Part 1, Acts of God Summary

El Cobre. December 1990. Electrician Reina Agüero is in the copper-mining town of El Cobre to repair the high-voltage telephone cables knocked out by a recent storm. Reina is a forty-eight year old, five foot eleven beauty with a large flawless mouth. She towers over her fellow male electricians by a good four inches. The most daring of her colleagues call her Compañera Amazona, a nickname she secretly enjoys. Often, for fun, when visiting small towns, Reina will select the smallest, shyest electrician in town to receive her sexual favors.

Reina suffers from insomnia. Not even rigorous lovemaking with Pepín Beltrán, her lover of twenty-four years, can exhaust her enough to sleep. Pepín blames her inability to sleep on the three thousand volumes of books she keeps in her apartment. He begs her...