Two Eyes Cenote oscura

it does not take special cunning to read the room.

soto sets back on his heels and watches his summer dove flutter away.

now it is just the pigeon posing as a harrier remaining — the fox-faced girl far less pleasing to soto’s eye. 

he waits until safiya is out of eyesight. once she rounds the corner, soto bursts towards tiye in carrion-bird bounds, an expression of malevolent delight wrinkling his features. a volley of obscene kisses flutter in the air between them, the puckering sounds laced with machismo poison. he sizes her up hungrily as if he might pull her peering face right through the cell doors. 

khusobek’s grim shadow crosses the door. soto leaps back, the malevolence of his expression melting away to something nondescript.

he stands as the father’s voice rings down the hall, waiting for it to just be the two of them.