I sing the song to myself. I hum the tune and tap out the beat. Around and around it goes with a soft rise and fall like waves on a beach. It helps me concentrate. Daddy is so clever. He knows how to teach me all the things. He taught me this song, to remember my science.

I pluck another bottle from the special glass cabinet, singing out its name. Methylate. It’s one of the magic ingredients in my magic potion. My love potion.

Dancing back to Daddy’s work bench I give him a big grin. Daddy watches intently with a knowing smile. This test is hard. The song is very long. Urging me on, he nods and I obey, pouring the viscous liquid into my boiling pot.

“All done!” I announce proudly with a flourish.

“Well done.” Daddy says with such pride as he lavishes me in kisses. “Let’s put it in the oven to cook up and then we can test it out.”

“Really!?” My surprise is real, I wasn’t expecting to get to try it out. Not after the last one. Daddy was sad when his play thing got sick. My medicine made the puppy boy so poorly that Daddy had to bury him in the garden.

Sweeping me up into his arms with a booming laugh, Daddy winks in that way that tells me he has a plan. Daddy always has a plan.

The potion takes hours that feel like forever.

Leaning over to peek, unable to restrain myself any longer, I see with crushing disappointment that my potion has gone all bad. “Oh no! I burned it!”

I did it wrong. Daddy will be mad. My heart pounds as it’s Daddy’s turn to peer into the pot.

“Perfect!” he doesn’t even acknowledge my fear. A wave of relief rolls over me, leaving me light headed.

I sit down while Daddy does the tricky bit. He scrapes up the crystals left at the bottom of the burned pot. Crushing the big shards down into a fine white powder, it sparkles under the work lamp.

“Fairy dust.” Daddy explains with a wicked grin.

“And it will make them happy and in love?” I continue my questions from before as Daddy portions out the powder. “Like in the stories?”

“Just like the princes and princesses.” Daddy confirms. He scoops up the handful of capsules and strides to the door. “Come with me.”

I obey without word and soon we are skipping down the sunny road to the grown up bar that Daddy goes to some nights. This time he lets me in with him. The small, shabby outside doesn’t fit with what waits within; it’s dark and crowded with people, fervently yammering at one another after long days of businessing. Their blazers are strewn across the melee of chairs and tables that punctuate the throng, ties long since removed when the working day ended.

I can smell it. The arousal. The hunt. The animal desire that seeps out of the pores of every wretched soul that has come into the humid hole. Each here under one guise or another and yet all here for one thing only, release.

Daddy is quick to find us a shaded table tucked away in a corner by the toilets. Placing our drinks on the table, a big frothing beer for Daddy and a sparking red juice for me, Daddy begins to search out his prey.

We don’t talk, we just watch. Watch them prancing and dancing a mating ritual. Each peacock determined to splay his feathers wider and with more allure than the next, to laugh louder, have the flashiest watch, phone and car, splashing the cash as a demonstration of their social value.

“No, I insist this round’s on me.” An offer than stinks of the subtext; those who provide are the most viable to procreate, every action driven by the desire to spread their seed.

Daddy’s disdain for them is infectious, I see what he sees. He points it out, every fake laugh, the posturing, and the clamouring for attention. The women just as guilty as the men, preening themselves, the casual hair flicks, the skirts that ‘accidentally’ ride up, the greed in their eyes, taking drink after drink.

Daddy works them like puppets; it’s too easy when you understand their game. He chooses the two seemingly alone; they’ve already spotted each other, eyes catching across the bar, smiles exchanged. Daddy just acts as cupid, bringing them together. His arrow targeted at their drinks, giving them a special present of my fairy dust without them seeing.

Their smiles get easier, more inviting, inhibitions waning as they slurp down their magical elixir.

She provocatively sucks on a finger and he’s hooked, dropping drunkenly off his stool and starting towards her. She matches him, slipping from the stool with less coordination than just one drink could claim. She leaves behind her belongings, fixated only on him.

“Look Daddy,” I bounce, “They’re falling in love. Oh, it’s so romantic!”

The two bodies collide, both doped up and hazy from our special potion. The reaction is instant. Lust and love beams easily between the two creatures. In moments they are locked in kisses. The room watches them for a moment, perturbed by their early indulgences in one another. These brazen displays of adultery usually left to the messy end of the night when all who are left are smothered in a drunken haze.

“Get a room.” A voice calls from the mass of punters. Daddy’s so clever, throwing his voice this way and that to avoid suspicion.

Begrudgingly, the couple break apart, just long enough to spy the door to the toilets. They let go of one another and without word collude on their plan. I watch them as they so obviously head for the same place, the woman discreetly slipping away moments before the man hungrily follows.

Daddy and I are next, locking the door behind us. They’re at it already, lips against lips.

“Look Daddy!” I whisper, “it worked! True love!” I am elated as we watch the couple become intertwined in the corner of the room. He pushes her up against the sink and starts tearing off her clothes.

“Daddy?” I ask, slightly confused. The ceiling light flickers which only highlights the change. Their skin begins to pour with sweat. Their bare arms becoming shiny like glass. The green décor of the room reflects off them.

I giggle slightly, they look like they’re transforming into ravenous monsters from my comic books, hardly people at all.

“Shhh…” Daddy whispers in my ear as he pulls me out of sight into a cubicle and positions himself behind me. “Wait… watch…. there’s more to see. This, is love. True love. It takes time to develop. ”

At first they look like any other boring couple. Kissing and caressing and nibbling at one another. It bores me. It makes me uncomfortable. This isn’t what Daddy likes. This isn’t right.

I catch a glimpse of her face, slick wet and green. Her pupils have grown to massive proportions, making her eyes look more animal than human. I see her snarl and it makes me twitch. Something’s changing. Something’s different.

My girl parts ache as I watch the couple bite into one another, hungry to taste and to feel their counterpart. I feel Daddy’s breath slow. I feel his desire rise. He’s watching, waiting for them to act.

The man-monster groans and I refocus to see her bite down harder. She growls and tears and bites until eventually she rips away a mouthful of flesh from his shoulder. Growling in response he lashes at her face with his hand like a claw. Blood sprays across the mirror above the sinks.

Moments later they’re locked in a rampant assault on one another. Still driven by lust, they seem as eager to feed on one another as to fuck. Finally free of his trousers he thrusts his cock inside of her as he grips her neck and bites down on her face.

Unrelentingly, the man pounds into the woman. Their animalistic sounds bouncing off the tiny bathroom.

Unrelentingly, she lashes and bites and tears away his human features. All of their kisses have teeth, each of their caresses have talons that pierce and flay. The love they exchange is violent.

With their dripping red wounds and luminescent green skin so entwined they become one, like zombies, the couple devours itself.

I watch with awe and a deep longing to feel that animal desire.

“This.” Daddy repeats as he thrusts inside of me, pulsing hard and eager to show me. “This, is true love.”

Daddy loves me. Daddy loves me hard as we watch our prey consume one another. As they rip down through the muscle and sinew. Daddy loves me until I can barely stand. He loves me until there is nothing left except for two loosely bound skeleton corpses that, with a final undead groan, fall apart in death. Two piles of bones and carcass amid a great lake of delicious red blood.

This, is true love.