Disclaimer — Mi pecado is the intellectual property of Televisa and Juan Osorio. The story and chapter titles of this fic are inspired by "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. I make no claim to ownership of the series or the poem, and I make no monetary profit from the publication of this story.
It starts like this: Justina has to pay the rent.
After leaving San Pedro by herself, without Luciano or Rodolfo or any other man for the first time in her post-pubescent life, Justina moves to another town in Chiapas that's far enough away from her former home that no one will come looking for her. She takes a job working as a maid in a run-down motel, finding that after spending two decades caring for her family and her home she is now qualified to do little else. She finds a rundown but cheap apartment on the other side of town, and after pawning a few pieces of jewelry for essential furniture, Justina settles uneasily into her new life.
However, she hasn't even had time to find a new boyfriend before her careful plans are ruined. The cost of gasoline skyrockets, causing food prices and bus fares to rise, and between the minimum wage that she makes at the motel and the last of the good jewelry that she bought with Gabino's money, there's not enough to pay the rent and barely enough for two meals per day.
This is when her landlord steps in. Federico eyes the plunging neckline of her dress with appreciation and offers her a deal: sex for a home.
It's not a deal that Justina hasn't tried to make before.
Justina finds out too late that her landlord is also a pimp.
There's a different man — men — every night. After a week, Justina loses track of how many there have been. She clings to them as they fuck her body, grunting and moaning above her. She breaks all the rules, kisses them frantically and whispers hushed pleas against their skin. Look at me. Want me. Love me.
She tries not to think about that last time with Rodolfo and the way that he'd held her so close, or the way that her name had rolled off his tongue like a prayer. She doesn't think about how Rodolfo had pushed into her so slowly and gently, as if he had been savoring the moment, or as if he'd remembered the violence perpetrated against her and was taking care to ensure that she wasn't hurt again. She moans loudly so that she can't think about the way he'd looked so deeply into her eyes, causing her to panic because she'd let him see too much, because she had given away her advantage and was now left at his mercy.
When Justina wakes the next morning, she is alone. A handful of pesos lie haphazardly on her bedside table.
Justina knows now how much she's worth.
Days pass into weeks into months. The men all fade into one long, unremarkable blur. Justina grows numb, detached to everything.
This all changes one night when, at Federico's insistence, she reluctantly agrees to accept a man whose lecherous smile ties Justina's insides into knots. She has already welcomed him into her home and locked the door when he declares that he will not be wearing a condom tonight.
Justina politely contradicts him. She begins reciting the health risks, her voice growing higher and more desperate as she lists every STI she knows. She's on gonorrhea when he grows tired of her talking and wraps both of his hands around her neck. Several breathless seconds later, he gets his way.
Minutes pass into hours into days. Fatigue and nausea grip her aching body, but even if she could afford a trip to the hospital, Justina would not take it. She is too terrified to hear those words, to have it confirmed that this is how she will end: beaten and alone.
Then her period doesn't appear, and Justina knows that the problem is far worse than she ever dared to imagine.
She cannot keep it.
Ignoring the fact that she is forty-four years old, that she is about to become a grandmother, that it's a miracle that her boys are as well-adjusted as they are after all of the shit that she put her family through, she is also quite literally poor. Her hours at the motel keep getting slashed, and Federico keeps a large chunk of what she earns each night. She hasn't bought new clothes in months and has cut back to a single pack of cigarettes per week; there's just not much more excess spending that she can eliminate, and she knows that the situation will only grow more dire when she starts to show and the men stop coming by. There's just no money for a baby, no matter how Justina works the figures in her head.
So during one of the precious periods of time that she has free, Justina gets on the bus (she'll have to skip breakfast tomorrow, but it's okay, she'll make it work) and heads to the public library. While fighting the urge to get sick, she scours the Internet for information, for figures and estimates. When she finally finds the number that she's looking for, her eyes widen; she quickly estimates the cost of a round trip ticket to Mexico City and rapidly comes to a terrible realization.
She can't afford to get rid of it.
She begins to show sooner than expected. None of the nameless men that surround her constantly notice; none of them really ever look at her. Justina, however, notices the gentle protrusion of her lower abdomen and feels panic coils itself tightly around her lungs. She's got a jar of savings hidden away under her bed — she sold a few dresses and several pairs of shoes, and she only eats the smallest piece of fruit for breakfast — but it's still nowhere near enough, and she's only got three or four weeks left, by her estimates.
Justina wishes more than anything that Renata were still alive and here with her now, because her mind is a tangled jumble and she just really needs someone with whom she can talk, someone who will listen and wipe away her tears. She's rarely by herself anymore, but Justina is always alone, and in her lowest moments she sometimes thinks that she will die of this loneliness.
While she's scrubbing her skin in the shower, careful not to let her hands linger on her stomach any longer than necessary, Justina's thoughts wander to memories of when she was pregnant with Juliαn, and how Rodolfo would lie with his cheek against her belly for hours on end and just feel the baby kick. Everything seemed so much simpler then; she remembers thinking that, even though Rodolfo wasn't her first choice for a husband, maybe things would work out between them, that maybe they could be happy together. She can't remember how long her optimism lasted, but she's sure that it disappeared not long after Juliαn was born.
Her hand unconsciously falling to her stomach, Justina wishes with all of her heart that she could go back in time, that she could wake up and find herself home again; she would take nothing for granted now. She'd happily accept being the schoolteacher's wife, and she'd shower her husband and sons with love and adoration. She's just so lonely, and she just wants someone to love, someone to need her, even...
She cannot keep it.
With time running out, Justina finds herself kneeling at Federico's feet, her hand trailing up his inner thigh. "I promise, I'll pay you back as soon as I can," she coos, forcing a helpless, desperate expression onto her face. She does not have to try hard. Making her voice sound so breathless and sexy, on the other hand, once seemed easier. "Just one thousand pesos, mi amor, please."
Federico strokes the top of her head as if she were a faithful pet curled up at his feet, then flashes her a kind smile that's lacking in something. "Don't you worry, nena," he says, and Justina exhales for what feels like the first time in weeks. "I'll take care of everything."
Two nights later, Justina stands outside her apartment door, fumbling with her keys in the twilight. It takes four attempts, but she finally gets the key in the lock and lets herself into her tiny, dingy apartment. The air inside is stale, making her gag, and the light from her only lamp is dim and ineffectual. She can feel the bassline from her downstairs neighbor's stereo pounding beneath her feet.
She is in the process of turning to close and bolt the door when something heavy and blunt slams into the side of her head, knocking her to the ground and leaving her in a daze. Her vision swims as she looks up, searching for her attacker, but all that she sees is a dark blur before something slams into her stomach once, twice, three times. All of the air is knocked out of her lungs and she can't breathe, and it hurts so badly that even if she could speak she can't remember any words; they've all left her brain. She can taste blood, bitter and tangy, filling her mouth, and the blows keep coming and coming until everything goes dark and she mercifully falls away from everything.
When she comes back to herself, it is the middle of the night. The first thing that she notices is shattered glass scattered across the floor next to her — the remnants of her jar of savings, she realizes after a moment. The second thing that Justina notices is that she is in unending, agonizing pain; her head throbs and her ribs and pelvis ache as if they have been cracked into hundreds of pieces. She shifts her legs, trying to see if she can get up off the floor, and becomes aware of something warm and sticky coating her thighs.
With a start, Justina understands, and before she can stop herself a sob bubbles up in her throat. She shouldn't cry, she knows, because she could never have kept it, because something so beautiful could never have bloomed from her body.
Justina cries anyway.
There is too much pain for her to sleep; she remains lying on the floor for hours until the dawn's first rays peek through her window. Once she can no longer deny that morning has come, Justina slowly eases herself to her feet, gasping and crying out as her limbs scream in protest. She would love nothing more than to lie in her bed for the rest of eternity and wait for sleep to claim her, but that is no longer an option: all of her money is gone, and Justina knows that missing work at the motel will ensure that she is out of a job.
After finally managing to stand more or less upright, Justina hobbles into her cramped bathroom and surveys the damage. Although her head throbs, her face is relatively untouched, minus a few shallow scratches from when she fell. Her torso, however, is like a collage of colors: black, blue, purple, red, yellow, and green all swirl together on her flesh. Further below, her legs are drenched in blood that still flows heavily.
Justina pauses to wipe away her tears with the back of her hand before beginning to clean her body and mask the visible wounds. She will not be broken by this. She will not let anyone see her cry. She will move on, and she will get out of this. Sorrow and pain are replaced by anger; Justina will go to work at the motel to bide her time until she finds a man to whisk her away from this hellhole, and she will show the world that it has not destroyed her. She will show the world that she is more than the cualquiera it has always declared her to be.
These optimistic plans fall apart within hours. Justina tries to work through the pain, to scrub and sweep despite the unbelievable anguish that simple breathing causes, but her torment builds and builds until her head swims and she suddenly finds herself lying prone on a bed with a kindly older woman in scrubs peering down at her.
"Do you remember what happened?" the nurse asks, placing a hand on Justina's feverish forehead. When her patient does not respond, she supplies, "You fainted while changing the sheets at the motel. I'm so sorry, but you're having a miscarriage."
Hearing the word voiced aloud for the first time sends a surge of grief through Justina's chest, and tears well up in her eyes as she thinks of all that she has lost over these past few months. The nurse looks at Justina with sympathy. "Is there someone that we can call for you, dear? Someone you'd like to be with you during this difficult time?"
Everything in Justina's body freezes at this thought. She imagines the judgment and revulsion in Josuι's eyes at the sight of her like this, upon learning that his mother is now nothing but a common whore; she envisions the horror on Juliαn's face when he realizes how close she had come to bearing another bastard child; she pictures the relief on Rodolfo's features as he thinks about how lucky he is to be free of her.
At the first opportunity that she has, Justina rips the IV out of her hand and runs.
She has to get out of this town. This is the sole thought that possesses Justina's mind as she flies into her apartment and begins tearing through her closet, throwing what clothing she can into her small duffel bag. Her job at the motel is surely lost now, and she is so tired of this sham of a life that she leads while trapped under Federico's thumb. This town holds nothing for her now.
What Justina tries desperately not to think about is the nurse at the hospital. She has Justina's full name, and hospital staff have ways of tracking down next of kin. If the nurse found a way to contact San Pedro, Juliαn will waste no time coming for her, and he cannot see her like this...
It takes Justina under two minutes to pack, and she is halfway out the door, halfway to freedom, when Federico and his unnerving smile appear before her. "You're leaving?" he asks, his tone almost amused, as he takes in the bag clasped tightly in her hand.
She takes a deep, steadying breath. "I'm sorry, Federico, but I can't stay here anymore. I'm leaving the furniture, so you can increase the next tenant's rent, but I just need to go—"
He laughs, making Justina stop abruptly. "Ay, Justinita, you can't leave just yet. I've done you a favor, after all. You owe me a debt."
Her worst suspicions confirmed, Justina's temper flares, temporarily making her forget how much her body aches. "Having someone beat me halfway to death is a favor? Fuck you, you bast—"
Without warning, Federico curls his fingers into Justina's hair and slams her head back into her door. Pain explodes in the back of her skull as bright colors dance across her vision. "I don't think you understand me, niρa," Federico growls, and even through the haze of pain Justina can see that his face looks almost inhuman in this moment. "You owe me a debt."
With a start, Justina realizes that these past months have not been hell; she has merely been camping outside of hell's gates.