Summer lives on (a GM in passing)

I was out for a walk the other day, enjoying the gorgeous weather, trying to make the most of it before it inevitably slips beneath the dim gray veil of winter, when I spied three visions of beauty: a trio of girls, in the 8-10 age range, each decked out in a bikini, playing at the front of a yard next to the street.

One girl was sitting up high in the nook of a tree; another, on the ground below, reaching up towards the branches in a full body stretch; the third, reclining on the grass a short distance away. I was mesmerized, though I tried not to show it. I knew in my head that there wasn't a single excuse in the world for me to stop and admire these girls, who were apparently unsupervised (though mom and/or dad was almost certainly just inside). But all I wanted to do was watch. Not interfere, not impose, just watch these pretties play - like an anthropologist in the African bush. They say it's impossible to observe without interfering (and I know it's true), but what harm would just looking do?

Surely, I wouldn't want to make these girls feel self-conscious, but would it hurt them to know that somebody finds them attractive? That someone thinks they're beautiful, even though they're not yet "fully grown"? Is it painful to be the object of an admiring glance? Does the subtle gaze of a pedophile carry a piercing sting?

And yet, I'm convinced that, if the parents had any idea of the intent of my gaze (innocent though it was), they would be far more traumatized by it than the kids would be. And doesn't that mean something?

Nevertheless, I am quite used to walking away from paradise.