Your Daddy didn’t know I was watching you.
But he wasn’t your Daddy.
He was Petyr Baelish, Littlefinger, Master of Coin for all of the Vale. Fuck if I knew how I ended up here. No wait—I did. Washed outta Quiet Isle rehab clinic straight into the streets of Eyrie City. Didn’t take to the streets like I woulda a year ago. Went to the sober house, got my own place, got my very own job. Not slinging dope or deleting the enemy. Nah, just landscaping.
I was the lawn care specialist at the Wickenden Country Club.
That’s how I found you, pretty girl.
Bald mountain sun, the stink of butchered grass, a sea of glittering green guts. I mopped the carnage from my brow and there you were, darting through the rose garden uphill, snow-limbed, flame hair flickering at your hips. Got my heart thumping war-heavy, mostly in my cock, because you fluttered in this untethered sorta way, as if your little white tennis shoes bore no weight. You musta come up from the court, racket in hand, as you landed at the bistro’s patio, into the arms of your not-daddy.
The way you kissed his mouth. The way his hand so easily held your wisp of a waist as he eased you onto his lap. I thought, she’s a good girl, isn’t she?
I want a girl like that. A girl who's actually a bird. A girl who glows firebright but I can’t look away.
I looked, sweet bird. I fucking looked.
It’s easy to learn if you look. To learn that your little bird goes to Moongate Academy, because she shows up on Maidensday afternoons in a crested white button-up and plaid skirt, short on long legs, oh, those legs. I could never decide if I liked them better in your white knee-high socks, or after, in your even shorter tennis skirt, the one where I could see the underside of your little ass cheeks when you lunged midcourt to catch a quick shot.
I learned to mow around the courts from three to five. To edge trim by the pool from five to seven. To spray fertilizer in the patio lawn from seven to eight, though I’d have to watch your not-daddy too. Watch him kiss you once in greeting, then sip his thousand-dragon snifter of scotch with a hand on your bare thigh, or slipped into your red curls, tied back, always, with a white ribbon.
I didn’t mind, sometimes, because the long golden sun lit you ablaze, not just your curls, but the fuzz on your arms, your upper thighs, your slender calves. Too soft to be a nuisance, though I wouldn’t know, not yet. I only imagined my callused fingertips coming back singed if I ever laid them on you, right then and there. I knew I’d like it, the burn.
I jacked off in the pool house bathroom once per shift. Seven feet gives me access to the strip of narrow windows at the ceiling, the ones that overlook the pool. You didn’t sunbathe—you swam. In a pretty blue swimsuit, one piece, that clung tight to new tits, baby half peaches, and clung even tighter to your little puff of pussy. Was there hair there? I would have to get closer, huh. Wished I was a lifeguard sometimes. Wished I was the blond boy that put on your sunblock, the one who made you giggle when he rubbed beneath your straps. I wanted to make you giggle like that.
I wanted a lot of things, and I was strong enough to get them. Smart, too.
So I followed Littlefinger’s Lance RSX up the mountain one evening. I already had a gate pass, what with work and everything, so the neighborhood was free territory. Didn’t let my rusty old Thunderer get too close of course, but I caught him turning into 45 Iron Oak Lane. Another gate there, and a stone fence maybe three-quarters my height, iron spikes on top. I parked in the shade and waited. Drank a couple cans of lukewarm Blue Rose, because I always keep a case handy beneath the passenger's seat.
The house was something else—a mansion. Three stories of grey stone stacked together like a man-made mountain, made bright by flaming sconces. Ugly, though. A try-hard castle. I watched the windows and got lucky at ten fifteen. A second story light went on, broadcasted the sweetest silhouette, yours, a tiny maiden’s figure made tinier from afar, awash in pink glow from gauzy pink curtains, maybe pink walls too.
So I had a dinner ritual. Started to be I’d pick up a pizza or hoagie on the way to 45 Iron Oak.
Didn’t have nothing better to do. Stranger died two moons ago.
All houses up here were shit mansions, on sprawling pieces of rocky pine forest land, acres in between each one. I hid the Thunderer down an old gravelly service lane. Used binoculars to peep through the coniferous crush and scope out the security scene. A camera on the gate to the drive—figured. Then a whole other set, down the drive, on the house itself. I started nightly walks around the wooded perimeter, learned the blindspots. I wasn’t in the Kingsforce for nothing. Then one night, after maybe a few too many, I prowled the fence for my perfect point of entry. Put my palms between the neat line of iron spikes, and tossed my body weight into the bushes. Simple as that.
I fixed a couple cameras on the stone exterior, nudged them sideways, real easy, what with my height and all.
Then I had a new hobby, taking it easy against a thick oak beneath your windows—plural. It was a pretty show spread in three bright pink rectangles, portals to little bird world. I liked you shower fresh, stark naked. It was a damn wonder how hard you made me, seconds away from nutting with no contact, just the agonizing pressure of denim on eleven swollen inches. I’d never been into little girls before. But you were grown-up, I told myself, when I saw the soft fire on your cunt, the cutest little triangle, begging to be fondled. I liked the way you’d smooth lotion on your skin, because I thought of how supple you’d be, how easy you’d tear beneath my teeth. I liked that you danced in your too-short nightgowns, the little silky kind with puff sleeves, and you sang too, though I could barely hear it. Even harder to hear over the fleshy sound of grinding one out. That’s what I did down there, in the shadows. Unbuckled, went to work on my cock. I smeared my come into the bark at my back. I had a nice collection. Looked like webbed fungus after the first full moon of my night watch. Yeah, that's what it was.
But I couldn’t make out what you did under the covers, even with the binoculars. Couldn’t figure out why you went to sleep shivering. One night I got bold and went out from branched cover to the outer wall beneath your window. I stayed quiet and heard—
You were crying.
I drove home uneasy and had a date with a fifth of bottom-shelf whiskey. My place was an apartment, its bare walls stained orange with sourleaf smoke, the linoleum over the floorboards warped and curled at the corners. The carpet in the bedroom reeked of decades of cat piss, stained with it too. I didn’t have a bed frame or sheets. Just a cigarette-stamped mattress and Granny’s old quilt. On my nightstand—an overflowing glass ashtray and my one picture. Me and Elinor. My first and only friend. Only girl I loved. She cried a lot too, after Gregor visited her room. He’d visit me after. He’d be awake if I ever tried to creep out, comfort you. Sorry sweet girl. Drunk as a dog, damn me.
I was getting ready to move back west. Thought it was time to visit the ranch again. Couple things happened that made me certain.
You were one, little bird.
Your Daddy was the other.
It was his fault. Never mine, sweet girl. I want you to remember.
First I’ll admit my one mistake. Happened on a regular hot-ass Warriorsday, sweat soaked to my beltline, and all I could think of was an ice cold tallboy. I’d driven the mower back to the shed in the far corner of the club’s property. Heard voices coming from behind—that giggle. Oh, I was proper pissed when I saw that snotty blond brat with a hand up my bird’s skirt, necking her.
“Get off the girl,” I barked.
His look was priceless. Never seen a man this ugly before, one that could crush his skull like a pinched grape between two fingers. I watched his little cock shrivel in his khakis before he topspeed bolted. But you, my little doe, stayed trembling against the shed.
“D-don’t tell,” you blubbered.
I wasn’t thinking about telling. I was thinking about licking the tears from your lashes. I was thinking of taking a bite out of your ripe strawberry blush. It occurred to me that you were edible—a bowl of sweet fruit and cream, berries and peaches, in that white tennis get up.
But you weren't looking at me. I didn't like that.
I grabbed your pretty freckled chin and forced a gander. "Not so pretty, am I?"
"P-p-please, Sandor. Don't hurt me."
Wasn't expecting my name. Forgot the bosses stitched it into my Wickenden uniform, a maroon button-up, stuck to my skin. My tits hung level with your scared face. They were bigger than your face, too. Same with my hand. This close, this isolated, I should have been fucking you already, or at the very least toying with your little pussy. But I got stuck in your eyes. It was the reverse of what happened at seven. It was like I'd already had that beer, like I'd jumped in the pool and taken you with me.
"How do you think I got these scars, girl?"
"I don't know. I'm so sorry, Ser, I—"
"Spare me—I'm no Ser. You know what I am? A loser. That's right girl. I bet you could tell. No one with their life in order ends up looking like this. It was my brother who did it. You think I'm tall, should've seen him. Six fucking feet at twelve years old, and still like to bicker over children's toys. Yeah, I took his toy soldier. So fucking what. Oh, I'll tell you what—" I slicked my damp hair back no problem, put my burns to your button nose, a dot of cold. "He stuck my face in the fireplace. Real pretty, huh? You like pretty things?"
Your nose twitched against my cheek as you sniffled and sucked in feeble cry baby breaths. "I'm so sorry," you whimpered. Your breath shoulda been hot, but it was cold, a sugary kiss. I hated that. "I'm so sorry to hear about your brother, Mr. Sandor, Ser."
"Shut the fuck up, little bird."
"B-b-bird?"
I pulled away. You weren't following instructions. But I'd left a crimson spot on your nose—heat makes the scars act up. I licked my thumb and wiped it. That was my mistake. Because that's when I realized I missed having a pet. That I could take care of something again. Something little, something special, something pretty. Something Gregor couldn't have. Something that wouldn't die on me.
"Like the ones from the Summer Isles, the pretty talking ones," I grumbled. I grabbed your upper arm, a palmful of soft down and tender game. "Come, girl. Pretty thing like you, Daddy wouldn't want you missing."
"He's not my daddy," you said. "He's my uncle."
That was your mistake.
I knew you didn't love him.
I didn't feel bad about my visits to Iron Oak but I felt even less bad after that. Started to come in the daylight, before work, on my days off. Figured out the cleaning lady's schedule, then the landscaper. He only came once a week, Smithsdays. Name was Timett, lived down in Redsmith, like me.
It was a shame when he fell down the stairs of his apartment complex, coming home sloshed from the Twin Crows one night. Slick concrete in the pouring rain—he earned himself two broken legs and a broken arm. Couldn’t tend greenery like that, no ser.
Good thing he had a replacement call Mr. Baelish the next day.
“Timett’s pal,” I told him. “I work down at Wickenden, I can come on my day off, no problem.”
“Fine, fine. You coordinate with the housekeeper Gretchel—and stay clear of my daughter.”
How easy was that?
You weren’t home when I came anyway. I liked it like that.
I got the gate code, and buttered Gretchel right up, picking out blue roses to put in the vases, saving the extra pretty ones for her. She let me come in for mint lemonade and a subsequent piss. She didn’t track how long I stayed inside. She certainly didn’t notice when I angled the interior cameras slightly askew.
Away from one doorway in particular.
Yours.
The first time I had access, it was like a candy store, or better yet, a dope score. A little pink paradise, with pink argyle walls, stuck with posters of fecund popstars, shelves stocked with stuffed animals and frilled-up porcelain dolls. The furniture was white, the bed curtains gauzy. I didn’t touch too much for fear I’d track sod. Sully you, before your time. But I opened your drawers, smelled everything. Spent ten minutes nose-deep in your panties, inhaling the pale yellow crotches and getting a rush like fresh smack to my veins. I tucked a pair away for later, small ones from the far back, worn cotton patterned with Hi Kitten, that cartoon cat from Yi Ti. The scalloped elastic band had lost its tension. There was a little tan streak at the backside. Poor bird musta had an accident. Needed a better daddy to keep her potty trained.
I sniffed the animals in your bed too, liked the smell of one in particular, smelled like your panties. I wondered about that teddy bear with the big red bow and matted fur. Wondered where he’d been.
Next time I was up there, I put my own camera in a stuffed bunny. The one in faded overalls who stood watch on a high shelf, gave me a full panoramic of the candy store.
Then I didn’t need to sneak around so much. I had an all hours show.
I liked what you did alone. I liked watching you at night from the comfort of my own bed, chain-smoking and piss drunk, forcing my meat into the little leg hole of your panties till they gaped something awful. I watched you put on your nightgowns. I watched you say your prayers. I watched you write in a diary, tuck it into a shoebox under the bed. Took note of that for later. I watched you play dollies, even though you ought to have grown out of it already, if you were slutting around and kissing boys. You made your dollies mash parts. Didn’t think you’d fucked, though. Never saw any boys over.
The best part was after dollies and prayers, when I learned what your special teddy was for, the one with the big stinky head, fur flattened on the back of it. He went between your legs at midnight, and you went bottom up. You put your little all into humping that damn thing. I heard your whimpers. I came when you did.
But sometimes you disappeared after this, after a knock sounded and you scrambled upright, and a sickly suave voice called, “Come with me, kitten.”
Whenever that happened, you came back and cried. I hated the crying. Sounded like hers, small and habitual. Then I felt real far away suddenly, like an echo chamber, or a battlefield, where noises are big yet distant, an invisible blanket of leaden dirt. Dead feeling, miniscule.
What was the kitten’s keeper up to?
I liked seeing you in one piece the next day at Wickenden, though I can’t say it was mutual. I’d stare and you’d frown, avert your eyes, chirp nervously to whichever friend was nearby.
You weren’t home when I did my landscaping, mostly. Except for one day, when a friend musta taken you home from school early. Looked like you were gonna piss yourself when you ran out to your little tree swing under the willow, and saw me at the hedges.
“Your Daddy hired me,” I called.
I came close with the clippers in hand, parted the hanging willow boughs with a sweaty forearm.
“I know,” you whispered, backing up onto the smooth wooden plank, suspended by two mossy ropes. “I saw you on the cameras.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
You swung idly, bare feet dragging through the clotted grass, toes curled downward, then up. Like everything, your toes were pretty. Pretty up close especially. Those joints part like baby carrots under teeth—that ain’t no wives’ tale. I’ve bitten plenty of fingers clean off on the front. Really startles a man, you know, when his finger is replaced with a crimson geyser. Makes snapping the neck easier. A good distraction.
I looked at your neck. You wore plaits that day, left your most vulnerable part exposed.
“I see you too,” I said.
That got your eyes up, got us on par, because then you watched my cock climb down my jeans.
“You do?” you asked, so innocently.
“Why does he call you kitten?”
I came one step closer and you pushed yourself to your tippiest tiptoes, face tilted up, twisted to the side. “Are you going to hurt me?” you whimpered.
“I don’t know yet, little bird. But if you tell anyone my secret, I’ll kill you.” I brushed your plait over your shoulder and claimed your throat, squeezed so I could feel your heart panic in my palm. “I’ll snap your pretty neck, no problem. But I’ll do for your Uncle first.”
Heard the Lance glide up the drive then. Got out of there fast.
Next time I was over, I put a camera in Daddy’s room.
That was after I’d had my customary wank on your bed, with maybe five minutes max before Gretchel came for the trash. I beat it like a man on fire, drinking your cute ghost in your sheets and pillows, your dirty socks and undies in the white wicker hamper. If I came in them, I kept them. A personal rule. Each time I was up there I got to pick a souvenir from your waste basket too. I’d gotten snotty tissues and gunky lollipop sticks. A clump of red hair, and my best find, a panty liner with a rusty red slug down the middle. Never had enough time for your diary. It had the aura of a cursed object, like a heart alive, thumping outta its shoebox. Didn’t like how sweaty it made me, and I sweated enough in there already.
In bed that night I played with the panty liner on my cock, imagined I had drawn that blood. I had just dumped a load on my hairy gut when I heard that voice come out my phone, saw you leave the screen, head hung. I switched to the other camera, the one in his room.
Daddy liked to have fun with you.
Shoulda been hot to see you on your knees with a cock in your mouth. Only it wasn’t my cock, it was Littlefinger’s cock, a little finger if I ever saw one. Your lips barely parted. No way he’d reach your throat. You licked him a lot too, which I hated most. A waste of that tongue, a precious juicy fruit. The worst was when you sat on his lap and he put a hand up your nightgown. I could tell you weren’t getting off from how weak your moans sounded. Little liar.
It was a weekly ritual. The blowjobs, the post-blowjob cry. You saved your tears for later.
I watched you show up at Wickenden the days after, and climb into his lap, drink a root beer float and kiss his dumb mouth like nothing had happened. I watched you see me, when I was down the hill pretending to spray dandelions. I waved, pointer and middle finger up, my thumb cocked to the side.
I’d had enough—it was time to adopt you.
Only took two days to prepare. I packed my shit: the quilt, my picture of Elinor, my Brightroar 45, the WW-47 stashed in the trunk. I bundled up some clothes in my old wartime rucksack, your panties and socks included. Even went so far as to wash the crusted come off them, practice for being a good daddy, a better one than your uncle. I called in work, said I was moving back home, to take care of Granny and all. I swapped my truck for one like Timett’s, had my buddy forge some plates and take the old truck to get chopped at the junkyard. Got one of those camper shells with the windows tinted full dark. Then I went on down to Nimble Dick’s Sporting Goods. Picked out a nice ski mask, black. My height would probably give me away no problem. Didn’t need to add the scars to the mix. Didn’t want to frighten you too bad, the day we started our family.
I plucked the tags off when I rolled up to 45 Iron Oak. Cocked the Brightroar. Opened the gate.
Getting in the house was easy. I’d copied Gretchel’s key long ago. Seen her peck in the alarm code while I pruned a strategic bush just outside the front window. It was two am, so I knew Daddy was asleep. I had even seen him earlier on the camera, putting his striped pj set on, and his little eye mask, shortly before he tucked himself in bed.
He looked real cute sleeping on his back, spine perfectly aligned. Goddamn pervert. That’s what I told him when I stuck the muzzle in his mouth and pulled the trigger: “Eat lead, faggot.”
No prettier brain spray than that. Pink and red jello all over his glossy teak headboard. Night night Daddy.
But the girl would be up, now.
And you were.
I opened the door just as your little piggies disappeared under the bed. I caught your bony ankle and dragged you out over the white carpet, sobbing, flopping like a landbound fish. “Easy, girl,” I rasped, a mistake, because your pool eyes opened; you went slack.
“S-Sandor?”
Even through the mask, you knew. Fucking cunt. I clocked your head once with my heat because I suddenly hated swimming in your stare and wanted you pliant. Tossed you on the bed like a little ragdoll and ripped your pink panties off. I was so goddamn hard from merking Littlefinger I couldn’t even think straight. I spread your legs. Put my meat against your pussy.
Oh Gods yes, victory. You were, and still are, so small there. Little pink petals. Tight little hole. I loosened it up with a palmful of spit and finger, jerked myself some while I learned how silky your insides felt. Prettiest guts I ever touched. I was in heaven. You were in dreamland.
I liked how peaceful you were the first time, my little doll. Your light, limp body rested on a fluffy down comforter like translucent porcelain on a cloud. I liked that you didn’t resist when I finally crammed my cock in, fell over, and humped like a dying dog. I knew I was doing a number on you because the first thrusts were a choppy strangle; I drilled a dry pilot hole. Then you got wet and hot inside, and when I looked down, my cock was bloody, and when I thrust up, I couldn’t help but batter your tender little cervix, a weak barrier to your womb.
You were the small one. You were so, so small. But we were just playing dollies together, mashing parts. Nothing scary.
Truth was, I hadn’t played dollies a lot, not after the fireplace incident. Not as the bigger one. But now I had you. I held it together long enough to run my fingers through your flame curls and spread them prettily on your cloud. Long enough to sniff your hair, strawberry-scented, sniff your face, kiss you. I kissed you a lot through that mouth hole. I kissed your pale eyelids veined blue. I kissed the mushy red spot where the Brightroar hit. Licked the trickle of blood that wended to your chin. I kissed your nose because I liked it. I kissed your lips and stuck my tongue inside your cute wet mouth. I talked to you some. Our game was starting to get too quiet.
“I’m your new daddy, little bird. Do you like when Daddy fucks you? I think you do.”
I got a little choked up honestly. A lot of sweat beneath cheap black polyblend. Didn’t breathe my scars at all; it steamed them up and stung. “Daddy’s gonna treat you right,” I breathed into your lips, petting your rosy cheek with the still-warm barrel. Had my sack slapping against a sticky mix of blood and precum. “Daddy loves you. We’re gonna make a pretty baby together. Would you like that? Do you want Daddy’s baby inside you?”
I sucked your nipple and came, deep in your guts. I stayed inside you, playing with your little titties, until I got hard again, and did it all over. Did it three times, actually, because I really wanted that family. A pretty daughter or a strong son. I flipped you over for the third round, got your peach of an ass in the air, the way it was when you played by yourself. That was the real mongrel fuck. I went furious pumping, bouncing you into the sheets. Better yet, I sucked my thumb and popped it into your tiny pink asshole. It had been staring at me like it wanted company. “My baby has a pretty asshole, doesn’t she?” It puckered tight and warm, alive somehow. “She lets her Daddy touch it, like a good little bird. She’s gonna let Daddy fuck her there someday.”
Fuck—I couldn’t help but blow. When I pulled out, I had made a berry cream smoothie out of you. I drank it all up, licked your pussy clean, and then some.
You slept while I took down my cameras, wiped the footage from your uncle’s cameras, then came back and emptied a fat piss in your hamper. Thought it would be funny when the cops found it. I hadn’t washed the blood off my dick. I bundled you up in your bird-guts stained comforter. Finally fished your diary out from under the bed. Some roadtrip reading. I took the humping bear too, didn’t want you to miss him, miss out on your fun.
You were in my truck by four am, a pale blue dawn crammed between the mountains. I ziptied your pretty wrists and ankles before tucking you into the trunk. I kissed the crust of blood on your forehead. Felt sorry about that, so I spit on you and wiped it proper clean with your silky skirt. All better. I'd have clean clothes for you on the other side.
I took the mask off once we got out of the neighborhood. Breathed in the fresh scent that rolled off the Giant’s Lance, a mist of Alyssa’s tears.
Daddy had his baby bird.
Daddy was headed home, finally.
