I was dozing on the couch in the living room at home, not really tired, but it was a wet, cold Saturday morning, which didn’t give me any incentive to do anything or go anywhere. I must have drifted off.

My Auntie Allie came back from shopping and gently shook me awake. She’s my all-time favourite auntie.

“Wake up, Anna dear. I bought you an ice cream on my way home; your favourite.....chocolate.”

I sat up a little groggily and smiled at her as I took the ice cream from her. It was one of those really old-fashioned ice cream cones with a round conical wafer base and a scoopful of chocolate on top, the kind that I used to love when I was about ten or eleven years old.

What am I talking about? I AM eleven years old, aren’t I? Of course I am. I can tell because I’m wearing a Sailor Moon outfit and my hair is in pigtails.

I loved to give those old-time cones a good licking. I started at the base of the spherical blob of chocolate and I licked slowly and sensuously upwards and sideways, carefully twirling the biscuit in my right hand until the sphere had become a small peak with a pointed top. Then I licked straight upwards all around the creamy construct until the soft confection was shaped into an elongated slender tapered end which began to flop over and threaten to slip sideways. This is when I attacked it from the top, pursing my lips into an “O” and lowering them over the very summit and sucking it slowly into my mouth, truncating the little mountain as I gradually brought my lips together.

In glorious slurps I repeated this process until most of the ice cream above the biscuit was gone, leaving just a slightly convex shape protruding above the cone. I then transferred my attention to the rim of the biscuit and delicately nibbled my way around its circumference, thus exposing more of the ice cream concealed within so that I could lick the soft creamy confection away, licking my lips in absolute ecstasy as I wallowed and swallowed in depravity.

When I could finally no longer repeat my circumferential nibbling I bit a hole in the base of the cone, encased it within my lips and sucked the remainder of the ice cream out through the hole so that it jetted into my mouth, the final act being to crunch the wafer into smithereens and swallow the fragments. I cleaned the remnants of the sticky semi-liquid from my fingers with lascivious enjoyment.

I turned to thank Auntie Allie for the treat but she was nowhere to be seen. I wondered where she had gone but just then there was a knock at the front door. My parents had taught me that young girls must be cautious about letting in strangers so I took a look through the peephole in the door without opening it.

There was a man standing outside. I somehow knew he was like something evil out of a Stephen King story. He was short and very fat, with a beard and was wearing one of those hats with a peak over the eyes and a long white coat. The coat had one of those huge campaign-type buttons on it that said “I LOVE TRANNIES”. As I peeped at him he drew the front of the coat aside like any common flasher, revealing that he wore nothing underneath other than an enormous throbbing phallic erection . The Greek god Priapus would have been proud of it.

I gasped in horror at the enormity that was his penis, but I could not take my eyes away from it. He was evidently aware that I was on the other side of the door because he gave a wide “friendly” smile, which unfortunately exposed a set of shark-like teeth and the smile did not reach his eyes, which glittered coldly and greedily.

“Let me in Anna.” He spoke in a voice as smooth as butter. How did he know my name?

“I watched you eat that ice cream and I know you would enjoy doing the same to me,” and he grabbed his enormous tool in both hands and waggled it up and down before my terrified eyes.

I finally managed to back away from the door without replying to the monster outside. What is an eleven-year-old girl supposed to do in the face of something like that?

A sheet of paper came through the gap under the door, and against my better judgement I picked it up.

“Life is a beautiful picnic.” It said.

Another came through.

The message this time was,” I love trans-girls like you. I understand you.”

“I’m not a trans-girl,” I yelled. “I’m just a girl. Go away.”

“You can’t fool me, you sweet little thing,” a reply made hollow by the closed door between us.

A veritable storm of papers poured under the door.

“Life is a bowl of cherries.”

“I love your outfit but your skirt should be shorter.”

“I want your cherry.”

"Ice-skaters' outfits are cute, too."

“I’m from the Government and I’m here to help you.”

“I wonder if she’s a real girl?”

“The cheque’s in the mail.”

“Does she have periods?”

"I didn't hurt her. I only looked."

“Of course I’ll still love you in the morning.”

“I had permission; I swear it.”

“Plastic vaginas are as good as the real thing.”

“I never take your life too seriously.”

“You’re as good as a real girl.”

“That’s so sweet.”

“Thank you for posting.”

“I know why you feel the way you do.”

“If you want a predator, I’ll be happy to oblige.”

“I’m always looking for weak girls.”

I was getting overwhelmed by this tornado of inanities, irrelevance and obscenities and felt like vomiting while I cringed away from the door.

“Go away!” I screamed, but the stream of messages continued unabated and he began to hammer on the door.

He burst through, grabbed me, and began to shake me violently. Slime dripped from his hands onto my skin like acid and drool sprayed out from that shark’s mouth. His breath stank like rotten meat.

“You’re a T-Girl and you’re mine now. T-Girl! T-Girl! T-Girl! Not a REAL girl…a T-Girl!”

I awoke to find myself in Auntie Allie’s arms. She had shaken me awake because of my screaming.

“There, there, luvvie. It’s all right. It was only a dream.”

But I knew it wasn’t. It was a daymare and I would never be able to escape that awful spectre.