“Lexi! What are you doing up there? Get down here, right now!”
“Just a minute!” I shouted back at Tavo, not bothering to look back because I was in the middle of taking a long exposure shot of the bell with the town behind.
“You’re not allowed in the bell tower! How did you get in there anyway?”
“The door was unlocked!”
I heard him grumble something as I checked out my shot, wanting to move the angle just slightly…
“I said get down here, now! Don’t make me come up there and get you.”
“I got it from Greta’s bag. She’ll never notice it's missing, she had like forty in there.”
“Noelia!! No! We can’t.” Caro spoke in a hushed tone even though everyone was far enough away they wouldn’t hear us anyway.
“Ceci, don’t go off too far,” Noelia said, to which Ceci waved her off.
“Did you get a lighter?” I asked.
Noelia grinned, digging into her other pocket. “Of course I did.”
“Lexi, stop being a bad influence. Noelia, we can’t. Ramon would kill us! And Mateo! We’d be toast.”
“Dude, Caro, you actually need the weed, because what the fuck. Chill out.”
“I’m ready to take my camera to the wilderness. Monte Seco looks pretty close on the map. Maybe I’ll go today… clear night, new moon…”
“No.”
I glanced over at Mateo, not having realized he was even listening to my conversation as he scrambled eggs over the stove.
Noelia rolled her eyes. “He’s so over-protective sometimes.”
“I noticed,” I said, breaking off a piece of bread and popping it in my mouth. “How far is it anyway?”
“By car? Maybe an hour and a half, depending on road conditions. Probably muddy, right Mat?”
He brought the skillet over, scraping eggs onto each of our plates. “Not tonight, Lexi. I’ll take you another weekend. No buses stop near there, especially this time of year.”
I let out a whine. “Ugh but I haven’t been able to go anywhere at allllllll. I’m getting so bored.”
“Imagine living here 19 years,” Noelia said with an eyeroll.
Mateo eyed his little sister. “If you’re so bored, you can organize the shop like I’ve asked you to a hundred times.”
“Booooooorrrrrrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnnnggggggg!”
The two of them playfully bickered for a while as I stuffed my face quickly, wondering whose car I could borrow to go to the national park. I didn’t know many people, and the ones I did know were too associated with Mateo to ask for this particular favor.
this wasn't meant to be a story... it was just going to be the timeline before the story. but... it's kind of a mixture of both 🤷♀️
I found out about San Pancracio on an obscure spanking website, with clips from a movie and a short blurb about it being one of the few places that uses corporal punishment on adults. My imagination went wild – what it would be like to live in a place like this. I instantly scoured the internet for more information, digging around until I found the entire documentary on a pirate website. Yes, I infected my school laptop with viruses just for the sake of spanking. What would they do, spank me? As if they’d even notice.
The documentary was from the early-90s, hazy quality and badly translated Spanish. An hour and a half of some white girl claiming abuse and sexism. Clearly editing her footage to support the narrative that this traditional culture should be abolished.
I wanted to know more, but there was just nothing online about it. From the documentary, I gathered that adults engage in this process and the council of elders decides whether someone should get punished. Anyone who breaks a law could get strapped in a semi-public way. For minor offenses, it’s common for the head of household to administer the spanking.
Seriously, I couldn’t have dreamt up a fictional town this good!
