his mind.

A shorthand way of describing her look would be to say she was a very young, cute Emma Watson (of Harry Potter fame) gradually metamorphosing, as she grew up, into a lean, elegant Keira Knightley (of Pirates of the Caribbean fame). These days the transformation was occurring rapidly—too rapidly, he thought, the hormones did their dirty work quickly. And each time he saw her now he could detect small changes in her face and body.

Other than for a few notable exceptions, she had never grown especially fond of letting him take her picture. So he tried memorizing every square inch of her whenever he got the chance and took advantage of the slowly creeping traffic to make a careful study. But her teenaged, waif-like figure was hidden from his groping eyes by the new, pipe gray Aéropostale hoodie she had recently hit him up for (“i wish someone would give me 50 dollars :D,” she had IMed him). It was zipped up over a thin, low-cut, tightly fitting, horizontally striped, stretchy nylon knit top—which he couldn’t see now but had seen earlier when she gave him a quick peek in response to his so-whatcha-got-under-there query. But what he was really getting at, of course, was—was she wearing a bra? And if so, why? Her bottom half was hidden from view by jeans, socks, and a pair of navy blue Vans.

Oh, he also wondered, by the way, what style and color her panties were.

Okaaaay...

Just the sort of perverted thing you'd expect from a monster. But this time he was actually studying her body in an effort to gauge her body language, in order to determine if right now was a good time to offer her a deal (okay, so it was a perverted deal, but a deal nonetheless), a deal for something he knew she wanted badly and would be wanting again very soon.

He had a brilliant plan, you see.

Before he made his move, however, he reached up and lowered his sun visor—the December sun was arcing low in the southern sky now—and caught his own aging reflection in the mirror there. Geez... what he wouldn’t give to be doing this twenty years ago, he thought, back when Hair Bands ruled the world and he actually stood a chance at stirring a young girl’s heart. But sometimes it takes time to figure out just who you are and what it is you really need. Even longer to feel comfortable in your own scaly skin.

(Okay, well, that's the first chappy. Thanks for reading, really. Oh, and all reviews—c’mon, I can take it!—are appreciated. :D Definitely.)