One of the few luxuries I allow myself is the ultra zoom lens I bought for my camera. From my window I'd been using it to watch kids in the adjacent playground for half an hour, taking a few photos, mostly just enjoying the view. But now it was time. The grade school recess period wouldn't last much longer, and neither would I.

The sweet ache of anticipation glowed in my abdomen as I carefully nursed my throbbing penis toward its inevitable conclusion. I focused in closely on a little girl 6 or 7 years old, playing on the swings, staring with dry mouth at the deep indentation in the crotch of her little cartoon kiddie panties. I tilted the lens up, very slowly, to savor her pale, willowy legs, knobby little knees, her deliciously flat chest.

I framed her freckled face, unknowingly looking right at me and grinning with an upper front tooth missing... then crossed my eyes and let go, grunting and ejaculating my depraved child sex desires into the paper towel in my hand until my quivering balls were drained. Panting quietly to myself, I crossed to the small washroom to rinse the sperm and pre-cum from my spent dick. I flushed the stinking towel down the toilet and hurriedly put away the camera, as the familiar, conflicting sensations of sexual relief and deep shame burned in the pit of my stomach.

My name is Michael O'Malley, and I'm 53 years old. After a career spanning 30 years, I think I'm the only pedophile priest I know who's never actually touched a child in a sexual way. I take my vows seriously, and couldn't even consider abusing the trust of the innocent children of my congregation. But I rationalized that masturbating in privacy to fantasies of fondling and fucking children couldn't possibly harm anyone. It was just a private indulgence, between me and God, and we'd work it out later.

I waited a moment to compose my flushed face before leaving my study and striding down the hall to the rectory office, where my secretary was depositing the day's mail on my desk. She beamed at me with the usual twinkle in her eye, and I responded as I always do, with a benign, fatherly smile. One of many reasons why I entered the seminary was my realization that it would be outrageously unfair to marry, since I was far more attracted to children than adults. The many very attractive women I met in the course of my work seemed to regard my apparent restraint as a saintly virtue. They didn't have any idea that my natural attraction to a shapely female body was blunted by masturbating at least twice a day to fantasies of using the small, shapeless bodies of little children for my pleasure.

Among the mail was a large envelope bearing the official seal of the diocese. "Shit..." I muttered under my breath as I scanned the letter inside. I belong to an order that requires priests to do missionary work every few years, and my number had come up. I was expected to leave for a two-month-long tour of duty in Santa Cruz, Bolivia within 30 days.

My assignment was a poor barrio section on the western edge of the city. The departing priest gave me a quick orientation, since I'd never been there, and my Spanish was almost nonexistent. It was a fairly rewarding experience, though, since few people are more scrupulously devout than the poor.

Despite having been warned, I had no trouble with thieves or banditos. My only real difficulty was the appalling number of child prostitutes I saw in the streets nearly every day. Of course, secretly, the slim, scantily clad bodies of little kids no older than six or eight offering themselves so blatantly made my mouth water with desire, but their coarse, brazen sales pitches -- "You want fuckee, fuckee, Mista?" -- quelled my urges.

The day before I was to depart, I made the rounds of my congregants, to say goodbye. It was a Monday, so of course I'd seen most of them in church the day before, but local custom demanded the courtesy of a home visit. I put off Miguel Sanchez to last, because he was a conniving huckster. He had a good heart, but he never missed an opportunity for a scam.

Today was no different. He was obsequiously courteous, and flattered me tiresomely until he came to his point. A relative had lost his job, and needed money. I pointed out that he'd used this excuse twice before to solicit loans that still remained unpaid.

"No, no, padre, iss true this time, I swear. You come, you see!" What the hell. It was my last visit of the day, I had some traveling money, and I was feeling grateful and generous since I knew I'd be boarding a plane out of there the next morning. So we trudged through the dusty, trash-filled streets of the barrio to his cousin's hovel.

The guy looked tired and irritated when he opened the door, then beamed a semi-toothless grin when he saw me. I vaguely recognized him as a congregant whom I'd never spoken to, who always sat in the back with a flock of kids during Sunday services, and left quietly.

In rapid-fire Spanish I couldn't understand he yelled something over his shoulder and asked us to sit, and rushed through a threadbare curtain that served as a door to the next room.

A moment later a shy little girl appeared and handed us two mismatched cups of what tasted like diluted lemonade with no sugar. Miguel was chattering to me about his cousin's woes. But I was enthralled by the child, letting my eyes caress her slight frame, wishing I'd brought my camera to capture an image I could use in privacy, later, to stimulate forbidden fantasies that would satisfy the aching desires I'd been denied for the past few weeks.

Although I'm 53 years old, and have spent my life working with people, I'd never seen a child I found more attractive. I can't explain why. She wasn't pretty. She wasn't well dressed, or even very clean. Her tousled black hair hung limply, I noticed that her fingernails were grimy as she handed us the cups, her bony little knees were scuffed and soiled with dirt, her tiny bare feet were filthy with street grime as she padded across the dusty wooden floor.

She was a small child; the top of her head as she stood barely reached the level of my shoulder when seated. She wore a worn, faded sun dress that had once been blue, obviously a hand-me-down, because it was a size too large, the shoulder straps drooping to expose a glimpse of one tiny, flat nipple when she moved. A tiny silver cross on a chain dangled next to the little nipplet, emphasizing her chaste innocence, and contrasting starkly with the depravity of my desires. But it was her face that transfixed me.

She had a tiny, button nose typical of children her age, but the surprisingly full lips of a fashion model, in child-size miniature, which drooped at the edges into a naively appealing pout. Unlike her dusky Daddy, she had pale, fair skin. She was an obviously shy child, her overly large, liquid black eyes demurely downcast, and emphasized by a slight trace of residual babyfat that puffed out her lightly freckled cheeks.

Miguel's awkward sales pitch rambled to a stumbling halt when he realized I wasn't listening. In the silence that followed, the shy little girl retreated across the room to tug a ratty doll into her lap, and I became aware of conversation in the adjacent room.

My ear for Spanish had revived a bit over the past few weeks, but not much, and it was nearly impossible for me to understand the colloquial dialect. But even I could tell that we'd interrupted a business transaction. Quiet negotiations, and numbers of "bolivianos," the local currency, aren't that hard to misinterpret.

Beside me, Miguel scuffed his feet nervously. Unsure how much of the conversation I could understand, he began making excuses, explaining that a man wanted to hire his cousin's daughter for housework, they were working out the details.

Okay, I thought, content with that until the other man left the room to stride past us on his way to the door. He was fat, well dressed in a business suit, and looked very uncomfortable when he saw a priest. The girl who followed him as he hurried out was far too thin for her age, dressed very unsuitably for a 14-year-old, and turned to give me a weak, supplicating smile as she left.

Miguel's keen eye didn't miss any of this. He saw the teen glance at me, saw my surprise and shock of realization, darted his eyes to the small child across the room playing with her doll, then back to me. He knew exactly how the little girl had affected me, why my gaze had lingered a moment too long as I admired her immature body. He'd seen men look at little street girls that way before.

The cousin emerged to join us. He looked like he'd been hit by a car. Like a man in a trance, he absently dragged up a chair and was about to sit when Miguel gripped his wrist and muttered something to him in his machine-gun Spanish. The guy nodded, dropped the chair, picked up a satchel and trudged out the door.

"Padre..." he began, the familiar twinkle in his eye gone now. "Iss true, absolute, my cousin Pedro no work for oil company people no more, not since five, six months... but... I must tell truth for you..."

He leaned closer to whisper the sordid truth of his cousin's negotiations about his teenage daughter. Which he did honestly but respectfully, as though confessing his own sins.

"And little Maria, too," he concluded, his voice dropping to a whisper as he gesturing furtively at the child across the room playing with her doll. "Maria only one time. But no good money, not for all Pedro family, four boy, three girl. All hungry, Padre."

Overwhelmed by compassion at this bleak tale of despair, my throat constricted, I could not even speak. I just plunged my hand into my pocket. Miguel's hand gripped my wrist as I proffered the money.

"No, no, Padre, not like that," he whispered, his eyes burning with urgency. Pedro know you give money, Pedro maybe die. Look, you see..." Miguel bolted from his chair, said something to the child, who picked up her doll and left. He rummaged in a drawer and withdrew an antique revolver pistol.

"My cousin Pedro good man, honest man, not..." he hesitated, his gaze dropped, the pistol dropped to his side, "not like me, Padre," he said.

His gaze snapped up to meet mine, the pistol raised, leveled at my chest. His hand shook. "Pedro work hard. Pedro boys work hard. Now Pedro girls work hard. Pedro very proud man, Padre. He never take food, take money, from me, from you, from nobody, except work for money."

"No work for money, then maybe this," he said, turning the pistol barrel to his temple. "Pedro shame too much. I know, Padre, I know."

I'd never seen Miguel like this. The intensity of his gaze left little doubt of his absolute sincerity. He was sweating now, his voice cracking. "Now Pedro uncle very sick. He die soon, then Pedro take his job, work in mine. You have 4,000 bolivianos, Padre, I know." I quelled my curiosity about how this guy knew my finances in such detail, because I was now sweating, too.

"Much money for food until then," he said. "Not like other man who have not so much, must come back many time, many time. You see? You one time, with Maria, all okay for Pedro boys and girls until Pedro get new job. You see?"

*****

I saw only too well. I was being asked, being implored, to rent a child's body, for the well-being of her family, the only option her proud father considered honorable and just.

My seminary training had taught me to cope with cross-cultural issues, to accept often shocking differences in local societal customs. But nothing had prepared me for a full-on confrontation between my fundamental beliefs and my long-suppressed desires.

Miguel called the child, who obediently padded barefoot into the room to stand before us in her faded cotton dress, eyes downcast, little hands clasped behind her. Without waiting for a response from me, he spoke quietly to the little girl, in his broken English for my benefit, though the child appeared not to understand a word.

"Maria, you remember Padre O'Malley, from church?" he said, smiling and stroking her hair. "Padre very nice man, Maria, be very nice to play with you, not like other bad man, okay? Padre want to help Papa with money for food, very much want to play with little girl like you, okay?" he murmured, his hand slowly gliding down the child's back and over her tiny, boyish bottom. "You play little while with nice Padre to help Papa, okay, Maria?"

She spoke no English, but the child understood well enough. Her downcast eyes shyly glanced up into mine, she bit her lip and blushed, the corners of her mouth twitching up into a trace of a shy smile.

Hypnotized by the child's deep, liquid eyes and flat, brown nipple peeking from behind a loose dress strap, I swallowed hard, willing my dry mouth to speak, but words didn't come. The little girl crinkled her lips into a fleeting flicker of a smile again at my obviously deep embarrassment, and shyly reached to drape her tiny hand over mine, biting her lip and nodding.

Miguel eagerly scanned my face for a response. "No, Miguel, no, it's... it's out of the question," I managed. "You know I can't do anything like that."

"No, no, Padre, is okay, for different way!" he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "See, Padre, we go my house, you stay with Maria there, I come back stay with Pedro family here. Maybe you play with Maria, maybe not. Maybe you just eat, drink beer, nothing else. Pedro not know."

Overwhelmed by the stunning revelations of the past minute, my clouded brain rationalized. A B4,000 babysitting job seemed a lot less objectionable than the alternatives. Moving quickly to take advantage of my obvious indecision, Miguel stood, gesturing toward the door. "Come, Padre, come, we go my house, okay?" he asked rhetorically, urging me to my feet. He said something to the little girl, who scampered to the next room and returned clutching her doll in one hand and a small satchel in the other.

As if in a trance, I stumbled through the dusty streets and trash-strewn alleyways of the barrio, my pulse thundering in my ears, my mind reeling with the fear of God's wrath at the unthinkably sinful things I ached to do with the little girl toddling along before me in her childish, barefoot innocence. A cold chill flashed down my spine as I wondered if I'd truly be able to suppress my lifelong desires, alone for the first time with an obviously willing child.

On impulse I stopped at a roadside shanty to buy a couple corn and cheese "humitas" to feed the child, who looked painfully skinny. Miguel hurried us into his squalid shack, and paused at the door. "Is okay here, Padre, nobody come, just you and Maria. I come back tomorrow, Padre, you give money then, okay?" he said, before closing the door to hurry away.

Practically hyperventilating, I glanced at the closed door, then down at the little girl whose head barely reached the level of my navel. She scraped a chair over the floor beneath the only window, clambered up on it and stood on tip-toes to pull the ratty shade down tightly across the dusty glass. She lightly hopped off the chair, gave me a shy smile, and began unbuttoning the stained and faded dress she wore.

"N- no, honey, no..." I reached to stop her after one button was undone. "You... ah... you come eat, okay? Come, look," I stammered, urging her to a cluttered table. The little kid brightened, scampered to a chair and eagerly unwrapped a humita. Despite the shame and guilt thundering in my ears, I felt my dick involuntarily twitch and begin to thicken when I noticed for the first time that her two top baby teeth were missing as she happily gummed down the confection.

For distraction, I went to a corner of the room that served as a kitchen, found a box labelled "Cervesa Paceña," opened one and returned to the table. A few gulps of the warm beer moistened my dry palate and calmed me a bit.

I cleared my throat. "Um, Maria... how old are you, honey? Um... Cuántos años, Maria?" Her mouth full with the last bite, the little kid just held up seven stumpy fingers, grinning at me with the runny cheese glistening in the gummy gap between her missing baby teeth.

God help me, I thought, smiling weakly down at the happy child as my dick bloated to full erection in my pants, powerless to suppress the maddeningly conflicting impulses warring in my fevered brain -- No, no, she's only a child... Yes, yes, a little 7-year-old... No, no, it's so wrong...

Desperately trying to shake off such thoughts, I drained the beer as the child hopped off the chair to stand before mine. She bit her lip shyly and whispered "Desea hacerlo ahora? as her fingers fumbled with the second button of her dress. My hands shook this time as I stopped her, pressed her skinny arms down at her sides and just sat back in my chair, unable to stop my gaze from traveling up and down her undeveloped body. My obvious admiration pleased the little girl, and she grinned shyly at me, knowing exactly what I wanted.

In a flash I realized why this girl had so dangerously weakened my previously ironclad resistance to the temptations of children. The kids in my parish at home were mostly so prim, pretentiously pretty in their rustling church dresses, their immaculately shining shoes or expensive Nikes, their scrubbed cheeks, manicured nails, golden hair meticulously shampooed, combed and braided. They were like manikins, or model children in a clothing catalog -- smug, beautiful eye candy, but somehow unreal, completely untouchable.

But... the child standing before me was so completely outside my experience... so far outside my frame of reference. She was of a different world... our own furtive, private world, in this moment... a world where anything at all might happen between a sexually aroused 53-year-old man and an obviously willing little 7-year-old child, with no lasting harm except for my own shame and guilt.

In fact, my arousal was made even more desperate by the stark contrast between the spoiled, smug kids of my parish and this shy, skinny little waif with her stringy hair, scuffed, knobby knees, her filthy little bare feet with grimy toes.

My heated fantasies about lifting a little girl's chaste, white first-communion dress, tugging down her virginal white panties to smell and taste her childish sex suddenly seemed less appealing. They'd probably have a freshly scrubbed, antiseptic taste, I thought, like a bar of Dove soap. I was suddenly far more aroused to imagine the pungent, musky sex goo of this dirty little street urchin in the stained and faded play dress.

"Maybe... maybe just... kiss her a little... touch her," my fevered brain silently urged as my bloated dick throbbed in my pants. I practically fell from my chair to my knees, scooped the frail little kid into my arms, my nostrils quivering at the faint scent of sweat and street soil as my lips brushed her cheeks, mouthing unspoken words of tenderness and lust.

"I'm so... so sorry, p- pretty little Maria, but I just can't help it, honey," I breathed into her freckled face as my trembling hands cupped the soft, tiny bottom beneath the thin cotton dress. "All my life I've wanted to... to play with a little girl like you... to... to touch a little girl this way, Maria, I just... can't help it..." I panted, kneading her little bottom gently to feel the tiny panties beneath.

The child couldn't understand my words, but didn't need to. My desperate sexual arousal was plain enough as I panted into her freckled cheek and fondled her skinny body. It was obvious enough in another way, too. My black cassock looked like a circus tent below my waist, where my stiff penis jerked and throbbed its desire for the little child in my arms.

I jumped as though shocked with a cattle prod when I felt tiny fingers encircle the twitching lump and begin gently tugging on it, as the little kid whispered things I couldn't understand in her exquisitely childish, high-pitched littlegirl voice. I groaned aloud and crushed my mouth into her pouty lips, whimpering and swirling my tongue in the runny cheese residue stuck to the gummy gap between her missing baby teeth as her tiny fingers stroked and teased my straining dick.

The child finally broke the deep kiss and drew back to look at me, her cheeks dimpled into a shy grin of pride at her obvious success. She glanced down at the liquid seeping through my cassock to moisten her little fingers, then up into my eyes to whisper a question I couldn't understand. When I just shrugged, she giggled, tugged up the hem of my cassock and began busily unfastening my belt. My trousers and shorts dropped to my ankles and I helplessly gasped, "G- ghod no, M- Maria, no!" as I watched her tiny fingers grasp the throbbing meat and gently slather my slick pre-cum up and down, from the shiny mushroom head to my wrinkled balls and back. I reached down to jerk her little hands away, but...

"Oh... g- g- god, oh... s- shit!" I hissed as two month's worth of repressed kiddie sex desire spontaneously erupted to splatter across the child's faded dress. The kid's mouth popped open in astonished surprise as she stroked and watched the thing heave and jerk and squirt my relief until the last milky droplets oozed weakly into her grasping little fingers.

"Ay, tantas cosas, Padre! Muchos cosas! Usted está tan emocionada, Padre!" the kid giggled at the spent, wet penis jerking in her hands, as a milky puddle of sperm dripped slowly down the front of her dress.

"Y- yeah, Maria, p- Padre is very, very excited, honey," I gasped, my chest heaving, my cheeks burning with shame. "It's... ah... very exciting to see a little girl like you t- touch my dick like that," I panted under my breath, curling my large hand around both of hers to tug her wet little fingers off my dripping penis.

"Ai, esto huele mal, Padre," the kid announced, playfully crinkling up her button nose and wiping her slimed hands on the hem of her dress. I knew what that meant.

"Yeah, little Maria, I know, Padre's sperm smells very nasty," I muttered, blushing. "We'd better get all cleaned up, now, okay, little one?" I added, my gaze shifting from her slimed dress to the equally slimed trousers puddled around my ankles.

I kicked off my shoes & trousers, shucked the damp cassock, and knelt to mop up the mess on the child's dress with a damp cloth, then patted it dry as best I could. She just craned her head down to watch in silence, resting her small hand on the top of my head as I worked, then suddenly blurted out something, pointing a stumpy finger at the limp penis dangling from my balls.

"No, honey, Padre can't do anything now. Naughty little Maria made Padre squirt all his sperm out, baby," I mumbled, blushing, as I dabbed the thin cotton fabric dry. She just giggled and reached down to poke at it with a fingertip, to make it swing.