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Some jobs carry with them the promise of a truly exceptional career path; money, respect and women falling at your feet. The job of school counsellor in a private girls' boarding school is not one of those, but it does have, as I will explain in the forthcoming few thousand words, certain perks and privileges which make up for the lack of financial reward.

You may well ask how it came to be that a young, single man - a burgeoning paedophile no less - came to be working in such a position of responsibility in a girls' school in the first place. Well, as is often said, it's not what you know, but who you know. I was at the time of my employment working to provide support for troops who had returned from the UK's current conquests, Iraq and Afghanistan. I never agreed with our military involvement in the Middle East, but that didn't mean I wasn't prepared to support the men and women who'd put their lives on the line. When a charity supporting injured troops contacted me asking if I would be willing to work for them I immediately jumped at the chance to do something. The pay was crap, but it was worthy and fulfilling work, and I enjoyed my time there.

About three years later, I was contacted out of the blue by an old university friend, who told me she desperately needed my help. Claire Jenkins had been my drinking buddy at uni, the girl I always had a bit of a thing for, but never made a move on. I think she knew I had feelings for her, and thought it was rather sweet in her own patronising way, but I was nothing like her type. We had parted at the end of uni promising to stay the best of friends, and as is often the way had hardly spoken a word to each other since.

Claire had gone off to work in her father's school as a teacher. It sounds a bit odd to put it that way, but it really was her father's school - he had bought a derelict mansion and converted it, and set up a school for the gifted. It turned out that the economic model for a girls' school was far better than for boys or mixed sex, and so with Mr Jenkins' native flair for marketing he made it single sex, put flashy adverts in all the right places and watched the subscriptions roll in. About two thirds of the girls were fee-paying - and their parents paid through the nose - in order to support the bursaries of those who could not otherwise afford to attend. This was Mr Jenkins' goal - free, high quality education for those who are gifted but had no route to a high-quality education. Needless to say he didn't have much faith in the state school system.

Claire's offer to me was straightforward - come and relieve the drudgery of her day-to-day existence out in the wilderness of rural Buckinghamshire, and while I was at it offer a little counselling to the girls. The position was vacant, and she had convinced my father that I was one of the brightest young counsellors of my generation, and the deal was practically done before I'd had a chance to consider. She had no clue about the worrying tendency I had developed in my post-university days to find younger and younger girls attractive, and somehow it didn't seem the right way to turn down the job, and so, with little reluctance on my part I packed up my life and moved to The Fickleberry Academy for Girls.

---

I settled in fairly quickly, discovering quite a traditional single-sex boarding school, but one with a rather modern edge, too. These would, I was informed by Mr Jenkins, be the future leaders of industry the world over, in a new age where sexual equality was truly achieved. I wondered whether this was truly how he felt, or just another bit of marketing rhetoric, but he spoke with a passion which made me feel a little guilty for doubting his motives.

I lived on the estate, in a small cottage surrounded by a grove of trees, which was also to be my office. It had been the home of the estate vet, when the estate had been large and well populated with a variety of livestock. It had a consulting room, too, for estate workers and local villagers to take their pets for treatment, and this doubled perfectly as my therapy room. It had been thoughtfully kitted out with the usual paraphernalia of my profession - the couch (which I never used with my patients), a couple of armchairs (a bit more useful), and a potted plant or two, which I was pleased to discover weren't plastic. It was a strange set-up, a good way from the school, but actually there was a school of thought which suggested their removal from their day-to-day environment would help the girls to open up to me, and so I went with it.

My arrival was timed to coincide with the end of the summer term, which produced just enough intrigue among the girls to make me feel like a bit of a celebrity. Meals were taken together in a large refectory, and my sudden appearance at the head table only a week before school broke up for the summer holidays was the cause of no little chatter among the girls. the intrigue was added to, of course, by the fact that I was young, male, apparently unattached and not exactly bad looking, if not quite film-star handsome. I was, as I was laughingly informed by Claire, now the object of fascination for roughly half of the three hundred girls at the school; the other half were still in love with Mr Kingsley, the PE teacher, who was an altogether different proposition. I was the handsome nerd, he the rough-and-ready jock; little did the girls know that Paul Kingsley was about as gay as gay could be, and actually a rather charming chap. He, Claire and I were instantly an inseparable trio, and Paul never tired of teasing us about getting together, until we did just to shut him up. Claire doesn't know to this day what happened before we got together, but that's precisely what you, dear leader, are about to learn.

---

When school did start again, there was suddenly a massive influx of work. In the first term I was required to interview each girl at least once, as well as see those girls who needed it on a more regular basis. I was given a list of names of girls who it was considered necessary to keep an eye on, though the majority of those were instantly struck off the list, to be replace with some much more interesting candidates from the general populace.

One girl in particular stuck out from the crowd, and it was she that this story is about. Her name was Maya, and she was of mixed Anglo-French origin - he father had met her mother when travelling in Paris, and Maya was the only fruit of their marriage, at least thus far. When I met her, Maya seemed like the most well-adjusted, driven, focussed twelve year old I'd ever met, and instantly that set the alarm bells ringing. Yes, it's true that it is possible to find twelve year old girls without a single care in the world, for whom every day is a happy day - I'm sure there must be at least three or four in the whole population of the world. But the chances that there was nothing wrong with Maya? Effectively nil.

Our first meeting was entirely without incident, and Maya stood at the end clearly not expecting to need to see me for another year. She was surprised, then, when I asked her to return at the same time the following week so we could continue our discussion.

"Have I done anything wrong?" she asked, with the slight Gallic twinge to her voice which always set my heart racing a little.

"No, at least not that I'm aware. I'd just like to continue our chat next week, if that's OK with you."

She didn't respond verbally, but nodded her head and walked out, her brows knitted in confusion.

What had worried me about Maya was that there seemed to be absolutely nothing in her life that bothered her. Her parents doted over her, and expected that she would do well at school, but were never disappointed if she was not successful, instead immediately praising her for trying. Life at home - when she was there - was pretty idyllic, split between a Hyde Park apartment and a château in the south of France. She loved both her parents a great deal (and the feelings were genuine, that much was easy to see), and didn't blame them for sending her to the school, understanding that it was for her own good as they often travelled abroad. She got on well with all her classmates (a fact which was independently verified), and was well-liked by all of her teachers. She was a keen sports player, not naturally gifted but always hard-working, and typically hovered just outside the school team for most sports. All in all, it was a little too perfect to be true.

---

Our second meeting was a little more productive than the first, and really sparked when I asked her if she had a boyfriend at home. I had no business asking her, but I needed to open up a crack somewhere in her armour.

She blushed and looked down.

"No, of course not. I'm too young, and not pretty like the other girls."

This was patently not true, on either count. At twelve years old many girls have short relationships, testing the waters, even if the unions are tenuous and easily forgotten. As for lacking beauty...

"It wouldn't be unusual, Maya. And it won't go beyond these walls."

"Well, there's nothing, OK?" she snapped, and then immediately looked stricken. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. "I'm sorry, sir. I'm sorry. Please don't give me a detention."

I held up my hands. "Maya, nothing you say in this room will ever earn you a detention. You can scream 'fuck' at me a hundred times if it would help."

She blushed again and giggled, and I was relieved to have broken the tension which had built up over the preceding minutes.

"If you decide to tell me," I continued, "that would be great. If you don't want to, that's fine, too."

She looked glumly at the floor and said nothing, but nodded her head. I decided that was enough for one day and sent her away.

---

The third meeting is recorded in my notes with the word 'watershed' written across the top in block capitals with red ink. My limit for trying to get a patient to open up about a particular issue is ten meetings, so Maya could hardly be said to have held out particularly well. In fact, the week between our meetings had clearly been an eventful one, as I was sent a note by the school secretary explaining that Maya had, for the first time in her history at Fickleberry, been in trouble. She had argued with another girl in class, though the cause of the argument was not known. She had, in typical Maya fashion, immediately apologised and begged forgiveness, which was granted, but it was too late to avoid a detention.

I asked her about it as soon as we began.

"It's OK, I deserve to be punished," she said, contrite, and then with sudden flames in her eyes, "but it's all your fault!"

I sat stunned for a moment, but silently glad she had shown a little passion. Her delicious laugh cut through my thoughts; she laughed and laughed until tears were rolling down her face.

"Oh, it's such a relief to shout at you," she said when her convulsions had subsided. "Thank you."

I nodded, keeping my expression carefully neutral, but feeling more than a little triumphant. This was the real Maya, I could tell, not the carefully constructed and controlled clone. Only three meetings in and we were making progress.

"What was the argument about?" I asked.

She looked away out of the window, defiantly. When she turned back to me, her emotions were utterly under her control, but this was no longer the meek little girl who had entered my office.

"You, actually," she replied at last. "It was about you. Sally James thought that I come down here every week because you're my boyfriend. She said I can't be coming back because I have problems. She said I'm too normal to be seeing a counsellor every week."

I nodded. I could understand the sentiment, because there was nothing apparently wrong with Maya. But I knew that to be a falsehood.

"She's wrong, though, isn't she?"

Maya did not respond immediately. Her gaze returned to the window. From here one could see all the way to the school through the break in the trees where the path wound towards the cottage. She stared for several minutes, her gaze unwavering, and when she spoke it was in low, pained tones.

"I hate this place. Hate it more than anything in the whole world. I hate my parents for sending me here. Hate you for turning up and ruining everything. Nobody knew until you came and stuck your nose in. Nobody had any idea. They all thought I was happy. But now they talk, talk about how I'm down here every week talking to you. You know, one of the girls asked if my dad or my uncle is abusing me. I laughed, because it was so silly, but she still thinks that's what's up."

"What makes you hate it?"

She threw her hands up, a passionate gesture which the carefully managed Maya would never dare use. "I don't know! It's just so... so.. perfect. Everything is so perfect, and they want you to be perfect, too. It's so... English!"

I could see now that Maya was her mother's daughter, hot-blooded, passionate. It's a cliché, I know, but clichés are borne of truths.

"And you don't like that?"

She stared at me for a moment, seemingly looking for the answers in my eyes. "No, but yes, too. I hate it. I want to smash everything up, to break things. But then I see people misbehaving and I don't like it. I want them to be good. And I don't like it when they make me feel that way."

"So you decided to rebel by being perfect?"

Even with her tender years Maya could see the sarcasm in my question. She glared at me.

"Being 'perfect' means I get what I want. I don't have to argue with my parents. I don't have to fight with the teachers, and sometimes I get to do things I wouldn't be allowed to otherwise."

I went out on a limb, taking a bit of a stab in the dark, but a directed stab, one I was pretty certain would hit home.

"Like meeting your boyfriend without your parents knowing?"

She had been looking out of the window again, but spun to face me, her expression a mixture of outrage and defiance.

"How did.. what do you know? You'd better not tell anyone!"

I smiled openly at having scored the point. Just then I needed her to know that I was pleased to have hit the nail on the head, because it would keep her on the back foot. Something about this relationship was worth keeping hidden, and I sensed that it would be worth finding out, if just out of professional curiosity. I took another leap, less sure this time that I was on the right track.

"How old is he, Maya? He's nowhere near your age, is he?"

She looked down at her feet. The secret weighed heavy on her, and it was clear she was desperate for release. But still she remained silent. I pushed again, hoping to topple her wall of defiance.

"How old, Maya? No-one will know."

She waited a minute or two longer. The shadows were beginning to lengthen, the afternoon drawing to a close. I had kept Maya for nearly an hour already, and the appointment was only for half that long. I had drawn the breath to tell her that our time was up when suddenly she spoke, looking me directly in the eye.

"He's nineteen. He's a ballet dancer at the Royal Academy. He's French. His name is Andre."

She got up and walked calmly from the room.

---

I was triumphant, but also saddened. Maya's situation wasn't great, either way you looked at it. You could consider that she was effectively being abused by a much older boy, or - and these seemed much more likely given what I had seen of her character - she was unable due to the constraints of society to openly enjoy her relationship with Andre.

Legally it was my responsibility to report the relationship. If they'd had sex, Andre was breaking the law pretty badly. There wasn't even a decent defence that Maya looked old enough to consent - she was clearly still a young girl, hardly developed from what I could tell beneath her school uniform. There was no mistaking she was still a child, and so Andre must have known what he was doing.

My training in psychology had opened my mind to the possibility that young girls can be mature enough to form quite adult attachments, and have serious, consummated relationships which leave them entirely undamaged, both physically and psychologically. It was a rare girl who was that well balanced, but they did exist, and from what I'd seen of Maya's character I suspected she might well possess these qualities. She certainly seemed to be somewhat more emotionally mature than many of her contemporaries, and girls from higher years, even.

I decided to leave it for a week and see what Maya had to say the next time we met.

---

I didn't warn her that if she reported something to me that was illegal, it would be my duty to inform the authorities. Perhaps I should have done, but then she might not have opened up to me in the way she did. She even gave me the chance to tell her, and I shunned it.

"You don't tell anyone what I say here, right?" she asked. We had been talking about Andre, and she had almost told me something of great importance three or four times.

I shook my head. Technically a lie, but I wasn't going to go to the police unless I could be sure she was in an abusive relationship. I know a little too much about the human condition to believe in statutory rape. Some kids can consent in  full knowledge of what they are doing, and some adults quite frankly cannot.

She looked at me and smiled, and then spilled the beans.

"I had a pass out for the afternoon to see the dentist. I still go to one in London. I told my dad I didn't want to move because he's the only one I'm not scared of. It only took ten minutes to see him, then I met Andre and we went back to his flat for the afternoon. It was amazing!"

"Did you..." I left the question hanging, letting her decide what the end of the question might have been.

She smiled wickedly and answered without blushing.

"Twice. It was really good. I'm still a bit sore now, actually," she said with a filthy giggle.

That was when I knew one thing for certain. Years of training had honed my senses, had given me the ability to spot the lie.

"Maya," I said, looking her directly in the eye, "there is no Andre, is there?"

She stood, flicked me her middle finger and stormed out, slamming the door behind her. The reaction merely confirmed my suspicion, though it raised more questions than it answered. I still had to get through to Maya and find out what was wrong, and this time avoid her misdirection.

---

She came back the next week. Most people would have been surprised given how we'd left things the week before, but I knew Maya's type. The invention of Andre was an attention seeking move, confirmed by Maya's overwhelming willingness to spin tales of spending the afternoon in bed with her made-up boyfriend. She would therefore continue to seek attention until the real cause for her unhappiness came out. It was fairly clear that I would have to do all the work in this case.

She sat silently, staring out of the window. I had received no further reports of misbehaviour on her part, which did surprise me a little under the circumstances, but that might simply be because she hadn't been caught. It was more likely, though, that she had simply avoided trouble. I asked her about it, and she shrugged.

"Don't see the point of getting in trouble. Outside here everything's fine. No-one needs to know things are wrong."

Well, that was refreshingly adult, but it worried me because that was the new Maya, confident and grown-up, sheathed in the old Maya's personality. That way (a long way down the road, admittedly) lies schizophrenia, and we needed to avoid that if at all possible.

"Do you think things are wrong?" I asked.

She shot me a withering look, but replied anyway. "Yeah, of course there is. I made up all those lies."

"That doesn't make you a bad person, Maya. It just means that there's something you'd rather tell a lie about than tell me. Do you want to tell me what that is?"

She shook her head.

"Do you want me to guess?"

No answer.

"OK, then, let's talk about something else. What did you do last summer?"

She looked around, brows knitted in confusion. "Why?"

"Because I'm interested."

"Er... OK. We went to my grandfather's house in France."

"And who was there."

"Everyone. My mum, my dad, grandpapa, uncle Joseph and aunt Marie, and Nicolas, my cousin."

I watched her like a hawk as she spoke. There was the slightest twinge, but I didn't follow it up just yet.

"Did you have a good time?"

She shrugged again, a gesture which for her could mean any number of things.

"It was OK I suppose. Nicolas is annoying, and he only speaks French so I have to remember how to speak it."

We chatted for a while longer until she was comfortable, then I played a cheap trick on her.

"Why don't you like your uncle?"

She winced again, but was immediately on the defensive.

"Who said I don't like him? We get on really well. He's cool."

I didn't press the point; just her reaction to my question was enough. I ended the session there and then, and told her I would see her again the following week.

---

After she left I sat down to consider my options. She felt strongly about her uncle, that much was clear, but what could he have done to elicit such emotion? She had tried to control it, but a little something had slipped out of the chinks in her armour. I wondered what it could be, hoping beyond hope that it wasn't abuse, that there was some explanation which didn't mean taking a course of action I was loathe to consider. I was trained to deal with the situation if it turned out her uncle was behaving inappropriately towards her, but that didn't mean that I relished the possibility.

---

The notes for our next meeting have 'watershed' written across the top in red ink, and this time it hasn't been crossed through angrily for being wrong.

She arrived looking apprehensive, as if she knew what was coming. I'm glad she did, because I really had very little idea. I hadn't yet decided a course of action, though I'd spent most of the week since our last meeting thinking of nothing else. Somewhere deep inside there was something which needed to be said, but for the life of my I couldn't think of how to unlock the door.

In the end, it was Maya who presented me with the key.

"I asked one of the other teachers if the doctor was allowed to tell anyone what I said to him, and she said no, unless it was something that was against the law. You're the same, aren't you? If I tell you something which is against the law, you have to tell someone."

I stared at her for a moment, and then nodded very slightly.

"So you lied to me?"

I nodded again, not letting her eyes leave mine. To my surprise the anger she seemed about ready to unleash faded away. She shrugged.

"That's OK, I lied to you too."

"You did?"

"Yeah.... I... you're right. I don't like my uncle."

"How old were you when he first hurt you?"

Her head shot up, and I could see the tears already running down her face. Her eyes met mine, silently asking how I had guessed. If she could have seen it from my perspective, she would have seen how easy it was to jump to that conclusion. She continued to cry, but spoke through her tears.

"I was eight. He came to me one night and put his hand down there. He told me it was a special things uncles did with their nieces."

"Did he do anything else?"

"No, not that time. But it happened again. Once he got out his thing and waved it at me, made me touch it. It was disgusting and it smelled."

"And how long did this last?"

"About..." she began, but her voice faltered. She caught herself and blew her nose, then breathed heavily until she was calm. "About three years."

"So the last time was last year in France, on holiday?"

She nodded.

"What made him stop?" I asked.

At that she smiled, a triumphant little gesture.

"I told him I'd taken a photo of him doing it one time, when he wasn't looking, and sent the memory card back to England already. He didn't know I hadn't. I told him if he ever touched me again I would tell everyone. My dad would kill him. I mean, actually kill him, with a gun."

"Is that why you haven't told anyone?"

She nodded.

"You know, Maya, I'm meant to go to the police now."

She dropped her eyes to the floor.

"I know. I wish you didn't have to. He's stopped now, and he never made me... we never.... you know..."

"Had sexual intercourse?" I asked, rather harshly.

She blushed. "No. We never had sex."

"So you think he doesn't deserve to go to jail?"

Maya looked stricken.

"No! I mean, he's my uncle, and Nic's dad. He's not a criminal."

"But he is, Maya. What he did to you is very wrong."

And here our conversation ended, as another student, sent from the main school, hammered on the door with a message that Maya must return to school immediately, that her father was here.

---

I found out the cause of the emergency from Claire as we waited for dinner to be served that evening. Maya's uncle Joseph, upon whom my thoughts had been concentrated all day, had been killed, along with his wife, in a landslide at her grandfather's property. I cannot know what Claire thought to my sigh of relief, but she looked at me oddly, and I tried to pass it off as sympathy for the girl.

I don't remember the meal, only that my mind was filled with a maelstrom of emotions about Maya's situation. On the one hand, the fact that her uncle had died relieved the tension of a difficult situation. I wouldn't be forced to make a decision about going to the police, because with Joseph's death I had reasonable cause to avoid doing so. I cared more what that meant to Maya than anything else - she would not have to go through the difficult and unpleasant process of having her uncle charged with sexual assault. No matter how hard the justice system works to make the process have as little impact as possible on the kids, it still has an effect, and Maya would doubtless have suffered further psychological damage had she gone through it.

However, there remained the issue of Maya's mental state under the current circumstances. She had had no change of closure with her uncle, and the loose end which this left could be damaging. Worse than that, though, was the possibility that she might hold herself responsible for her uncle's death. It's a form of megalomania, just like superstition, where you believe your actions will have an impact on the wider world. Maya might reasonably have wanted to wish her uncle harm for the things he had done to her against her will, and on the very day she revealed to me what he had done, he died. The coincidence was very strong, and she could easily have come to the conclusion that she was in some way to blame for the accident which killed him. It was far-fetched, but Maya wouldn't necessarily have been thinking that clearly.

I resolved to see Maya as soon as I could.

---

She was absent for three days, but as soon as she returned I sent a request to see her. She didn't come. Nor did she respond to the following two requests. As a member of staff, I had the right to require her attendance, but forcing the issue wouldn't have helped, and so reluctantly I let the matter drop.

I did my best to keep up with her through her friends - the cute-as-a-button Katie was her best friend and my secret spy for several weeks, reporting back on Maya's mood under the pretext of ensuring that her friend was not feeling the grief of her uncle's passing too strongly. I felt awful deceiving Katie in this way, hiding from her the true cause of my concern for Maya, but the end justified the means.

---

Three weeks later it snowed. Late November was early for the weather to deteriorate, but with school winding down towards the Christmas holiday we were inundated with a good foot or so, which always seems deeper than measurement might suggest. With most of the off-site staff unable to reach the school, lessons were cancelled and the grounds became a winter playground for the girls.

Having been asked to wander round unofficially refereeing snowball fights and the like, I was round the side of the sports hall, where the fields opened out and a legion of snowmen was taking shape, when from nowhere I was pummelled in the side of the head. Freezing snow filled my vision, and spilled down the back of my neck, and hearing in my right ear was lost entirely.

The giggle which followed the missile's trajectory through the air was immediately recognisable, and I turned to face Maya.

"Gotcha!" she said with a laugh, emerging from behind the corner of a building, and then as an afterthought added, "Sir."

I smiled at her - it was good to see her in such high spirits.

"Hi Maya. How's things?"

She cast her eyes down sheepishly.

"I'm OK."

"You never came to see me."

"Sorry. It's just that everything changed when uncle died. He was dead, so why do anything about it? I thought if I came back we would still have to tell people."

I shook my head. "What would be the point now, unless you wanted to? I only wanted to make sure you were alright. I was worried you might blame yourself."

She looked confused for a moment, and then understanding dawned.

"Because I hated him? I think I know what you mean. I didn't think I killed him, though, so it's OK."

"You could still come back any time you like, you know," I said, finishing with a shiver as melted snow dripped down my back beneath my clothes.

"Thanks, I will. Are you cold?"

I nodded. "Yeah, thanks to you! But it's fine, I was about to go and sit in front of a log fire in a blanket all evening. You've just persuaded me to go sooner rather than later."

"You have a real fire? I love fires. It's too warm to have them in France and we never light the one in the flat. Dad says it gets too smoky."

"Well, you're welcome to come and sit in front of mine some time."

"Thanks!" she replied, and with a broad smile turned on her heel and disappeared through the snow.

---

I had no idea she would take up the invitation so soon. It really hadn't been a suggestion that she turn up that very night, but there she was on the doorstep of the cottage, and suddenly I felt very glad for its seclusion. She was thoroughly under-dressed for a trek through the snow, and her jeans and trainers were soaked through. She shivered as she stepped into the hallway, but smiled nonetheless.

"I thought I'd come and see that fire," she said nonchalantly, as if turning up on the doorstep of the school counsellor was something she did all the time.

"You're freezing!" I exclaimed, and as if to illustrate a point, a small snowdrift detached itself from her legs and landed with a soft thud on the hallway carpet.

"Yeah."

"Well, you can't stay in those clothes," I said, which raised a naughty smile on her lips. "I'll get you an old tracksuit of mine, and some socks, and you can get changed upstairs. At least your jumper is dry."

She smiled at me fussing around her, serene in the midst of all my panic. I managed to dig out some old tracksuit trousers with a drawstring which would probably go just about tight enough to keep them up, and found some winter socks, too. She disappeared into the bathroom, and I pointedly ignored the fact that she forgot to fully close the bathroom door, reasoning that she was probably used to a lack of privacy by now.

When she came back downstairs, I had questions for her. The trousers were hanging dangerously low on her hips, and she had to keep a hand on them to prevent total collapse.

"Won't you be missed at the house?" was my first volley.

She smiled and shook her head. "No, it's chaos there tonight. Not enough staff, too many girls. Don't worry, I won't be missed until dawn."

"And you just want to sit by the fire?"

She didn't answer, but instead stepped past me into the front room, where the logs were blazing warmly. She picked up the blanket I had laid out for her, and wrapped it around herself, before sitting on the rug right in front of the fire. At this point I reasoned there was very little I could do but join her. She was wearing my clothes, and they were clearly insufficient to allow her to return to the house, so by making her leave I would be risking her health and my freedom. I could have called one of the ward mistresses and told her the situation, but the number of questions that would raise immediately knocked that idea on the head. Besides, Maya would be in serious trouble, and I felt rather responsible for having invited her down to see the fire in the first place.

So, grabbing the other blanket and the half-finished glass of whiskey I had been nursing, I sat down beside her.

"Is that whiskey?" she asked as I took a draught. "Can I try some?"

I should have said no. Of course I should. But the mischievous part of my soul wanted to teach this rather cocksure little girl a lesson, and so I agreed. She took far too large a gulp, cough and spat it in the fire and then fell back as the inevitable fireball engulfed us both.

Of course it was harmless, burnt off in an instant, but I too reacted and fell back onto the floor next to her. I rolled to the side and raised myself on an elbow to see how Maya was, and discovered her laughing her head off. When she saw me looming over her she stopped laughing, but continued to breathe rapidly.

"That was fun!" she shouted, and then in a lower voice said, "So's this."

With that she reached up a hand and grabbed a handful of my hair, pulling me down towards her face. The kiss was wet and amateurish, but full of passion, and immediately my heart began to hammer. She pushed me away so hard that I fell onto my back, and then immediately span and climbed on top of me, smashing her lips back into mine while her hips danced crazily side to side across my stomach. I reacted at last, reaching round and clamping her into me, and as we continued to kiss my hands roamed up and down her back.

I got a little braver, and let my hands drift onto her round little bottom. She still had the frame of a young girl, and her cheeks felt tiny beneath my man-sized paws. I kneaded them and she moaned into my mouth, grinding herself even harder into me. After a few moments she reached around a hand and grabbed one of mine, lifting it up and forcing it beneath the waistband of the tracksuit, pushing it roughly down. There was just the soft skin of her backside, and it was my turn to moan as I found out she had discarded her knickers along with her jeans. My other hand joined the first, and I pulled her hips into me, pushing her down my body until she sat atop my hard shaft, which was still encased in my jeans but making a concerted bid for freedom.

We ground for what seemed like an age, lips still locked together, tension growing in me until it reached boiling point. I didn't want to finish this wonderful union by making a mess of my pants. I pushed her into an upright position, and then without asking her permission lifted her jumper and t-shirt off in one go. Her raised arms were all the agreement I needed, and then suddenly her upper body was naked. Her budding breasts, less than an A-cup and topped with hardened but undeveloped nipples, stood proudly in the dancing light of the fire as she sat on top of my erection and rocked her hips back and forth. I reached up and tweaked them both, and she giggled, pushing my hands off her over-sensitive nubbins. When I did it again she moaned, and her eyes closed in appreciation. I bounced her up and down gently with my hips while I fondled her youthful breasts, and she groaned as the sensations grew in her. She gasped as I squeezed harder and thrust upwards more strongly, and her eyes flew open. She seemed to have come to a decision, and pushed my hands away again.

She climbed off to the side, and I did nothing to stop her as her hands reached for the waistband of my jeans. She fumbled with the buttons for a moment, but as soon as she had them open I raised my hips to allow her to pull them and my boxers down to my knees. My engorged dick slapped against my lower belly, wetting it with the lubricant which poured from its tip. Maya didn't hesitate, reaching down to pick it up and immediately starting a rhythm. She knew what she was doing, and I felt a momentary pang of guilt about how she had learned, but lust was my master, and I let the feelings take over. I had closed my eyes, nearing my peak, when I felt a shift at waist height. The wanking stopped and a wonderful, warm, wet sensation engulfed the head of my penis.

I opened my eyes again, watching her fellate me. Her own eyes were cast downwards, concentrating on the job in hand. She had little experience, but she knew to suck, and to bob, and that was enough for it to feel fantastic. I tapped her on her lower back, and hauled around her hips so that her backside faced me, and roughly pulled down the tracksuit. Her lips, squeezed between the cheeks of her arse, were still smooth asnd hairless, but Maya was nearly a woman - a slick of her juices coated the whole area, and my fingers slipped easily between her lips to find her most sensitive places. I felt rather than heard her moan of appreciation as I found her clitoris and mashed it against her pubis.

I could never resist that level of stimulation for long, and as I spewed my load into Maya's mouth, and felt her swallowing, I pushed extra hard against the nubbin in her slit and saw her collapse onto the floor in orgasm, her arms and legs no longer able to support her spasming body. She lay convulsing with my fingers still pushing hard into her sex.

When I woke on a crisp, clear morning, the fire had gone out but it hardly mattered - I was being kept warm by the naked figure of Maya, my little preteen lover.