She stood, wobbling perilously, on the chair seat, and spread her arms in a gesture of universal beneficence. The pert cheeks of her arse were bisected by a cunning little twine of greenery, firmly wedged in her crack and continuing below to hide her pussy from view.
‘I love you all!’ she shouted. ‘I love my people! Free speech and free love for all!’
The children of the village were being hustled home by their parents. The mood was changing from one of bucolic innocence to something darker. The jam judging was cancelled. A crowd built up around the maypole, muttering, swigging cider, under a lowering sun.
Adam wondered why some dancing round the maypole was building up so much tension in the air. Then he watched the crowd divide as Evie, down from her chair, was led on to the green by two of the musclemen, each drawing her forward by reins made of threaded flowers, the colours striking, ravishing, against her bare skin.
‘What is this?’ he asked the person next to him, his hackles rising, stomach churning with a kind of exhilarated dread.
‘Maypole, ennit? Saxonhurst tradition. Oh, you’re in for a treat, vicar.’
Adam watched as the musclemen placed Evie with her back to the maypole. She raised her arms above her head, and one of the ribbons was wrapped round and round her wrists until she was bound in position. Another ribbon performed a similar function around her waist. Her hair hung loose over her petal-strewn nipples and her face was ecstatic, beatific. She reminded him of depictions of female martyrs. What on earth was she doing this for?
Before he could move forward to try and intervene, the Morris dancers had surrounded Evie in a tight circle. They began to jig around her, their bells jingling and sticks clanking while a man played an accordion and the villagers clapped in rhythm. The sun dipped lower, sinking under the horizon, and the dance got faster, the music wilder. Once the red-streaked skies had turned purple and then inky blue-black, the Morris dancers abandoned their performance and Adam found himself caught up in a free-for-all as villagers surged forward, eager to grab themselves one of the maypole ribbons.
He was almost knocked over and staggered sideways. By the time he’d steadied himself, 16 villagers stood hanging on to the multi-coloured strands, over which there had been a few angry exchanges and even a slap.
Now an equal number of men and women had succeeded in taking a position and they stood, facing inward, waiting for something to happen.
But what?
The accordion started up again and the villagers began to dance, ribbons criss-crossing, forming a different pattern with each move. At one point each one of them wound their ribbon around Evie until she resembled a more colourful version of an Egyptian mummy, then they were individually unwound again and she was once more a beautiful, nearly naked woman bound to a maypole.
The music ended once all the ribbons were unravelled and an expectant tension rippled through the crowd.
‘Go, Evie!’ yelled one man, prompting a little wave of encouraging shouts.
A man Adam recognised as the owner of Saxonhurst’s biggest fruit and vegetable growers came to stand beside Evie. Anthony Farren was his name; he was a broad, brash man, given to vulgar displays of wealth.
‘May our first bearer of tribute come forward and worship your queen.’
Queen? Adam narrowed his eyes, frowning as one of the maypole dancers, a woman, approached Evie.
She dropped to her knees, lifted Evie’s right ankle in her hand and began, quite slowly and deliberately, to suck her toes.
Evie giggled and squirmed with infectious delight as the middle-aged farm worker held her foot in rough hands and flicked her tongue into the grooves between her toes. With thick fingers, she caressed Evie’s instep, causing her to scream out loud, and covered her red-painted toenails with kisses. Only when every inch of Evie’s little feet had been smothered with attention did the woman stop.
A man was next, and he gave Evie’s calves, shins, and knees the same treatment. She fussed and wriggled when he took his time kissing and licking the sensitive backs of her knees. Adam noted how flushed her face was and how her eyes rolled back with pleasure. Something told him he should stop this from going any further. Something else prevented him.
A second woman had stepped up, and she was sucking on Evie’s fingers, one by one, then putting a few of them in her mouth at a time. Fervently, she kissed the knuckles and let her tongue lick a trail in the creases of her palms.
The second man was in charge of wrists and forearms and inner elbows, while the third woman took over the upper arms, even going so far as to bury her face in Evie’s exposed armpits.
What was coming next? Adam wondered, transfixed.
Another man took the woman’s place. He worshipped Evie’s stomach and hips with his tongue and his hands, circling her navel for a good, long time while she threw back her head and moaned.
It was up to the next woman to untie the sash around Evie’s waist and turn her to face the maypole. She massaged Evie’s shoulders and back with a touch that looked sensuous but firm. With a jolt of shock, Adam recognised the woman as Mrs Witts, his own housekeeper and Evie’s aunt. Was there no end to the barbarity of this village?
She patted Evie’s side and said something in her ear before turning her back around to face the front once more and retiring.
The next man seemed to signal a new phase in the action. He kissed Evie from shoulder to neck on both sides, then set to sucking at the tender flesh there until it was marked in several places. Evie’s eyes closed in rapture, and when he withdrew, her nipples were poking rudely through their petal covering, pink and stiff.
The fifth woman took Evie’s face in her hands and subjected her to a passionate and thorough kiss, tonguing her so that the crowd could see how deeply Evie’s mouth was taken. The young women smooched until Evie was rubbing herself against her embracer’s pelvis, rubbing her legs up and down the other girl’s jeans.
Adam tried to look away, but it was the most gorgeous and sensual sight he had ever seen and he felt lightheaded, his throat and mouth too dry to attempt speech.
Oh, Lord, if that could be me, please let it be me.