"It's perfect! We have to buy it!"
Lisa was standing in the kitchen of the cottage. Her husband Mark smiled. The roof beams of the kitchen just skimmed his head. But they both loved the cottage, built in the 1600s and extended many times since, and they loved the small, isolated village on the wild Norfolk coast. House hunting out of London, they had stumbled across it after getting lost — Little Marsham was barely a speck on GPS, and didn't seem to be on regular maps at all except as a road junction and post office. But in fact, there was a village green, surrounded by cottages and an ancient-looking pub with an unusual name, the Oak and Pony. Set a little back from the green behind a wall was a manor house and farm.
Much like many little villages in the English countryside, if a bit more remote than most — Lisa and Mark had come into Marsham unexpectedly after a detour along minor roads through woods and over heathland. But there was one cottage with a "For Sale" sign outside, and they loved it immediately.
The real estate agent smiled, too. Joan Crabtree looked to be in her forties, attractive and comfortably but casually dressed for showing a couple around a home in well-fitting jeans, a cashmere sweater and a country casual jacket and Burberry scarf.
"I'm glad you like it. These cottages don't come on the market very often, and hardly ever in Little Marsham. People here stay put."
"We love it." Lisa said, returning Mark's smile. "It's just what we're looking for."
Joan was glad to close the sale. If anything, she was understating the housing market in the area: this was the first prospective sale she'd had in months. The market wasn't what it was two years ago, she thought. She would have liked to sell the thirty-something city couple a bigger house, an old rectory or farmhouse perhaps, for a bigger commission. But they'd clearly fallen in love with Little Marsham, and there was nothing else on the market nearby.
Money, but not too much of it, she thought. Mark and Lisa had said they both worked in London, but wanted to cash in a cramped apartment on the outskirts and move out. Looking at their country-casual clothes and late model but not luxury car, Joan reckoned they could well afford the cottage. She wondered what they would make of the rest of the village and its traditions.
She led them out of the kitchen, back through the living room to the front door and into the garden with its view of the green.
Little Marsham did have one unusual feature. Where some village greens might have a duck pond or an old well, or if they are feeling modern a swing set or even a basketball hoop, the centerpiece of Marsham's village green was a solid looking wooden object, rather like a small high table with a vertical wooden board at one end. It stood on a grassy mound in the middle of the green, with a dirt path worn out to it.
"What you should know about Little Marsham is it does have some unique traditions," Joan said. "In fact there is actually a covenant that goes with the cottage that makes it a condition of sale that you will follow village traditions."
"I don't think we'll have a problem with that," said Mark.
"What sort of traditions?" Lisa asked. "Do we have to dress up? Some kind of festival?"
"Something like that, yes."
"I'm sure we'll cope," said Lisa, nudging her husband. "We're pretty broad minded."
She turned towards the green, washed in Spring sunshine, with a smile.
"It's just so pretty here." The object in the middle of the green took her attention.
"What is that, anyway?" She stepped through the gate and crossed the road, followed by her husband and the realtor.
"It's the village stocks," said Mark, catching up. "They'll put you in it for stealing and pelt you with rotten tomatoes."
"Technically, it's a pillory," Joan said. Mark looked at her, mildly surprised. "A stocks secures your feet, this is for the head and wrists," she went on.
Mark turned back to the pillory. It was solidly built of dark, weathered wood, but well-varnished and seasoned. At one end was a large wooden board made of three horizontal slats fitted into a wooden frame. The lower two slats were cut with a three half-circles so that when put together, the formed holes for the wrists and neck. Iron rings were set in the wood by each hole. The third slat, on top, provided a larger screen between front and back and the height of the holes could be adjusted by adding or removing slats. Wooden pegs held the panels in place in the frame.
Behind the headboard was what looked like a wooden sawhorse, but rather wider— wide enough to lie on, Lisa thought. She ran her hand over the wood. Like the headboard, it was worn smooth but felt sturdy and warm to the touch. There were metal rings attached to the legs of the horse, she noticed.
"How old is this?" Mark asked. Joan shrugged. "Pretty elaborate to leave out in the middle of the village."
"Maybe they use it for the village festival," Lisa said. "Remember the dunk tank at that head office party a few years ago?"
"Yes, I remember you having suspiciously good aim," Mark said, touching her nose.
Joan smiled.
***
"So, like a beauty contest?".
Mr Gibbens smiled patiently at Lisa. The farmer was a sixtyish man with glasses and grey facial hair that would have been fashionable about a century ago.
"You might say that, Miss," he said, with a rolling Norfolk accent. "Just the married women of the village, mind. It's a very old tradition of the village."
"And we dress up?"
"We keep all the dresses at the manor. You won't need to bring anything."
"Huh, sounds kind of fun," Lisa said, relaxing a little. She took a sip of her coffee.
"Yes miss, everyone enjoys our summer solstice."
"What's the prize for the winner?"
"Why she gets put in the pillory for the afternoon." Gibbens leaned back in his chair and smiled at Lisa, who was now staring at him over her coffee. "Noon until sundown."
"Funny kind of prize," Lisa managed to say.
"Oh, 'tis a great honor," said Gibbens, earnestly. "To be the pleasure of the whole village."
Lisa stared at him. Then she thought, look on the bright side. In the two months we've lived here, everyone's been friendly. She'd heard it could be hard to be a new person in an old place, that people could be distant or standoffish. But so far, Little Marsham had welcomed Mark and Lisa as if generations of ancestors were buried in the churchyard.
She shrugged and smiled.
"Ok, I'm in," she said. Gibbens beamed.
After she showed him out she thought, I wonder what he meant, "pleasure of the whole village." Must be a Norfolk phrase, she thought, dismissing it.
***
It was the morning of the summer solstice and although it was a weekday nobody in Little Marsham seemed to be going to work. Mark was Skyping with a client from the cottage's home office. Lisa walked to the Manor House, where the women were meeting to dress before the Choosing Ceremony at noon.
As she crossed the green, she noticed that two young men were cleaning the pillory, and hanging it with garlands of flowers. She nodded and smiled as she passed and they waved back.
"Hello?" She called, pushing open the front door and entering an airy hallway with a stone floor.
"In here!" It was Joan the estate agent, from a side room. Lisa walked in, and was taken aback. About a dozen women were in the room. In fact, the chatter coming from the room would have given it away.
Gibbens had said that Pleasure of the Village was open to all "coupled" women of the village, with no upper age limit. For the most part, the contenders were in their thirties and forties, with bodies ranging from the gym-toned to what Lisa and Mark were privately calling "Norfolk Broad." After two months in Little Marsham, Lisa recognized most of them at least on a nodding basis.
More surprising was that they were all either already, or about to be, naked.
As she watched, Mrs Holley from Post Office — someone Lisa had definitely not visualized nude before now — picked up a piece of clothing from a basket on the floor and slipped it over her head. It looked to be a woolen smock, simply made with short wide sleeves, that a peasant woman might have worn in an earlier age. She took a piece of rope from another basket and tied it around the waist, then fitted a white cloth cap on her head.
"Flattering outfit," Lisa whispered to Joan, who smiled. 'You'd be surprised," she said, and peeled her sweater over her head revealing a pale, firm body and D-cup breasts in a black bra. Kicking off her shoes, Joan wiggled out of her jeans and panties, revealing a voluptuous ass, took off her bra then pulled out a smock for herself.
"Here, get changed," she said.
"Er, why no underwear?" Lisa asked. Joan looked at her with a grin.
"Well, that will just get in the way if you're pleasuring the village, won't it?"
"What?!"
"Pleasure of the Village. Do you know what it means?"
"I thought it was like, a beauty contest..." Lisa trailed off. No, they couldn't be serious.
