Read by Silas Hawkins
Mayor Quintana scrutinized the bedsheet with a forensic rigour usually reserved for dead bodies. He held it up to the light, forehead wrinkled in solidarity with the soiled linen. Ten minutes later, his verdict was ready.
“Gabby,” he called—“Gabby! There's a big red fucking stain in the middle! You realise that, don't you?”
Gabriela rolled her eyes. “Let me wash it. Magdalena will just make it worse by using citrus.”
“Nobody's washing anything,” said the mayor, handing the bedsheet to the bailiff to be entered into evidence.
“Evidence?” Gabriela stammered—“but papá, there's been no crime—”
Mayor Quintana rested his head in his hands. “I practically specialise in cover-ups. If you'd just lost it quietly—”
“I was quiet!” Gabriela hissed—“I bit his shoulder every time I felt like screaming.”
The mayor sighed. “If you were so discreet, then why is all of Santa Marta gossiping about how my daughter's virginity is gone?”
*
The following morning's hearing was attended with all the fanfare of a prizefight. Only the gloves were missing. The accused paced in opposite corners, swearing oaths to kill each other (provided Gabriela's father didn't beat them to it). The Coast Guard erected barricades and beat back throngs of gossip-mongers. Artists crowded the entryway in such a flurry of sketching and annotating that some of their illustrations were for sale by half-past eight. According to one amateur stenographer's account, the defendants dueled with cutlasses abreast the witness stand, quarreling like Tybalt and Mercutio; and if another, more sentimental artist's rendition is to be believed, Hymen, goddess of virginity, descended like a shoulder angel next to Gabriela, singing unbroken hymns of chastity.
A more reliable court document indicates that proceedings were not underway until a quarter past nine, with Mayor Quintana having relieved the presiding magistrate, owing to the severity of the charges. “All rise, in the name of the Blessed Virgin,” said the mayor solemnly. Whispers leapt among the audience that he obviously wasn't invoking the name of his daughter.
Gabriela sat in the front row and bristled at the imputations of promiscuity. She could count on one finger (which happened to be a middle finger) the number of men she'd technically had sex with. One! … one, or perhaps two … it all depended one one's perspective …
But before the mayor could continue, an outburst echoed through the vaulted ceiling. “Your Honour,” bellowed the larger of the two defendants, “that bastard dishonored my girl!”
Nobody believed the accusation. First of all, Emiliano San Caballero was certainly not a bastard, boasting the distinguished patrimony of royal horsemen on his father's side, plantation owners on his mother's. More importantly, his honeyed lips appeared too sweet to dishonour anybody. “No, your honour,” retorted Emiliano San Caballero, straightening his pashmina collar with the utmost dignity: “that bastard dishonoured my lady.”
This accusation seemed more plausible. Cristóbal de los Fuegos was a bastard, fathered illegitimately by a Portuguese first mate or, in his mother's rendition, by an angel of the Lord. People believed her story because Cristóbal de los Fuegos had the look of a fallen angel from birth, a look augmented by his occupation as a blacksmith.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Mayor Quintana smiled magnanimously—“I think we can all agree it's my girl who has been dishonoured.”
Everyone agreed—everyone except Gabriela, who sat in the front row and bristled at the prospect of belonging to anyone.
Court records indicate that Emiliano San Caballero testified first. Emiliano San Caballero loved the sound of his own voice—almost as much as women loved it. He described in eloquent detail how the night he met Gabriela, the sky was bedazzled with constellations—memory failed whether they sparkled with unnatural fervour, or whether the heavens burst with shooting stars! He recalled with absolute clarity how Gabriela's hands fit between his fingers like pliable coconut flesh; how laughter trickled from her mouth like mangosteen syrup; how her lips yielded with the sweet softness of passionfruit—it was at times ambiguous whether he recalled a romantic encounter or an elaborate dessert. Women's eyes moistened; Hermana Rosales was seen wiping a tear from her consecrated cheek.
“It was thus on Midsummer Eve, beneath Heaven's hallowed vault, Your Excellency”—Emiliano San Caballero concluded with a flourish—“that Gabriela offered me her virginity.”
Mayor Quintana folded his hands: “And am I to understand that you accepted it?”
“Your Eminence”—Emiliano San Caballero paused dramatically—“such a gift from a girl of your daughter's pedigree isn't the kind of thing a gentleman refuses!”
“Horseshit!” thundered Cristóbal de los Fuegos, pounding his cantaloupe-sized fist against the witness stand, gavel-like, calling the courtroom to attention. “Your honour, Gabriela gave me her virginity before she ever met that fraud.”
Mayor Quintana shook his head. It was unprecedented for a defendant (much less two of them) to go through such trouble to proclaim his guilt.
Meanwhile, jealousy swept the audience. The evidence seemed to suggest that Gabriela had been blessed with the good fortune of losing her virginity twice.
“And to think,” complained Hermana Rosales, “she got to pass it back and forth between the two handsomest men in Santa Marta!”
“It's a pleasure we will never know,” sighed Hermana Isabela de la Cruz. “Unless,” she pondered philosophically—“unless we were to break our vows.”
Cristóbal de los Fuegos lacked the rhetorical sophistication of his adversary. He claimed to have met Gabriela accidentally, when curiosity drew her to his blacksmith shop. She slipped her head through the door, little-by-little, as if afraid of what she might discover. The defendant recounted in plain language the process of heating iron and beating the raw metal into strips.
Despite the factual nature of his testimony, spectators found it thrillingly ambiguous. As Cristóbal de los Fuegos struck the anvil, sparks began to fly—some took this statement literally, others figuratively, and there was truth in both interpretations. The silver faded bright orange as it cooled and he pounded and pounded it into submission until it blushed brilliant red, until it was no longer clear whether he was describing the metal, or describing Gabriela. He plunged the glowing rod into the bath till it sizzled and squealed and sent a jet of steam skyward—
Everyone agreed it was a powerful testimony—powerful enough to tear a chastity belt in half with brute strength. Women's undergarments moistened; Hermana Rosales ran to the bathroom to attend to consecrated urges. The climax of his testimony occurred in everyone's imagination, where he slipped inside, little-by-little, and Gabriela lay wide-eyed, afraid of what she had discovered …
After hearing both sides, Mayor Quintana had one pressing question. “Gabriela,” he said, addressing his daughter, “would you mind telling me what you were doing after sundown on Midsummer Eve?”
For several tense moments, Gabriela pondered her response. After gathering her thoughts, and choosing her words carefully, she looked her father in the eye: “Yes, your honour, I would mind telling you.”
“Are you sure you weren't, for instance, breaking curfew?”
“In my defence, it was an unusually late sunset,” Gabriela insisted. “It was the summer solstice!”
But further prodding revealed that Gabriela hadn't even seen the sunset. The only thing illuminating her footsteps that night was the blazing forge; the only things covering her nakedness were the hands of Cristóbal de los Fuegos—
Mayor Quintana cleared his throat: “Am I to understand that one thing led to another?”
“Yes, papá, it led to many things!”
“And am I to understand that Cristóbal de los Fuegos is responsible for purloining your chastity?”
“Oh”—Gabriela clasped her temples—“I wish it were that simple!”
Gabriela didn't have to mention the obvious: as everyone could see, Cristóbal de los Fuegos was enormous. If the rest of him were proportional—goodness! Gabriela, a delicate virgin, could only handle so much penetration from a man that size; and Cristóbal proved a surprisingly sensitive lover, handling her with all the subtlety of a silversmith putting the finishing touches on a wedding ring. Gabriela woke up half-satisfied, unsure whether she had been deflowered completely, or whether she still had one or two petals remaining.
The following night, Gabriela made sure to be in bed by sundown. Only it was someone else's bed. On the last night of the Festival of St. John, the fireworks on the waterfront were nothing compared to the fireworks in the master bedroom at the Villa de Palmas, where Gabriela lay breathless, stroking the chest hair of Emiliano San Caballero—
“Darling,” said Mayor Quintana with restrained impatience, “I think you've kept the people of Santa Marta waiting long enough. Can you please clarify which of these two men is your lover?”
“I love them both equally,” said Gabriela dreamily. “And I shared my virginity equally between them.”
This revelation stirred the courtroom into a cocktail of commotion. Confessions weren't supposed to end ambiguously; Hermana Rosales, drunk with anticipation, felt cheated out of the conclusion she'd waited three hours to hear. Cristóbal de los Fuegos protested that he had taken at least two thirds of Gabriela's virginity, and would have taken the rest had he been aware of her plans to run off with someone else. Emiliano San Caballero retorted that if he had got the smaller part of Gabriela's virginity, it was—he boasted—the part that really mattered.
*
The following morning, Cristóbal de los Fuegos awoke with—well, the fact of the matter is that he didn't wake up at all. Doctor Acevedez could confirm a heartbeat, but no other vital signs. Deep gouges along the patient's torso oozed blood-red machismo all across the operating table; black eyes, swollen shut with pride, flushed royal purple and infused his catatonia with rugged dignity.
Later that day, Emiliano San Caballero was whipping his horse along the esplanade as fast as it would gallop when he happened to encounter Mayor Quintana, accompanied by two officers of the law—and a battalion of heavily armed militiamen.
“Señor San Caballero,” the mayor greeted warmly; “what a coincidence passing you here! Please, dismount, and let us have a word together.”
The horse pranced uneasily. “I'm really in a terrible hurry.”
“Yes, I thought you might be,” said the mayor.
“Please,” begged Emiliano San Caballero, suddenly panic-stricken: “please don't kill me. I'll marry her—I'll do whatever you think is best—please understand, it was a crime of passion!”
“No, Señor, what you did was entirely within the law. A crime of passion is what I am about to commit. Let me explain something. As an elected official, my nominal responsibility is to maintain order in a city ravaged by piracy and crime. But,” he chuckled, “no one really expects me to eradicate crime! For the past seventeen years, what I've really been protecting is my daughter's chastity. For failing at this sacred duty, I am the one on trial. The public will never forgive me unless there is retribution.
“Ordinarily,” the mayor continued, “I would simply kill you; but these circumstances are complicated. For having taken seventy percent of my daughter's virginity, I had Cristóbal de los Fuegos beaten within an inch of his life—and considering that he stood six-and-a-half feet all, trust me, it was a very severe beating. If the Lord is merciful, perhaps he will finish killing him the remaining thirty percent. But for you, Señor San Caballero, a subtler punishment.”
The two guards apprehended the horseman, each twisting an arm behind his back, while Mayor Quintana dramatically unbuttoned Emiliano’s trousers. “As you are the one who made my daughter bleed, it seems only fair that you should bleed a little, no? And as you confessed to taking thirty percent of her virginity—'the part that really mattered,' as I believe you put it”—here, the mayor removed a freshly-sharpened dagger from its scabbard and reached inside the trembling prisoner's undergarments—“doesn't it seem fitting to disburden you of 'the part that really matters?'”
(c) Michael Skansgaard, 2016
Michael Skansgaard is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in Literature (poetics). When inspired by a beautiful sunset, or by a bottle of tequila, Michael sometimes puts his academic work aside and writes the silliest story he can think of.
Silas Hawkins is continuing the family voiceover tradition (he is the son of Peter 'Dalek' Hawkins and Rosemary 'Emergency Ward 10' Miller). Favourite voice credits: Summerton Mill, Latin Music USA and podcasts for The Register. For countless voice clips see www.silashawkins.com.
Agents: [email protected] / [email protected]
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