The sun shone high above the thatched rooftops of Piedale, bathing the yard behind The Cock Inn. The scent of ale and baked sugar lingered in the air. Jenny, buxom and bold, leaned against a barrel, her arms crossed under her ample bosom, still flushed from the previous night's spectacle. She wore the triumphant grin of a woman who had not just served justice--but served it with a lattice topping and creamy filling.

Gathered round her were Rosie the baker's daughter, cheeks flushed with curiosity and hands still dusted in flour; April the sturdy farm girl, boots muddy and arms folded with country strength; and Lucy.

Lucy stood slightly apart, half in shadow, a lithe brunette with a wicked gleam in her eye and an enticing mouth she rarely kept shut. Her bobbed hair framed a heart-shaped face, soft and mischievous by turns. Her build was lean and fit, with a quiet confidence in every movement.

"I swear on my apron," Jenny was saying, wiping her hands with a theatrical flourish, "I thought it a prank. He knocked on my door yesterday morning, pallid as anything , eyes full of guilt--and not the usual kind that comes from pinching the tavern maid's behind."

Rosie giggled. April raised an eyebrow. Lucy said nothing, but tilted her head slightly, watching Jenny with her hazel eyes.

"And what did he say?" Rosie asked eagerly.
Jenny grinned. "He said he'd wronged me--wronged women in general,--and that he wished to make amends through a what did he call it a ritual of public abasement."
Lucy snorted, but her voice was light. "Sounds like he's been spending too long in your hayloft, April."
"Oh hush," April said, blushing. "So then what happened?"
"I tested him. Told him to order a batch of Rosie's finest custard pies--paid up front, no less--and to report to the tavern at ten in the evening, for whatever I deemed fit."

Rosie chuckled. "I thought those pies were for some village fete. Should've guessed. So he actually showed?"
Jenny nodded, her grin widening. "Turned up on the dot. Head bowed, looking like a schoolboy facing the cane. I gave him a look that summoned the gods of justice and repentance --and then I let fly."
Lucy clapped. "What flavours?"
"Lemon, raspberry, butterscotch and peanut butter," Jenny said proudly. "Each pie louder than the last. And then for the finale" She leaned in with relish. "I poured a full bucket of malt extract down his underpants."

Even April looked impressed. "Sticky."
"Utterly," Jenny said. "And he took it. Didn't flinch. Well--much."
Lucy gave a little laugh, slightly softer. She glanced away for a moment.
"You don't suppose," Rosie said, "he'll be seeking forgiveness from others?"
April cracked her knuckles. "He's welcome to try. I've got a farm's worth of muck and an imagination to boot."
Jenny shrugged. "If he does, I say let him. Redemption doesn't come cheap."
But Lucy stayed quiet a moment longer, then spoke, her tone deliberately casual. "Strange, though. Not like Crispin at all."

April's phone buzzed. Reading the text, she looked up at the others. "Girls, you are not going to believe this..."

Hidden in the shadows behind a row of old cider barrels, the enchantress watched the scene with quiet satisfaction, arms folded, eyes sharp and knowing. Her spell had taken root, yes--and not just in Crispin's humbled soul. The path ahead would be messy. Deliciously so.

*******************************************************************************

As the girls had gathered in Jenny's tavern, Crispin stood stark naked in Molly the dressmaker's little back room. A place he once mocked as "the boudoir of a painted tart" after shamelessly two-timing her. Molly, statuesque in a tight black slip, circled him like a cat around a twitching mouse. She dipped her razor into warm, scented foam. "Now Crispin, you bedded and wronged me. Bid farewell to your borrowed masculinity it shall melt like cheap wax beneath the brushstrokes of my revenge!"

She smothered a once proudly puffed chest in lather, then slid a razor across in long, sure strokes, scraping away every curl of chest hair until the bare skin glistened. Then the armpits --Crispin flinched as the blade skimmed removing every hint of virility. Legs next -- once so boldly striding through the village in pursuit of conquests, now pale and helpless as Molly scraped them smooth from thigh to ankle. Last, the final assault -- the pubic hair, gone with a few humiliating strokes, leaving Crispin feeling boyish and oddly small.

Molly stood back, inspecting her work like an artist before a blank canvas. "Good," she spoke, in a voice dripping sweet venom, "time to paint my masterpiece." She powdered his face with heavy white foundation, traced lashes with black kohl. Ruby lipstick smeared Crispin lips -- bright and thick --followed by rouging his cheeks a clownish pink.

A wig of tangled black curls was shoved onto his shaved scalp. Around Crispin's middle, Molly bound a ruffled corset, with lace so tight his breath came in pitiful gasps. Stockings up to his thighs, garters biting into newly softened skin. And the final flourish -- silk French knickers, pure white, the frills quivering in time to trembling hips.
Molly admired her work: "Yes, a French tart of the highest order well primed for painting!" Makeup complete, the pair descended into the back yard where pots of thick emulsion paint, tubs of vegetable wallpaper paste and a chalky-white pit awaited.

One by one, Molly poured the buckets of emulsion slowly over Crispin's feminised features--the paint running in fat rivulets down his chest, seeping into the corset. Laughing as he flinched at the cold, Molly dipped a ladle into the wallpaper paste -- heavy, glutinous -- and dumped it straight into the front of the French knickers, then the back. The paste oozed down, gluing the silk panties to his smooth skin.

"And now, my painted lady, the final baptism." Molly shoved Crispin forward -- down he tumbled, over the edge of a pit: a shallow basin brimming with thick, cold whitewash. The painted makeup left smears on the surface as he spluttered and wallowed in the chalky slurry.

But the ruin was not yet complete. Two loyal clients of Molly, clad in nothing but smeared lipstick and leather harnesses, lept in after Crispin. They tugged at the corset laces, yanked his wig askew, and began stroking his smooth skin as he flailed and gasped.

The yard rang with Molly's hollers and hoots as Crispin was shoved under the whitewash, dragged up for air, and pressed against a frothy mess of paint. Greasing his rosebud with the remains of the paste, his rear was entered as his lips parted to receive a hot phallus in the pit of shame. When his trembling limbs finally stilled, bowels and belly painted as thickly as his torso, Molly crouched above him and flicked the last drops of paste into his scalp. Then whisking out her phone she said "smile!" and eagerly sent a text

Looking on from a hidden vantage point Circe purred: "Two down, my painted sow, Five to go. Perhaps you'll learn what it means to be a real man once you've been made into everything but one."