The Redemption of River

by Eli Easton

  “Or we could stay in.” Brent hesitated, then decided, what the hell. “You said something about, uh, eight-hour sessions?”

  River’s smile faded, and his eyes darkened. “It takes training to do that.”

  “So teach me. I want to learn.” Brent looked around, but they were the only guests in the room, and the woman dismantling the buffet was too far away to hear them. “I guess to go that long you need to do that thing you did… where you don’t, um…”

  “Ejaculate,” River supplied, eyes twinkling.

  “Right. That. Why do you suppress it? I mean, tell me more about the theory there.”

  “Well, when you ejaculate, you expel all your sexual energy in a very concrete way along with your seed. That drains you. When you instead internalize the orgasm, you keep all that energy. It feeds and expands your chakras, energizes instead of depletes. It’s a kind of high. And it has the added benefit, especially for a male, of allowing multiple orgasms. In my experience, the longer the session goes on, the more times you reach that peak, each one just gets better and better.”

  “Until you die from exhaustion,” Brent quipped. “Like in that movie Brainstorm with Natalie Wood.”

  River laughed. “Well, eventually you do get hungry, or tired, or just ready for the intensity to end. It doesn’t usually reach the death-by-sex stage.”

  “Oh. Good.” Brent smiled. “But you don’t find it sort of disappointing? Stopping short like that?”

  “It doesn’t feel like stopping short at all. In fact, once you’re used to it, ejaculation feels… petty by comparison. Like a sneeze—a momentary peak that’s gone too soon. When you internalize the orgasm, it’s much more intense, waves of pleasure flood your entire body for minutes. And you can just keep going and going.”

  Shit, that sounded good. “Will you teach me?”

  * * *

  They sat on the bed nude, legs folded cross-legged, knees touching. River took Brent’s hands and gazed into his eyes. The pose was familiar from their surrogacy sessions. But, of course, they hadn’t been nude then. Brent was very aware of River’s soft, thick cock lying in a nest of blond hair, even if he wasn’t looking at it. He shivered in anticipation.

  “Breath is very important in tantra,” River said. “Loud, deep breathing helps excite and channel your internal energy.”

  “I remember. It puts you in kind of an altered state.”

  River nodded. “And you’re a natural at it.”

  “I am?”

  “Definitely. The breathing is especially important when you redirect an orgasm. When we get there, I’ll guide you.”

  Brent nodded mutely. He felt his penis trail along his thigh as it filled and rose, excited merely at the words, at the idea of it. Tingles ran through his balls, and they hadn’t even started. He took a deep breath.

  “Tantra is about connection. Stay aware of your partner. Don’t go into your own head. Be present in the moment, in your partner’s body and spirit.” River took a deep breath and let it out slowly and loudly.

  Brent mirrored him. Already his head felt a little light.

  River’s eyes were so blue today. The hotel room was on too high of a floor to be seen into from the street, so they had the curtains open. Sunlight flooded the space, casting warmth across Brent’s back. It didn’t feel strange to do this in bright daylight. It felt perfect, as if being with River was all about heat and warmth.

  “Let your thoughts go. Just focus on your breath and on me,” River instructed.

  So Brent tried to stop thinking. It did help to focus on the loud breaths. And on River’s eyes. The intimacy was profound and grew more so as the moments passed.

  Is this why he’d fallen for River? Because he’d stared into those eyes in their surrogacy sessions? How could you see into someone’s soul like this and not love them?

  And yet, River worked with many people like this. How could you form such a strong connection and then move on to the next?

  But he wasn’t supposed to be thinking at all, much less getting anxious. So he just focused on River. River being with him. Just about the time the urge to move, to touch River, was getting unbearable, River leaned forward and kissed him.

  Brent’s eyes slammed shut, and his hands moved to River’s hair. He’d put it up for breakfast, and Brent’s fingers explored his neck, the skin so downy there, a contrast to the coarseness of his hairline at his nape, and the softness of his beard. He breathed out through his nose with a moan as River’s sweet mouth explored his—leisurely, thoroughly. Brent sighed again, wanting nothing so much as to slump down onto his back and pull River on top of him.

  How had he managed, after so many years of his sex life being a wasteland, to find himself in an affair as exciting as this? Life could be good after all.

  There was no hurry to their lovemaking. None in the world. In fact, hours had been mentioned. So he explored kisses with River—deep kisses, his tongue thrusting in River’s mouth, River’s in his, shallow kisses, sucking on River’s lush lower lip, tracing the outline of his mouth with his tongue. Sucking lightly and sweetly while hands explored.

  Brent loved the dip at River’s waist, the silky flesh there, the sweet vulnerability of that yielding place between River’s hard ribs and hips. His fingers rubbed the fuzz of River’s happy trail, dipped into his belly button, and traced up to his heart. He could feel its beat, strong and steady, against the pads of his fingers.

  River explored, too, tracing Brent’s back, arms, and shoulders with a featherlight touch. When he brushed Brent’s neck and ears, an electric zap made him arch his back and moan.

  River guided him down onto his back. He broke the kiss and gazed into Brent’s eyes, starting the tantric breathing as he picked up a bottle from the bedside table. It was massage oil. River squeezed a line of the stuff up Brent’s body from dick to neck. Brent hissed as the colder oil hit his heated skin, and River smiled. He put more oil in his hand, smoothed it over his own chest and stomach, and then over his dick.

  The sight of River’s hand on his own erection sent a wave of urgent lust through Brent, but River didn’t linger. He placed both slick palms on Brent’s chest and rubbed the oil through his chest hair, over his nipples, onto his neck, squeezing gently, and down his belly.

  God. That felt so good. He’d craved River’s hands on him again, like this. River glided his hands onto Brent’s inner thighs and spread oil to his balls and behind them and then coated his dick, using one hand after the other to twist up and around.

  Brent arched his hips and something too akin to a whimper left his throat. He couldn’t help it.

  “Breathe,” River reminded him, as he stretched out and laid his oily body on top of Brent.

  Oh God.

  It was so much more intense than it had been even in their surrogacy sessions—River sliding his slick body up Brent’s, slowly, sensuously, while they both did the tantric breathing and stared into each other’s eyes.

  Brent’s eyes were open this time, for one, the connection between them like a live circuit. And River was naked and hard, for another. This time, River moved all the way up Brent’s body until they were eye to eye. The burning rod of his dick rolled between them, sometimes straight up, sometimes to the side, and sometimes alongside his. Brent felt his own hardness as defined against the plump muscles of River’s pecs and the soft skin of his belly.

  It was the most erotic thing Brent had ever felt in his life. He was wild for it. The skin contact, yes, but especially River’s erection. There was just something about feeling how hard River was for him, imagining how that glide, that friction, felt against River’s dick, that made the pleasure rolling from his own genitals twice as intense.

  And the breathing. And the gazing. He could see the pleasure in River’s eyes. The way they narrowed just a tiny bit when a wave of ecstasy hit, the way they grew heavy-lidded, the gray-blue irises darkening to steel, the God yes in their depth.

  It was intense. Brent trembled beneath Riv
er, every glide of his body edging the sensation in his dick higher, tightened and tightening the spiral. His brain floated with the deep breathing. His fingers tingled as all his blood pooled in his core.

  “Oh my God,” he breathed. “I’m really close. Sorry. It’s just—”

  “Shhh. It feels amazing.”

  River shifted up to sit on his calves between Brent’s thighs. Brent’s dick pulsed in protest at the loss of contact.

  “Want to try internalizing your orgasm?”

  Brent nodded eagerly. Yeah. He wanted to come, but he wanted to try that more. “Not sure if I can hold onto it though.”

  “Don’t worry. Either way, it’s all good.”

  River slid his oil-slick palms up Brent’s erection, first one, then the other, pressing it into his belly. He groaned loudly. He was so far gone now, every touch felt like heaven.

  River kept stroking him like that as he talked, not enough to get him off, just enough to drive him mad. “Okay. So we’re going to take you right to the edge. When you feel like you’re about to come, say stop or just tap my arm. I’ll take my hands away.”

  Oh holy hell.

  “Deep, loud breaths, okay? You’re gonna use those breaths like an engine as you build up to the peak. And then, when I take my hands away, keep breathing through it, deep, as deep as you can. Visualize taking all that pleasure that’s in your genitals at that moment and using your breath to push that sensation up your spine, through the Svadhishthana chakra, the manipura chakra, the anahata chakra—” As River named the chakras, he moved his right hand slowly up Brent’s belly to his chest, as if demonstrating the path. “From your anahata or heart chakra, imagine those waves of pleasure expanding out, flooding through your entire body, through your arms and legs to your fingertips and toes, and up to the top of your head and bursting out, connecting you to the divine energy.”

  He moved his palm up Brent’s neck, lightly over his face, and through his hair to open at the top of his head.

  River’s left hand was still palm-flat against Brent’s erection and it throbbed against that hand, throbbed at River’s words, which were oddly arousing. Brent’s breathing deepened further, and his head swam. He nodded. “I’ll try.”

  “Okay. Here we go.”

  Jesus, it didn’t take long. River played a little, doing that thing where he twisted his hand around Brent’s cock on the upstroke, then followed with a downstroke and twist with his other hand. Brent’s gaze was fixed on the sight of River touching him, and his hips refused to stay on the bed, lifting, begging. His loud breaths were a stream of moans, and everything inside him tightened until River’s hands on him, rubbing him, was all there was in the world.

  River began the up-down stroke, fast but with a light grip, just using the circle of his thumb and finger, right under the head of Brent’s cock. Jesus. An intense white light flashed through him. He was going to come.

  “Stop!”

  Brent thought he was too late, but River’s hands vanished and he hung on the precipice, a stone balanced on a ledge.

  “Breathe, Brent,” River gently reminded him.

  And he remembered what he was supposed to do. He took faster, deeper breaths, almost sobs, and slammed his eyes shut, focused on the intense pleasure in his dick and balls. He imagined moving that up, up his spine, sending that pleasure out into the rest of his body.

  His thighs shook. Even his belly quivered with his breaths as the pleasure expanded and moved, rolling outward in a wave. Maybe he was half-hypnotized by the breathing or River’s power of suggestion, but he felt it. It was like having an orgasm in his heart, sending ripples of sexual pleasure washing through all parts of him until he wanted to cry.

  He basked in the pleasure for as long as he could until it slowly faded. He stopped shaking and lay on the bed, limp. He opened his eyes.

  River was still kneeling between Brent’s legs. He grinned. “Well, how was that?”

  “Fucking incredible.” Brent’s voice sounded like a stranger’s. His ears rang. His fingers tingled. He laughed. “What the hell did you do to me?”

  “You did amazing. It took me weeks to do what you just did.”

  “Really?” Brent sat up on his elbows. Instead of feeling lethargic, like he normally did after an orgasm, he felt tingly with energy, like he’d plugged in to a light socket.

  He felt incandescent. “Wow.”

  “Feel energized?”

  “Hell, yes. It really worked!”

  River chuckled. “Four thousand years of yogis can’t be wrong.” His expression grew serious. “Seriously though. It’s one thing to learn to hold back an orgasm. But the energy you create—the way you connect with me, with yourself, with the universe—without any training. You blow me away, Brent. You’re incredibly intuitive.”

  It was the most sincere, and rewarding, compliment Brent had ever received. He felt his eyes prickle with heat. “Well. You’re a very inspiring teacher.”

  River rubbed a hand up Brent’s arm. “I wonder if that’s because you’re an artist. You’ve been tapping into creative energy, using your imagination to bring your visions into reality, your whole life.”

  Or maybe it’s because I got so close to death, Brent thought. For a while, I felt like I had a foot on the other side.

  But those were dark thoughts, and he didn’t want to have them now. He pushed up to sitting, then got on all fours, eying River hungrily. His dick grew heavy as it swung between his legs. Oh, man. He could really get into this go-for-hours thing.

  “I think it’s your turn to touch the divine,” Brent threatened.

  “Oh, is it?” River smiled and leaned back on his elbows, placing his bobbing cock very much at Brent’s mercy.

  In for a penny…. Brent had always loved oral sex. One of his and Kathy’s favorite positions had been sixty-nine, with Brent on top so that his genitals hung down. It was going to be interesting being on the other end of that. But he found River’s penis fascinating, and he wanted to try it.

  So he lay on his back on the bed and managed, with some pulling and guiding, to let River know what he wanted. River swung over Brent on all fours, knees spread by Brent’s head, and let Brent play. River deepened his breathing as Brent tested his new toy, licking through the nutty taste of the oil to the salty, musky flavor beneath. One nice thing about tantra was that playing and teasing were great. There was no pressure to get your partner off.

  He held the base with one hand so he could trace one throbbing vein and tickle the slit. He suckled the head first, then tried taking more in. The silky skin was velvety against his tongue, and he found he liked having his mouth stuffed full. It was sexy to feel like his lover was filling him up, almost to choking, as if he were helpless. Why that was hot, he didn’t know, but it was. Especially when River shifted a bit, lowered his head, and sucked in Brent’s again-hard erection.

  River licked and teased, worshipping his lingam lazily. Which was good, because with River in his mouth, Brent didn’t think he’d have the control to internalize another orgasm.

  River’s shallow thrusts grew erratic, and his thighs trembled. When he called “Stop!” Brent stilled utterly. He slackened his mouth, but he didn’t pull off. River could easily withdraw if he wanted. But he didn’t. His penis grew even harder and jerked once in Brent’s mouth as River’s loud breathing filled the room. Brent swore he could sense the energy as River internalized his orgasm. He seemed to expand over Brent in every way. Finally he relaxed and withdrew his penis, which had only softened a little.

  Another benefit of tantric sex—no need to swallow come. That was a challenge Brent was just as glad to pass on for now. As for the oral sex itself—it surprisingly didn’t feel strange or even all that different. Of course, the mechanics were different, but it was still a huge turn-on giving someone pleasure, teasing, being sensual, using his mouth. If Brent had any lingering worries about being with a man, they were now put to rest.

  They didn’t make eight hours, but they man
aged five before they got up and went out in search of a meal. Tantric sex was a win, though Brent wasn’t sure he would survive it.

  He had five more days in India to try.

  Part IV: FIGHTING THE TIDE

  “When it hurts, observe. Life is trying to teach you something.” — Buddha

  Chapter 23

  River

  Lily and Beauchamp were ecstatic to see River when he got home from Mumbai on a Friday night. Maddy had only left them two hours before, according to the note on the counter, but the dogs acted as though they’d been alone for days.

  As tired as River was from the long flight, he couldn’t help but be buoyed by the irrepressible canine joy. He got on the floor and gave them kisses and pets as they bounced around in delight. Then he took them out for a short walk along the row of houseboats.

  Returning to Seattle felt like coming home. Any place could feel like home after you’d been there a few weeks, in River’s experience. Home was a state of mind. Still, there was something special about driving toward the downtown skyline in Brent’s car on the way in from SeaTac airport—a sense of security, a sense of rightness, a sense of settling back into his place in the world.

  The long kiss Brent gave River before he exited the car felt right too. It shouldn’t have. When River had left Seattle, Brent was his boss. Now he was his lover. Yet it felt as natural as the water lapping along the sides of the houseboat.

  The doubts showed up the next morning. When River arrived at Brent’s house to work, he felt unusually tense. India had been a step out of time, a retreat from their regular lives. How could they do this now that they were home? Maybe Brent wouldn’t even want to try.

  That thought bummed River out, even though he told himself it was fine. Whatever happened was fine.

  Brent greeted him with a big smile and a long hug, an “I missed you,” and a kiss. It seemed things would only be awkward if River made them so. He chose not to. Since they were working together at Brent’s house, there was no one there to judge. And the step-out-of-time continued. For now.