Two Eyes Cenote [m] barley & salt

this scene had played out once before; soto enduring each hit, biding his time as a sleeping volcano might. 

but now the fissures of pain threaten to crumble his stony resilience. he winces beneath every brutal blow khusobek aims towards him. this is a language soto is fluent in, and a mastery they both share.  

but it is the hefty pull of his hips towards the tormenter’s own that finally elicits emotion. a bloodied and bitter laugh hinging on rueful delight. his body is only a body;  flesh is flesh and meat is meat.

so what if the meat is spoiled? the stock had rotted years before this. 

go on, pulverize it. taste what he’s tasted. feel it shift around in you like oiled stones, this ancient tradition of consumption and ritualistic violence. everything in the world is built on cinderblocks of gristle; the foundation of society is the exploitation of bodies upon bodies; here is a flower to make your tea; here is raw hide to braid your satchel — where do you think our resources come? everything is taken and ground to pulp, to make a form more useful. we rape the earth to reap its resources. do we not think of our bodies as a resource?

do it. he is not afraid, and khusobek would not be doing anything he had not done himself. he thrusts his hip back in answer. 

hazlo. he grits through a torment of teeth.

 do it, so his nerves set on fire and the agony awakens the only part of him still living. the only fragment of his soul remaining that could ever feel an emotion more profound than love. 

do it, so he is made whole again and all the terrible things he’s done are struck from the slate tabulating his inhumanity. 

do it, so he and every part of him may live on in you forever, khusobek.