She had expected the night to be warm after another really hot summer's day but there was to her surprise, a bit of a chill outdoors and now she regretted not getting dressed properly, instead of just slipping on her new birthday trainers and putting on her thin anorak over her pyjamas. They were quite cosy pyjamas - nice soft, brushed cotton with moons and stars all over - too toasty for summer nights sometimes, when she was safe inside her bedroom that is.

But Melanie had not realised quite how much colder it got outside in the very middle of the night and they weren't really toasty enough out here and she increasingly wished she was wearing something else as well beneath them.

Brrr!

Her exposed ankles felt the light touch of breeze. The silly thing was that this week she had sometimes got so hot in bed that she had had to slip her pjs off and sleep under the sheet in just the naughty naked nude! Waking up, feeling hot or else with another of them stupid tummy aches.

She quickened her pace: that would warm her legs up, wouldn't it?

It was all so strange and still and peaceful when everyone else was asleep. Woo - this was a big adventure!

After all, she was only just 10 and apart from Christmas Eve and that time when she went on the plane on holiday with Mummy and Daddy and her big sister Charlie, she couldn't remember ever being awake and up and doing stuff at 3 in the morning. And she had definitely never been out on her own at night before. She looked up at the stars.

Ooowwww! Looking up at the sky made her stupid tummy twinge again. Stupid, stupid tummy!

The street was so quiet - just the rustle of the trees overhead and a distant whoosh or rumble from the ring road.

She didn't feel scared.

She crossed the empty road into the long avenue leading to the park. Everybody said they were so lucky living so near it and for as long as she could remember, she had been going there with her family. She had seen pictures at home of herself wearing a toddler's romper suit, just beginning to walk, and giggling on the roundabout in the little kids' play area. And she could actually remember herself her very first go down the big slide. Scary, but Mummy had been there to catch her and then she simply wanted to keep on doing it again and again, all on her own, until home time!

That would have been about the same time that thing happened.

The thing she had forgotten since she was little but which for no reason had now resurfaced as a misty dream three or four times since her birthday last month. That dumb dream had even woken her up tonight. Wide awake, again! With a grumble right down in her stupid tummy.

It was bugging her. Big time. OMG, it was not like it was recent - that thing happened exactly five years before, so why should she start remembering it now?

Not all of what had taken place was there, in her dream. There were bits that faded away and then sort of skipped a bit, but each time she dreamt it, there was a little more to remember.

She didn't even want to remember but the dream sort of kept coming back like it was a jigsaw that needed to be finished and she decided the only way to stop it was to try to remember all about what happened. Then she might stop dreaming and maybe her tummy would stop hurting too.

Her lace had become undone and she bent to tie it again and when she looked up, she saw in the distance the flashing orange lights outside park gates. She did not realise they stayed on all night! It all looked a bit different at night, in the magic glow from the streetlamps, but there was no mistaking the big pillars and the regular flashing of that pedestrian crossing next to the gates.

As she trotted closer, she thought more about that time in the park, when she was little. This time, as it was not just in a dream, she found she could remember it a lot more clearly. Maybe coming to the park really would provide some answers? Hope so. It was making her do silly things like sneaking out at night.

Back then, perhaps even more than today, her parents had always told her not to talk to strangers, which had confused her because the man had been really nice, even though he was a stranger and he did some funny things with her. She could remember quite a lot about that!

They had gone to the playground as it was such a lovely day.

Mummy had had to take Charlie to the toilets (her stupid big sister needed a smelly big poo very quickly, haha!) and Melanie remembered being told to stay on the swing until they got back. Later she realised that the man who she thought was nice had actually told a fib when he said to her that her Mummy had asked him to look after her when she was gone, but it didn't matter, she supposed. He was still nice to her. And nobody else was going to know she had talked to him, else there would be a massive big scene.

Definitely not.

She was not going to tell Mummy anything about him because she would have got into such huge trouble for talking to a stranger.

She had never told anybody about what happened, even her best friend, and over time it had faded completely from her memory. Until the dreams started. And she began to remember stuff, like that she did still get in a bit of trouble that day of course, for leaving the playground, but Mummy didn't make anywhere near as much fuss as she would have done, if Melanie had told her about the funny stranger.

He had come up behind her at the swings and said that Mummy had given him the money to buy them both an ice cream, because she was going to be a away for a long time, and he showed her the pound coin and she liked it when he held her hand because that was a very safe thing to do. He was a bit like her grandad because he was old and a bit fat and didn't have a lot of hair on the top of his head. He walked ever so fast - she had to do a skippy run to keep up, but that was probably because he was in a hurry and wanted his ice cream!

She could picture the park that day - very hot and sunny but it was not crowded because it was not long after her birthday and the big children had not yet started the summer holidays.

Now it was coming back to her very clearly: she was wearing a stripy dress with no sleeves and Mummy had put her hair up in bunches because it was too hot when it was down in the sunshine. It was blonder then, when she was little.

There had been some buzzy wasps and when he had handed her the cornet - strawberry because pink was the Best Colour Ever - he had said they should go a bit farther, to the car park, and eat them in his van, where the wasps couldn't get to them.

Melanie had never been in a van before and it was cool, climbing up on a step and then sitting so high up, but there was nothing much to see except trees because it was parked right in the furthest corner, away from the other cars.

She had already told him her name and he had said he was called Gerald. He smiled a lot and asked her if she liked her ice cream. He sat next to her behind the steering wheel but he didn't make his ice cream last very long, gulping it down really quickly like a greedy wolf. But she always liked to make hers last, licking it slowly until the melty bits started sliding down the cornet. And she always got messy.

"Do you work in the park?" she had asked Gerald.

He grinned and said, "Sometimes. I'm a girl-tickler."

Melanie frowned. She did not know what that was but she wasn't sure if he was kidding her on.

"Oh yes," he continued, "it's my job to make sure all the prettiest and cleverest girls in the park get a big tickle."

She was not sure. Gerald was not bursting out laughing, which would have meant he was teasing her. Maybe. He was just smiling at her. But 'girl-tickler' didn't sound like a proper job. Her Daddy drove a bus back then when she was little - and that was a proper job. 'Girl-tickler' sounded like a pretend job. But suddenly Gerald leaned over and wiggled his fingers beneath her arms and she burst into a fit of giggles and almost spilled the last dollop of ice cream out of her cornet. As soon as she could stop her giggles, she polished off the last of it, just in case he tickled her again. He was a very funny man.

"Eeew, Melanie," he chuckled, "you've got ice cream all over your face. Come on, I've got some tissues in the back."

The van was big, like the one that sold ice creams, except it was white and had no windows in the back.

He opened the door and she scrambled down to get out. Gerald had watched her dress ride up her legs as she slid off the high seat, revealing a tempting glimpse of her pastel pink panties, although Melanie had not really noticed that he was looking. He slid the side door open and as he lifted her inside, tickled the sides of her rib cages.

"Haha, oh stop that!" she squealed playfully.

The back of the van was quite empty, with a thin squashy mattress thing covering much of the floor and there was a big box strapped to the bulkhead behind the driver's cab. Some lengths of rope were suspended from shackles along each side wall. Wow, she had thought, I never knew what it was like inside a van.

"Sit yourself down," he instructed, "I'll see where I put those tissues."

Melanie sat cross-legged, watching him. He lifted the lid and reached down into the big box, his hand emerging with a couple of clean tissues, and she held her head nice and still as he dabbed away the traces of ice cream from her pert little face. He licked the tissue first, like Nanna does - yuk!

"Are you really a tickler?" she asked, a tad boldly. "I think you're making it up."

"Oh yes," he had replied, tossing the tissues into the corner. "Gentle tickles on the feet for baby girls, wiggly tickles in the armpits for little girls, and extra special sticky tickles for big girls."

She laughed.

"What are extra special sticky tickles?"

He eased himself down beside her, but before she realised what was happening, he grabbed her shoulder and pushed her down on her back, and set his fingers to work, wriggling them up and down the sides of her ribcage and up beneath her arms.

He was laughing out loud and she squirmed and chuckled and her squeaky voice cried out 'nooooo stop it haha noooo!'.

Still tickling her but this time only very softly, he went on to explain, "That's normal tickling. I love doing that. I love hearing little girls laugh. You have to wait until you are a big girl before you get the extra special sticky tickles. How old are you anyway, Melanie?"

"Five and three weeks", she replied, proudly.

"No!" he exclaimed. He sounded amazed. "I was just about to tell you about the sticky tickles because I thought you must be about seven or even eight. Phew! Lucky I checked."

Melanie remembered how she had set her face in an exaggerated pout. She was good at doing that when she was a little girl.

Gerald appeared to be thinking deeply. "Well, all right, I could give you super-normal tickles instead..."

And he again surprised her, his hands diving up beneath her loose-fitting dress to tickle her bare sides beneath it. Yes, now she remembered - her dress sort of bunched high up her chest, and she was showing off her panties and tummy! Oops! His wriggling hands roamed high up her body, and some how her dress went even higher, right up around her neck and she watched his naughty tickly fingers scuttling across the bare expanse of her flat young chest, tickling her belly button and even her baby boobies! When he stopped, to let her giggling subside, her dress remained rolled fully up but the van was a bit hot and stuffy so cooling down like that was fine.

"You're such fun, Melanie, much more fun than girls your age usually are. You're very good with super-normal tickles - I think you are ticklish all over aren't you?"

I still am, she thought.

Melanie had stopped for moment, looking up and down the avenue and listening to the sounds of the night. She smiled to herself: she could even remember feeling very pleased that he thought she was better than other girls.

"I suppose I could try a special sticky tickle, but really I think you are too young. You see it's a very different type of tickle, more of a game, and it only works with quite grown-up girls."

Adults could be such teasers. He was just making her think he wouldn't do them special ones! She could tell that he was relenting and beamed up at him, her bestest smile. It usually worked.

"Are you really sure you want to try?"

"Yes please!" she grinned. She was going to show Gerald that she could act all clever, just like older girls.

He gave her a quick tickle on her ribs again and she curled up in a ball and squeaked with laughter.

"Right", Gerald said and she saw him pull a scarf from his trousers pocket. It was a big silky one, like the one Grandma wore on windy days, but Melanie could not remember its colour, even though she had stopped again under a lamp-post for a moment and tried really hard to make her brain work harder. It was frustrating that some things she just couldn't remember, but she supposed that was because she had only been very little at the time and missed things.

She could remember clearly what he had told her, though, about the game.

"You have to stay ever so still and ever so quiet and you have to wear a blindfold and no peeking! Sure you still want to try special sticky tickles?"

"Oh go on, please, please!" she had exclaimed.

"Mmmm, well I don't know. Five is really far too young..."

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!"

She reckoned Gerald was most definitely teasing that time, because straight away he made her sit up whilst he carefully folded the scarf and placed it over her eyes and tied it behind her head.

"Ok, we're ready. Like I said, this is a game, very different from ordinary baby tickles. I hope you can do it, because it is really only for big girls. This is how it works: I put my tickle stick on you and do a tickle. Sometimes it will be just a touch and sometimes I do a long tickle. They are only gentle tickles. You have to keep as still as you can and whatever you do, you mustn't make a sound. No laughing! Even if it is especially tickly. Then when I say 'Guess' you have to tell me where I tickled you and if it was the special sticky tickle. There is only one sticky one and you have to guess it perfectly. OK?"

Melanie nodded.

"And no cheating because if you guess them all right, including which one was the sticky tickle, you get a prize."

She chuckled and asked him what the prize was, but he said it was a secret because only the best girls who guessed it correctly ever found out what the prize was.

"Right, let's start. I may move you about as well, to make it harder to guess."

She could remember that he did move her around, guiding her arms and legs, lying her on her back or making her lie on her side and curl up, or go on all fours. It was fun and she kept as still as a statue, except when the soft mattress thing she was on bounced as Gerald moved around her.

It was easy at first. She felt the tickle stick behind her knee. It was neither hard nor soft, and it was warm. But it wasn't sticky. It touched and rubbed her for a bit and was only a bit tickly and when he said 'Guess' she said 'knee' and when he said 'sticky or not sticky' she said 'not sticky'.

"Very good, let's do another one."

Melanie could not recall exactly what else he did - it was a long time ago after all and the park gate was getting close now and so she tried to hurry her brain along too. Walking here had taken no time at all!

When the game started, she had kept trying to figure out what the tickle stick was like. She had expected it to be like feathers and the first time it had touched her leg, she had been surprised that it was actually like more a real stick. But it wasn't like a poky sharp stick because it was soft-ish but not floppy soft either. Almost like a finger but bigger. And it was not all that tickly. It just sort of stroked. She had felt it rubbing on the back of her legs for ages and again on her belly button and it was not nasty or anything. Oh yes, but she did almost burst out laughing when it wiggled right in her ear for only a few seconds.

She kept guessing right and began to wonder quite seriously what the prize would be.

After about seven or eight guesses, Melanie had thought Gerald was making it more difficult, trying to trick her, because she could tell where he was next to her but sometimes he just made the mattress shake a lot but she could not feel the tickle stick on her. He sounded very happy that she was getting it right all the time. Then he pushed it under her dress, through the arm hole, and it felt smooth and warm, rubbing over her skin under her arm and that did feel a bit tickly but not like when he had done her there with his fingers.

She really hoped she was playing the game right.

And then it happened. When he rolled her on her back and made her bend up so that her legs were waggling in the air over her head, She had to muffle a giggle then. Dead ants! But the scarf had become trapped behind her head and it shifted a tiny bit and she realised that she could just see the roof of the van with one eye.

The squashy foam was jiggling fast: he was kneeling somewhere next to her and making it bounce like that. Haha, he was trying to fool her again wasn't he? But she was very worried now. She was sooooo close to winning but if she said that she could look out under the scarf, he might say she was cheating and then she would never get the prize. She decided to say nothing. She wouldn't deliberately cheat but so long as he did not find out, it did not really matter did it? After all, she had been right so far, even though she was only just five!

He was leaning across her and she quickly squeezed her eyes shut. That was it! She felt the warm tickle stick brushing her cheek. Oh no - he would surely see that the scarf was not right over her eyes properly!

It rubbed over her face, back and forth below the edge of the scarf, and it was definitely like a massive fat finger. She was frozen like a statue. It slid down and she could feel it on her mouth, sliding side to side over her lips. It was smooth and hot. She could smell it, a funny hot smell, right under her nose.

"Guess."

"My face and not sticky!"

"Excellent, Melanie. Right yet again. You know, I think you might well be a winner soon," he said, above her.

It was when he was shuffling around, moving in front of her, that she saw him. Just for a second before she closed her eyes, but when he was bending over her and she peeked again, she saw him and she saw his tickle stick. And guess what? She saw it wasn't a stick or a finger - it was his man's willy!

Sticking out over the top of his tracksuit trousers (they had stripes down the leg). It was enormous. Like a great big nobbly pink pole and the end of it was all shiny and red. She had absolutely no idea that men's willies looked like that. He was kneeling close and she took another peek and she could see her own legs up in the air and between them he was holding it tight in his hand and rubbing it very fast up and down and she now understood that was why he had been making her shake before he touched her with the stick - it was when he shook his willy! But he was leaning towards her and so she closed her eyes again, in case he noticed her eye peeking under the scarf.

Melanie was nearly there now, at the park gates. There was the bus stop. She looked all around - still not a person in sight.

Then Melanie remembered how shocked she had felt, seeing Gerald's naughty rude willy. It made her think she was being naughty as well, even a bit, like, dirty. But there was no time to worry about it at the time, because Gerald was lifting up the leg hole of her panties with his finger and he was pushing the end of his tickle stick thing up under it, inside her knickers, and she could feel it pushing over the top of her front bottom. She was rigid, and dared not open her eyes to sneak another look. He might even get cross if he caught her cheating. His thing was sliding in and out of her pants and pressing down on her crack.

And all of a sudden, it was all sort of wet. The sticky one!

Right inside her panties. Not soggy or cold but wet and warm. But she hadn't wee'd herself. For the first time, she had felt just a bit scared. The tickle stick was rubbing a bit harder and faster - really easy to guess where it was this time, it was pushing all over her private bits! And it was making them all warm and slidy. For a second, she had even thought 'yuk', believing Gerald had maybe done a wee there, but that was wrong because it wasn't like all drippy wee wet, just gooey sticky wet.

She had not dared look either when it came out of the leg hole and his voice was way above her so he must have been standing up when he said, "Guess".

Her voice was croaky.

"In my pants. And sticky! Haha!"

"Yes. Brilliant, Melanie! I can't believe that you are only five but you guessed all of them correctly."

He was unfastening the scarf and she blinked hard when it came off, pretending that the light was hurting her eyes for the first time. Gerald had a huge great smile, but she darted a glance at his tummy and he must have put his willy back inside - it was nowhere to be seen.

She tried to sit up, but he gently pressed down on her shoulders. His hand moved down and then he was rubbing over the top of her knickers, right between her legs, and it felt all yukky down there when the cotton was sticking to her skin.

"Well done, that certainly was the special sticky tickle and you got it right."

She smiled weakly. It was a very funny peculiar game.

"Oh dear, it has made a bit of a mess though. Oh no - very messy. Let's get these off and see if I can clean them up."

And before she could say anything, he had grabbed the elastic and had yanked her pants all the way up her legs and off. He bent down and was rubbing the sticky all over her crack! She strained to look down her body to see. He pushed her knees apart and his finger was right down inside her slit, sliding up and down and making the slippery wet go everywhere.

"You are a proper tickle champion, Melanie - that's the stickiest tickle ever! We'd better clean that up properly!"

But although he had picked up the tissues and was about to dab her dry, he bent right down and ewww, he stuck out his tongue and wiggled it all the way up, all the way inside her crack, right from the bottom to the top, even licking up some of the sticky. Gross - he was being so very yuk - that was the place where her wee came out!

"Mmmmm, much nicer than ice cream!"

She had watched him in amazement.

"Hang on. Before I get you nice and dry. One more thing..."

He opened the big box again and took out a huge big black camera and pushed her legs down each side then crouched and she had to smile lots whilst he took a load of pictures. They must have been useless pictures because she was sort of upside down. But she didn't want to say no or nothing, because she was acting very grown-up, like a big girl.

"Had to get a photo of the best champion I've ever had," he had said, cheerfully. "All the girl-ticklers send pictures to each other - but only of the very, very best champions, though. I think you could well be the best in the whole country this year - the other ticklers will be so jealous!"

That made her very proud and she had a great big smile all the time he was cleaning off the sticky with the tissues, though he left some in her crack and Melanie now remembered that it had itched a lot on the way home. And now she also remembered how lovely her tummy had felt after the special sticky tickle, right deep inside. Like all ever so tight, and warm and tingly. Yes, that had felt so nice. He was naughty but she had liked Gerald the tickler.

Melanie stopped still, staring up at the park gates. She had arrived.

Yes, that was it! Now it all made sense - that tummy twinge she kept having every night. It was just like that! Right inside, near the front, exactly like the funny tummy when Gerald had been wiping the sticky away when she was little.

She didn't bother tying hard to remember any more in detail. Woohoo - she had worked it out at last and the rest of the dream was boring, in any case. Like a tele prog where they solve clues!

She squatted against the wall, biting her lip, recalling that last part. It hadn't ended exactly there, had it?

Mummy had yelled at her a bit when she got back to the playground but when she had handed Mummy the ten pound note prize that Gerald had given her and told her own fib, the one he had told her to say, that she had found it by the slide and then been so excited that she had gone looking for Mummy to tell her about it, Mummy had calmed down.

With a guilty smirk, Melanie also remembered that she had managed secretly to put on some clean panties as soon as she got home and Mummy never had noticed that her other pair had gone missing. Teehee - she had been too happy with her prize to tell Gerald that she had left them behind in his van and anyway, he was already driving away when she had realised and ran back to the car park to get them.

Melanie grinned to herself. Wow. This really was like being in some adventure book and she had solved the mystery! Just by coming to the park. Melanie Tanner And The Strange Case Of The Funny Tummy!

The breeze crept up the leg of her pyjamas and her head went fuzzy and she yawned. The crossing light kept on flashing in her face and she was becoming a little giddy, and so she leaned her arm against the park gate.

All that silly remembering had tired her out!

This was so ridiculous - what was she doing out here on her own in the middle of the night? She had better run home before she got caught. Get home to bed, real quick.

Now she was suddenly very sleepy and her head had become thick.

So what was the answer, then? That her tummy felt all strange and tight and nice when she was sticky there - down below - was that it? Yes - every time! That was what happened! Now it all was making so much sense, because sometimes when it sort of hurt in the front of her tummy and she woke up, there was that funny sticky stuff actually coming out of her vagina hole! Not her wee hole. It was very different. She hadn't wanted to ask Mummy about it, in case it was wrong or dirty or disgusting. And especially because it was even a bit nice if she put her finger there and touched it.

But now she had remembered everything about that time in the park, it most certainly was the very same sort of deep tingly feeling as when the nice man had done the naughty sticky tickling when she was tiny.

Simples!

Oh my God, it didn't really make sense, though. How could it be the same? She was only five then, but now she was ten and she knew it was all something to do with growing up and things happening to girl's bodies.

Too much thinking.

Melanie could not stop yawning, and to her annoyance, the chill of the breeze against her pyjamas made her realise that it was happening again now - yeeew, there was flipping sticky stuff actually coming out of there right now! And to make it worse, even her stupid boobies were itching again, like they had started doing since her nips had gone big and squishy and poked out a lot all the time, and irritably, she pinched them hard with her palm, through her flimsy anorak.

Another thought crossed her mind.

She would never admit it, even to herself, but now that she was older, she knew full well that the man Gerald had really been tricking her so that he could do very bad things. Really rude things. But the point was that she had done nothing to stop him, had she, and so that made her just as bad too, didn't it? And if she was a bad person deep down, was that why she got tummy aches now?

This realisation was too much. Melanie was so tired now and was angry with herself for being such a prat and coming out on her 'big adventure'. And she was dead cross at remembering that she had been bad, even when she was only five.

She could get home in about three minutes, if she ran mega fast. Then back to bed, where she could switch off her stupid brain and lose herself in sleep.

But something poked against her leg and she leapt up, too shocked to yell out.

"Hello. What are you doing up so late?"