The Village/Characters/Mary Evans

Although the farm where you grew up is mainly arable, there are still animals around: two cows, Daisy and Mirabelle who provide the family with milk, the chickens that have been your responsibility almost since you could walk and various dogs and cats. There were also two Shire horses, Sampson and Delilah.

You're an only child, but with plenty of extended family, you have never been short of playmates. One autumn, shortly after your fifth birthday, every able-bodied person is out in the fields helping with the harvest. The threshing machine arrived early, towed by a huge, smoking, hissing traction engine and by mid-morning when the sun had burned the dew off, everything was set up on the edge of the field.

You come out with your mother who had made a big urn full of tea and when everybody as had a drink, you plead with her to stay and watch and she gives in, warning you to stay well out of the way. The sun is shining brightly and most of the men and boys have taken their shirts off, so you do the same and sit on a log watching the huge machine whirring and clanking.

Billy's your Uncle, but since he's only ten, you just call him Billy. He's been helping the men to stack straw onto the big old hay wain which Sampson and Delilah will pull back to the big barn for storage, but he has not yet learned to pace himself and sits down beside you, all sweaty and out of breath. After a while, he can't resist tickling you and making you squeal, so you run off with him chasing you. You run round behind the wagon, but he still catches you.

The wagon is loaded and ready to go and Billy dares you to climb up on top and ride back to the farm. Moments later, with a bit of help from Billy, you're both perched on top of the swaying stack of straw as the two horses plod slowly across the field. It's pretty high up and quite scary, and when Billy starts tickling you again there's no way for you to escape. You're wearing a long skirt that goes down well below your knees and when Billy starts tickling your legs underneath the skirt you don't really think anything of it.

When he starts tickling your secret place, you try to push him off, but he's too strong, and maybe you don't really try all that hard. Soon his fingers inside your knickers and it feels even better when he rubs you there and when you do it yourself, so you lay back on the prickly straw and he pushes your skirt right up around your waist. When his finger goes inside you, it doesn't hurt but it is a bit of a shock. When he starts wiggling it around in there, the feelings get even stronger and you don't mind at all when he starts kissing you on the lips.

Your laying on your back with him on top of you and he's kissing you and you can feel him moving around doing something and then you feel his finger inside you again, except it's not his finger because both his hands are outside and he's moving his hips and whatever it is inside you is going in and out. It doesn't last very long and he collapses on top of you, nearly suffocating you before he rolls off and you sit up to see that he got his willy out and it suddenly dawns on you that that's what he was poking inside you.