Chapter 15

"Are you sure you still want to take over, Miss Raynsford? We all saw that over there, and you must want to go home and loy down after that awful beating that cow gave you - serve her bloody roight the way you laid her out though! That were lovely to watch, it reely were!"

Julia wiped a tear away. It was not the pain, almost unendurable though it still was, that caused this sign of emotion, but shame. The warm-hearted sympathy that this girl had just expressed served to remind her of all the unkind things she had said about her in the past and about so many other of the village girls. At this moment there was nothing she wanted more than to have them accept her as a friend. She had witnessed, with amazed and growing admiration, their stoicism as they had descended time and again into the freezing water and had come so ardently to admire them that she desired their friendship and approbation as she had never desired any others'.

"Thanks, Kylie! I'm fine. Oh! You look so divinely and utterly lovely without your costume - really lovely! Don't you feel how great it is to be free of clothes for a while on this Feast of the Lord of Misrule? And the rest of you - you all look so utterly sweet. I love all three of you. I've been watching your ordeal and you've all been pretty brave yourselves! A promise is a promise, Kylie. I've never broken one in my life and never will, so help me God! You three go off and enjoy the fete for a while, and don't be in a hurry to come back. My arse needs a good cooling down! It feels like it's on fire! Oh and another thing - don't any of you three ever dare to call me anything other than Julia from now on! Got that? You'll all be in such trouble if you don't! Seriously - I'd think it the nicest thing that had ever happened to me if you did used my Christian name from now on - a wonderful thing, girls - you'll never know just how much!"

"OK Julia! Thanks for helping out, my love! You're a great girl - you really are! See you later!"

After Kylie had said this, all three girls kissed a by now helplessly weeping but very happy Julia and scampered off, bare-arse naked and happier than they had any of them ever been before, to enjoy the fun.

She climbed the ladder and prayed that the first shot would be so aimed as to plunge her into that delicious and longed for cold. Thankfully, her prayer was answered and, after her fall from the platform, she gloried in the icy kiss of the super-cooled water as it drew the fiery pain out of her tormented body. "Thanks, Uncle, you old pervert" she said as she luxuriated in the cold, finally dragging herself out with immense reluctance to face, with extreme delight, the by now expertly aimed throws of the sick-minded youths who had become so addicted this last few hours to the delights of sending three decent, courageous and lovely girls to one icy soaking after another.