"Hmm. Well, whatever works, I guess. I mean, she'll have an a.s.shole the same as me, so at least your s.e.x life will be varied." He wanted to rile him.

"I would never-"

"Please. You've put your women in a position to not have any say in what they want. I'm sure it will be easy to convince her it's perfectly normal. I mean, you were very eager." Raphe was done with this conversation. "You could always practice on me. I can teach you how to do it nice and slow so she'll enjoy it."

That got him a push on his bed, but before he thought it might get interesting, his door was slammed. It was a shame. Daniel was utterly gorgeous, dark hair and eyes, and so innocent. Raphe could forgive a little kidnapping to have a bit of that. He knew Daniel was delusional, so he didn't hold him accountable. And Raphe wanted to meet whomever Agnesson was. He had a feeling this was quite a bit more sinister than he had originally thought.

Sometimes Raphe would wake up with the light of the hall shining into his room and found himself handcuffed to the bed again. He couldn't see Daniel at first, but he could hear the rhythmic movement of a hand sliding on an eager c.o.c.k. Raphe cursed the handcuffs.

On one of those nights, only one of his hands was out of commission. He had been sleeping on the other. Raphe was really quite a hedonist, and a bit of a brat, so he deftly shimmied out of his underwear, and relished the hitched breath from across the room. He licked his palm and went to work, licking his palm some more to keep all the naughty sounds loud enough for Daniel to hear. He moaned his name on several occasions, but he stayed back.

On one particular instance, Raphe came fairly quickly all over his stomach and before he could exhale, Daniel's tongue was hot on his chest, licking it up.

It was the hottest thing Raphe had ever experienced, but Daniel had left quickly after, though he came into his room several times a week. Raphe was always without handcuffs in the morning, so he figured Daniel would wait until he fell asleep before he let him loose.

"I dream about your fingers sometimes," Raphe told him one night as he languidly stroked himself. Daniel only handcuffed the one arm, even though both had been available. That told Raphe quite a lot about Daniel.

"That's on odd thing to dream about," he whispered.

Raphe couldn't tell if Daniel was touching himself. "I've had your fingers in me. It makes me hard just thinking about it. Did you know I don't get aroused from just fingers? But yours are so long and eager. Did you like doing it?"

No answer. Just silence.

"Could you do it again? Just to help me come. I'll even suck you if you'd like."

A hitched breath.

"You can go grab the cooking oil, and you'll just slide right in. It's amazing."

"It's a sin."

"Is it? It says in your holy book a.s.s-fingering is a sin? Really?"

"Not specifically, no. Just lying with a man as you would a woman is a sin."

Raphe could hear a zip. "Ah. Well, then. Don't 'lie' with me. In fact, I can turn over and you won't touch the bed at all.

He turned over, adjusting his handcuffed wrist, and a few seconds later, his a.s.s was in the air, bare and waiting for Daniel to do something.

He heard footsteps leaving his room, and he was disappointed. He wasn't even sure if he still wanted to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e. But just when he was about to turn back around, Raphe heard those same footsteps return.

He couldn't make out exactly what was happening, but when he heard something heavy being placed on the table beside his bed, he knew what it was, and his erection grew persistent once more. "It's not going to take me long, and I want to come when you do." He didn't care what Daniel had in mind, if anything specific at all. He wanted those fingers, but he hoped it would be rather more than just that. He could hear the sounds of an oil-slick d.i.c.k, and he moaned at the sound. He touched himself just enough to stay hard.

After a few minutes, he could feel a warm palm pulling him apart, and a sticky thumb brushing his entrance. "Mmmm...yes." The thumb was removed and he felt a thick drizzle of something down his crack. He heard Daniel swear, then felt a tongue licking up his crack in thick swipes. Holymotherf.u.c.kings.h.i.t. He moaned and pressed his a.s.s back. "The oil..."

"Honey." Daniel's voice was m.u.f.fled, and he was still trying to prevent any from falling onto the bed or floor.

"In that case, you missed a spot. f.u.c.king f.u.c.k me with your tongue. I'll let you split me open after." Raphe groaned at the a.s.sault. He never would have imagined Daniel had it in him. That wicked tongue breached him quickly, and Raphe had to let go of his d.i.c.k. "Now. Just. f.u.c.k. Please. Please please please do it hard. f.u.c.k. Please." He was about to come on just this. Just with Daniel's inexperienced tongue pushing its way inside him.

Daniel stood and steadied his hips. He was taking far too long. Raphe felt the head of his c.o.c.k b.u.mp against him and he shook his head and pressed back. The head popped through. Finally. "More. Harder," Raphe breathed, and worked himself earnestly. He moved his a.s.s backward at the slow burn until he was stretched completely around him. "f.u.c.k, yes. Come on!"

Daniel made a sound Raphe had never heard before. His entire body was jerking against Raphe, but his c.o.c.k stayed still, yet embedded fully.

Raphe realized Daniel was coming. Thankfully Raphe was close. It wasn't the thorough f.u.c.king he'd wanted, but he was never going to complain about that time when he was kidnapped and the kidnapper decided to eat his a.s.s. Nope. Not going to ever complain.

Raphe fell to his side and slept. He never felt the warmth of the washcloth Daniel used to clean him. Or the way Daniel lay with him after.

Chapter Ten.

And another place.

El Paso hadn't changed much since the secession. A fence was fortified, and the people of Ciudad Juarez laughed. It didn't stop maquiladoras from taking over El Paso, nor businesses acting as agents for placing Mexican help all over Texas.

A good number of politicians wanted to let El Paso go, as it was just so far from the rest of civilized Texas. However, greedy heads prevailed, and convinced those in office the majority of Texas' manufacturing came from there. It was a lie, but not for long.

With business regulations abolished before the ink was even dry on a brand new Texas Const.i.tution, factories were built even before the upgrades on the fence.

The dirty secret of El Paso was when migrant workers came to Texas and they disappeared, there was a lack of recourse. The epidemic feminicidio was still an issue, yet the numbers were useless. Texas simply never paid for the resources to find these women, and the brutalized women that were found, returned to Mexico as ash. If the families were fortunate, those ashes would come with a letter of identification if she had worked for an agency. They required photographs of their employees, so Texans had access to as much applicant information as possible.

Sophia Hildegard's sister, Selene, had worked through an agency. At least, that's what Sophia a.s.sumed as it was the easiest way in. She hadn't heard from Selene in months. Coming to Texas had been adolescent rebellion, and Sophia hadn't fathomed she would ever go to such a despicable place just to punish their father.

Klaus Hildegard was a shrewd business man. When Sophia's mother died nineteen years ago, he moved Sophia and her brothers to Mexico City from Germany.

Her pa.s.sion and livelihood was working in business law for her father. She was well versed in legal matters all over the world, particularly countries Klaus Hildegard needed loopholes in order to legally do business. It wasn't ethical a good deal of the time, taking advantage of countries whose legalese included vagaries allowing him to get very rich, but she made sure it was legal. It led Sophia to live a very comfortable life.

Mexico City was the hub of the Americas since Texas had closed its borders. Businessmen and women who hadn't wanted exclusivity, nor the blatant discrimination, flocked to Mexico. Women professionals weren't excluded at first, but were clearly s.e.xualized and low-balled at every turn, forcing them out.

Mexico became the China for the West, because PR Firms were very good at convincing the people of capitalist societies that worker conditions were better. Productive and efficient.

It was relative, of course. The cost of living in most parts of inland Mexico was just as affordable as impoverished China, and 'affordable' was a superb buzzword to convince the capitalists.

With the construction of modern Mexico, the Capitalist party flourished in The States, and the Liberals had to emphasize their platform in the wake of potential foreign business opportunities. The States almost always edged in favor of Liberal presidents, but those politicians had their own money tied up in foreign businesses.

The States had become stagnant, as their interest in science and manufacturing was all lip service. The economy had small boosts with the pa.s.sages of federal marriage equality, decriminalizing marijuana and prost.i.tution, but these were all short lived because The States had never truly learned to invest in revolutionizing their own infrastructure, or educating their citizens to compete in something besides patriotism. Russia and China had both made it to Mars, and NASA was never properly reestablished once Texas seceded. It could never get the funding.

Klaus Hildegard worked in energy. Wind power was nearly worldwide, but Klaus had patented something smaller, quieter, and more efficient. It made him obscenely rich.

It made him a catch. Sophia and her brothers had a new mommy within the year. A vibrant local woman called Valentina, who cemented her place in their lives by giving Klaus another daughter. Selene. The moon.

Klaus was besotted with Valentina. He was old enough to be her father, but they seemed to be happy enough.

Happy until Valentina ran off with one of Klaus' younger business acquaintances.

Selene spent a good deal of time in her teens being ignored by both her parents. Their father could barely look her, as she looked so like her mother, and Klaus treated her quite different than her siblings.

Everything Selene requested as a teenage girl was largely denied to her. Clothes, music, books, and a little spending money was denied by Klaus. He accused her of trying to manipulate him with her beauty, the way her mother had. Selene wasn't in a position to understand, and Sophia spent many an evening berating their father for being so cruel.

Selene didn't want for anything material, Sophia made sure of that, but the stable affections of a male figure was denied to her.

Selene disappeared shortly after her seventeenth birthday, and Sophia couldn't find her anywhere. Her father hadn't been any help. He figured she was just like her mother, and apparently her own mother felt the same way. Selene didn't have the best reputation from school, but she was gone, so whether she was having s.e.x or not was irrelevant to Sophia.

After a month or two of continued calls and texts to a dead phone, and emails remained unopened, Sophia hoped Selene did run off with a man. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate. She still searched for her, but she'd been looking in all the wrong places.

Six months after her disappearance, Selene called Sophia from a McAllen home with an illegal phone line. She was distressed and had bought some pills at a flea market to force her period to start. Clandistino.

Sophia begged Selene to come home. She could fly to Matamoros and be there within the hour. She could take her to a proper clinic where she wouldn't bleed out on the street.

Selene acquiesced to a week from then. She told Sophia her employer in Agnes Oaks was getting married, and it would be too hard for her to stay. He was the father. His name was James. It was a common, useless name.

But Agnes Oaks was a good lead.

Selene had gone to Texas because she knew her parents would never look for her there. She hadn't the maturity to foresee her sister's distress. To see the dangers of being a young woman in a foreign country where women were property.

It had been four months since Sophia had spoken with her sister. She had flown to Matamoros that next weekend, but her sister had never contacted her again. Sophia still waited. It was when she had convinced herself Selene wasn't in a position to leave. If she had told her James she was with child...

Sophia didn't think it was a happily ever after for her sister. Certainly if it had been, Selene would have called her again.

Sophia would do whatever it took to find her sister, and the only way into Texas as an expatriate was through El Paso.

Texas was a bogeyman to any educated woman of the world, but it was a living breathing monster to its own female citizens. Sophia was sure the reason Selene went this route, instead of just finding a rich boyfriend locally, was to prove what a big girl she was. She didn't want to do what her parents had expected. She was ignorant to the epidemic of women who go missing once they touch Texas soil.

Sophia had to have an effective plan. She had to create a new ident.i.ty. She also needed an address for her new ident.i.ty because she didn't want it traced back to her.

Texas was something only discussed with derision. It was rumored while their refineries were still working well, crude oil was running low. Sophia imagined you couldn't sit on the beach from any point in the state without seeing dozens of oil platforms.

She took leave from work, telling her father she wanted to travel a bit, and see the world without needing to conquer it. He laughed her off easily, quite preoccupied with current ventures, and told her he would contact her if needed.

If he could indeed reach her.

Selene had called her over a land line hundreds of miles from Agnes Oaks, though data was inconclusive. That was troubling to Sophia. Land lines had been something obsolete nearly two-hundred years earlier. When she spoke to an IT professional about the number left on her caller ID, she was told it was a number sequence used by the United States hundreds of years ago. He had told her it was possible it was a mobile number, but even before the secession, cellular phone numbers had evolved with the eradication of land lines, and gained an international identifier before their local area code. Trying to find information on cell towers maintained by Texas Cellular was nearly impossible, but he was under the impression cellular use wasn't widespread, and their Internet was capped by usage and content.

Texas was a veritable black hole. Sophia was a fool to go. It was dangerous. It did not matter she was rich, worldly, and brilliant. She would be nothing. The men were savages and would possibly treat her worse than their own wives.

And if she was honest, she was worried a bit about creature comforts. She imagined they were fine as Selene was a bigger brat than she was about material comforts.

Sophia packed a modest bag and flew to Cuidad Juarez. She kept her phone and charger well hidden. Once she landed, she took a taxi to a local hotel to check in. She'd never been to Juarez, and needed to explore her surroundings. She wanted to see how easy it was to get into El Paso. If she had time, she would check out the property she bought, but it wasn't a priority.

The city was dry and dusty, and surprisingly green. The Rio Grande was neither grand, nor even a proper river. It had been a dry summer, so she tried not to be too critical.

She took a taxi to a park near the border. Men and women were bused into El Paso with a wave of a guard's hand. She wondered if the rest of Texas knew about this. Those same buses drove back into Mexico, taking its occupants back to their loved ones. She couldn't believe it. Anyone could get on those buses.

She would need to board a bus, and maybe she would get lucky. There were a half dozen agencies available, and if she was fortunate, she would get placed right away. Hopefully, she would find something close to Agnes Oaks. She had memorized the cities around the area, looking at digitized street view maps from a couple hundred years ago, so she would choose another city if she was forced to.

As she sat under an umbrella at a taqueria near her hotel, a young boy handed her a bright yellow advertis.e.m.e.nt with bold lettering. She dismissed the ad automatically, but watched the boy. He handed it out to everyone, and there were a few people who sought him out.

She looked down at the ad. Yellow Rose Agency. Live and work in the beauty of Texas. All expenses paid. No experience necessary. Training provided. Grand opening. Tomorrow.

It would be a long line, but Sophia would be patient.

"Most people don't usually care to work so far into Texas," the man, Mr. Perez, told Sophia. She'd waited in line six hours for this. She was about to snap. "There are hundreds of positions in El Paso alone, but those fill up pretty fast.

"I have several family members in the area, and need the work," Sophia said, affecting just a bit of an accent. She'd lived in Mexico long enough. At twenty-four, she could fake several accents. She found it worked in business.

"Oh! That's fortunate. Let's get you situated, then. Do you have any experience with children, or did you just want to keep house? It looks like there is one position open in Agnes Oaks for keeping house, two in Giddings for keeping house and children, let's see...one in Fayettesville, this is for taking care of an elderly couple"

"I'm interested in Agnes Oaks." Sophia had to remember she couldn't be a.s.sertive. She needed to be a little desperate. "If I fit the criteria." She put her head down.

"Let me go back to that one." Mr. Perez took a few backward swipes on his computer screen. "Okay. James Agnesson. Widower. Forty-five. All children grown, but it's a large home on some acreage. He's also looking for a farmhand." He looked at Sophia. "It's a very long drive, and it will be a few days before one of our buses will go out that way.

James. Common. Useless. "That's fine. Does he have any other employees?"

"We don't have that information. Have you heard of him? Could you be related to someone who works for him? That would be rather lucky."

"I'm not sure. He sounds familiar, but I just might want it to." She didn't have enough information. Two-hundred years ago the population of Agnes Oaks was only one-hundred sixteen, so that could slim the chances. "Do you know the current population of Agnes Oaks?"

"I don't, but it should be on the city's info page." A few swipes and a nod. "Less than a hundred. I imagine all the small towns surrounding might form some sort of munic.i.p.ality. Though each village would have its own church for worship."

Sophia had so many questions, but didn't want the man to suspect she was fishing for information. The knowledge of church worship answered a few, though. The churches in Mexico weren't used for worship anymore, but they were used for fellowship. The missions were an important part of Mexican history, and the buildings were restored and revered. Latin Ma.s.s was something everyone should experience in their lives along with the hymns.

It was beautiful, and a fairy tale was nicer than a lie. There were no more wars over religion, unless you changed your definition of worship to not include the divine. Money, power, and land could turn ambitious men into devils, and why create a fake one, when the real ones were living and breathing. "It sounds very good. Very peaceful. I would be pleased with an offer for the position."

Mr. Perez smiled and swiped at the computer. "Fantastic. Full name?"

"Sofia Valentina. S.O.F.I.A. V.A.L.E.N.T.I.N.A." It was a name Selene would recognize if she heard it. "Sophia Hildegard" was easy to search for on the Internet.

"Address?"

"5422 Flores, Ciudad Juarez." Bought at auction for pesos. It was a newer, multi-family development in an older part of town. The owner had foreclosed on all of it, so many were incomplete. The rest were auctioned off.

"And you're in! Let me get a photograph, and a copy of your pa.s.sport, and I have a few papers you'll need to fill out and sign. We should have you on the road once the rest of the seats are taken, and it looks like they are going faster than I thought." Mr. Perez swiped at the screen backward, then forward. "It is likely to be ready to go tomorrow."

Sophia smiled. It was what she wanted, but she was terrified.

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