She’ll snap her gum and shrug.
“I guess it was kind of shaped like an egg plant,” she’ll
murmur into the microphone. Her “damage”
as some might say, will prevent her from inflecting her statement, or even
acknowledging that the fact that she’s seen such a penis is an odd or
offputting event. “It kind of had an
eggplant color anyway.”
She’ll look you in the eye for a moment with the coldness of
a woman twice her age. This young woman,
this girl, really, shouldn’t be capable of such detachment, but her life, parts
of her life you’ve specifically been involved in, will have given her the
temerity she needs to be this cold, this detached, this sure she’s seen it all
because, at the age of seventeen, she can say with reasonable certainty that
she has.
“And what did he pay you to do?”
She’ll pull her gum out of her mouth before speaking clearly
into the microphone, louder now. The
prosecution will have coached her more thoroughly on how to deliver this
information.
“He gave me about five hundred dollars to perform oral and
anal sex on him. No vaginal sex, though.”
The prosecuting attorney will nod pensively before she asks
her follow-up question.
“Did he, at any point, inquire as to your age?”
She’ll nod.
“He asked if I was under eighteen. I told him I was sixteen and he said ‘Perfect.’”
Your attorney will object, as he is meant to, but what the
young woman said will not be disregarded, as it is both relevant and, in the
context of this courtroom, eyewitness testimony. The fact that the underaged girl, whose real
name is not Charlotte, as she told you, but Sarah, a far more ordinary and
intimate name, will be placed in foster care until she turns 18, will lend her
testimony weight: the prosecution will have briefly detailed what she can
expect to experience at a group home for the next nine months, for the benefit of
the jury, to insure that they understand that this young woman had no incentive
to come forward, in fact, quite the contrary.
At some point during cross examination the world will turn
to static in your ears, and you’ll just sit there staring at the young woman as
she expertly deflects your lawyer’s attempts to prod her into a verbal misstep. It won’t be until he asks her why she chose
to come forward that her eyes will perk up and she’ll suddenly, for a
heartbeat, become a real person.
“No one should have to live this way,” she’ll say, voice
cracking into the microphone. “If I didn’t
step up, he’d keep going, and she’d keep helping him do it.” Your lawyer will then remind the jury that “she”
refers to the mistress who operated the under-aged brothel you frequented.
Later, after the jury has been surreptitiously convinced to
disregard wide swaths of Sarah’s testimony and found there to be reasonable
doubt in this matter, you’ll step out into the light of day from the courtroom
for the first time in weeks. As you take
in the air, you’ll wonder, for a moment, if you deserve this decision, if your
philanthropic work permits you this freedom.
For the first time, you won’t be certain, despite the sunlight shining
into your eyes, blinding you with its brilliance.
Congratulations Whoremongering Philanthropist!
