Page 6 of The Moral Dilemma

“A woman?” Charles repeated, his brows bunching together as he mulled over his words. “Must have been Lucero. You’ll see her around here. A kinder woman I’ve never met.” He shook his head. “She sometimes helps us with food or medicine, or whatever she can smuggle. Everyone loves her,” he said with a smile.

Rafaelo’s brows went up in surprise.

“Lucero,” he repeated her name.

“Now don’t you get any ideas, young man.” Charles took on a fatherly tone, but Rafaelo doubted he was more than forty years old—though his worn out appearance gave that impression. “There’s an unspoken rule at the hacienda. All the women belong to el señor. It doesn’t matter if she’s a slave like us, or a servant. All of them belong to him.”

“What do you mean by belong?” Rafaelo asked, dread accumulating in the pit of his stomach as he understood the meaning far too well.

“It’s exactly what you’re thinking. Word is that he has an entire harem that he uses every night. He’s older than me, too. I don’t know how anyone could keep up with that,” he laughed.

Rafaelo’s lips curled around the corners, but not in amusement, in derision. He turned to look again at the place the woman had vacated, and though he wasn’t faring much better either, he couldn’t help but feel pity for her and her situation.

He’d been there. He’d experienced that. Despite doing his best to push everything to the back of his mind, the truth was that he remembered enough to drive anyone insane.

Armand had been a very particular man, with a very particular routine. He’d always denied being attracted to men, but that hadn’t stopped him from using Rafaelo as his whore. Ah, but of course, he’d always denied Rafaelo’s maleness, as if that made the entire situation better. By dressing him up in women’s clothes and hiding his genitals, he thought he could pretend he was fucking a woman instead of a man—all the while imagining it was his wife.

Though Rafaelo recognized how fucked up his experience with Armand had been, and that he’d had no fault at all in the entire debacle—he’d been too drugged out ninety percent of time to be able to even function as a human being—he couldn’t help but feel the weight of the memories hedidhave.

Armand had done his best to hide his masculinity, and he had no doubt that if he had not died when he had, he would have eventually decided to castrate Rafaelo. He would have never put such a thought besides Armand, not when he was too fanatic about the fact that hewasn’tfucking a man—he was fucking a woman. And so it wasn’t only the violation of his body that stayed with him, but also the violation of his identity and who he was at the core of his being.

Now, even dressed in those tattered clothes, his body aching from all the work, he couldn’t help but feel as though a big weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

He was still a slave, yes. But he felt more like himself than he had in forever.

He was…him. Rafaelo. He just needed a little more time to get used to it.

The lunch break was soon over and work resumed. They spent time toiling inside the temple until the sun went down. Only then were they allowed to eat dinner and retire for the evening.

Rafaelo was surprised to see what his sleeping arrangements were.

A trailer fully packed with eight bunk beds, he was led to the last available one.

Everyone was too tired to make any small talk, so he followed their lead and settled in his bed, ready to go to sleep. It wasn’t too hard a feat to do since his lids became heavy, his body aching all over.

Yet despite the discomfort he felt in his bones, his mind was at peace.

The following day, Rafaelo was woken up just as the sun rose into the sky. Everyone took their place in the line as they headed to the showers before grabbing their tools and walking back to the temple.

It was going to be the same routine day after day, wasn’t it?

Yet, just as Rafaelo grabbed a hammer, he was stopped by a guard.

“Tu. Te vas conmigo.”

He frowned, but he didn’t reply. The fact that he knew Spanish could prove to be an advantage later on, which meant he shouldn’t make his captors aware of it.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t confused about what was happening though.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked in English, although he was aware that the likelihood of getting an answer was low.

They walked for more than ten minutes before they reached one of the most ostentatious houses Rafaelo had ever seen. It almost looked like a Renaissance Italian palace by the way it was constructed, the entire building large and majestic.

His eyes widened in awe as he was led to the kitchens, where someone finally explained to him in English that he was to work for a banquet the master was holding that day. His task was to serve the food to the guests and blend into the background.

Easy enough, Rafaelo thought to himself. Certainly, it was better than breaking his back working in the pyramid.

His arms were piled with food and he was sent on his way to the main room.

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