During the building of the first modern highway through Southern Mexico--the Trans-America Highway--girls from villages along the way were not uncommonly purchased by the highway crew managers as rewards for the workers. These girls frequently did not survive their encounters with the rough crews, and a legend grew up that they were being sacrificed to the roadbuilding machinery. If this all sounds odd for the Twentieth Century, it should be noted that this was taking place in an area where farmers were commonly required to put up their daughters as collateral for loans.
Marina, still naked, sat on the side of the bed; her dark skin glowed redly in the early morning light. "Come on, now," the foreman told her. "It's time to go."
She looked up, her face utterly innocent, utterly guileless. "Go?" she echoed. "But where, where am I to go? None of the girls who come here ever come home..."
The foreman grunted. "Yeah, I know," he said. "Look, hey, it ain't my idea, all right? But we can't let any of you go home. If we did, you'd tell everybody what this is all about!"
"Then I am to stay? I am to continue to pleasure the workers?"
"No. Can't." He ran a hand through his thinning hair. "First off, you're a real looker; all these men, they'd be fighting over you. Second, we can't watch you every minute, we can't keep you in some cage." He glanced at her face. "You know you're gonna run off. Soon as you get a chance."
"So, then." Her gaze was direct; her expression hadn't changed. "I am not to go and I am not to stay. What will you do with me?"
He refused to meet her eyes. "What we do with 'em all, the morning after. Like Scheherazade. Take you up in the woods and, well, make sure you aren't going to do any talking."
She pursed her lips slightly. "So. I am to be put to death, then."
"Well--yeah. That's what it means, all right."
She nodded. "I understand," she said softly.
He sighed. "C'mon, now. No need to get dressed, you won't need any clothes where you're going." Incongruously, he offered her his hand.
She nodded again; with only a slight hesitation, she took his hand, she rose from the bed. She didn't protest or struggle as he led her out of the cabin, through the empty streets of the worker's village, and out into the nearby woods. In a partial clearing some two hundred yards from the village, he stopped. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and innocent; he drew a large thick knife from a scabbard at his waist.
"All right now," he said, still holding her hand. "Just kneel down here, face away from me. I'll make this as easy on you as I can--"
"No," she said, tugging at his hand as if to break free. "No, I--"
Holding onto her tightly, he gave her an exasperated look. "Honey, I hafta do this. It ain't that I wanna, it's just what I got to do, and that's all!"
"I know." She stopped her tugging and smiled charmingly. "No, Senor, I am not going to fight you, and I am not going to run away." She shook her head. "All of us must die," she went on, "that today is my day to die does not concern me. I care only about the manner of my death, Senor." She pointed toward a huge tree nearby. "Over there," she begged. "Please?"
He sighed. "Sure, why not?" Now he allowed her to lead him; when she reached the tree she stretched herself out on one of the tree's giant roots, one small foot on the ground, one knee propped up. He let go of her hand; she raised her hands above her head, pressing both palms against the bark, and looked up at the sky.
Smiling, she sighed deeply, then looked over at him. "Senor," she said quietly, "you do not need to make my death quick or easy for me. I want to feel myself dying. Before I am dead I want to feel my blood running out, I want to hear it drip on the ground. This I ask of you, and only this."
"Well shit, if that's what you want--"
"It is," she murmured. She stretched her body, sighed again and closed her eyes. "I am yours, Senor," she said quietly, "do with me as you wish."
He stood close by her right side and chewed his lip for a moment. Gently, he laid one hand on her right breast and, with the other, aimed the knife at a spot under her breast, holding the point less than an inch from her skin. Just as she had, he sighed; then, with a sudden movement, he drove the blade in.
Her eyes popped open and her lips parted; her body, but she did not cry out. Only a trace of blood appeared around the blade, which was half-buried in her chest. The foreman paused for just a moment, then leaned down on it. She stiffened; with a loud tearing sound, the hard steel sank right on into her. Holding her breast tightly he pulled it down a few inches, using a sawing motion, opening an incision five inches long. Blood erupted, pouring out, spilling down her side and dripping from the root.
"It's dripping," he told her as he withdrew the blade. "It's dripping on the ground. Can you hear it?"
She looked up at him again, then down at the tear in her side. "Yes," she answered. She smiled a little. "Thank you, Senor." She then closed her eyes and relaxed; her breathing remained regular, even though blood kept running out of her chest alarmingly.
He watched her for several minutes. "Why'd you want it like this?" he asked.
She opened her eyes. "It is what is right for me," she answered. "This way, I know my life is not a waste, that my blood will nourish the land."
He grunted. "Your blood woulda spilled on the ground if I'd cut your throat, too."
"Yes," she answered. "But I would not have felt the pain. It is right that I should feel the pain, that I should feel myself dying."
Again, he was silent for a few seconds; he then touched her breast gently, a little above the wound. "You want me to do you again? Might make this a little quicker for you--"
Her eyelids fluttered open. "I don't mind, Senor," she told him, her eyes wide. "I don't mind waiting, I don't mind dying slowly." She studied his eyes for a moment, then gave him a little smile. "But, if you want to--"
"Yeah," he muttered. "I want to."
She closed her eyes again. "Very well. Do it, then. Do whatever you wish with me, Senor. I am yours."
Moving close to her, he pressed the tip of the knife against her flat brown stomach, two inches above her navel. She looked down at it but she said nothing, she didn't move, and after a brief hesitation he suddenly pushed hard on it. Over half the blade's length slipped into her, her skin parting cleanly to admit it. New blood welled up, her body went rigid again, she started trembling; he shoved again, driving the remainder of the blade into her belly. While she clutched at the trunk above her head with her fingertips he drew it back out, pulling it down slightly as it came. Blood gushed from the wound and appeared between her legs as well, trickling down the root.
Raising her head, she examined the wound, watched the gushing blood. "You should go home now, Senor," she said softly, "There is no need for you to stay here any longer..."
He touched her face. "No. You're a brave one; I'll stay here with you 'till it's over."
She smiled wanly; after just a few minutes her body shuddered violently and she slowly rolled off the root, collapsing on the blood-soaked ground. She made a few spastic movements with her hands and feet before becoming still.
"Hell of a job," the foreman grunted. Then he turned and started walking back toward the camp.