Wet Currents

This was something I had no experience with; always finding myself unable to summon the mental shift necessary to do what I considered so utterly disrespectful to a woman. How could anyone enjoy such a thing? It just seemed downright abusive. I began to worry that Brad was taking things too far, and considered in somewhat of a panic what I should do...how could I intervene?

It turns out it was unnecessary though as after another muffled gag and a slurp, you took a deep inhalation and with that breath uttered a quick "yes - more". Brad must have grabbed you by the hair and pushed your lips all the way to the hilt with both hands because everything went silent except for a long protracted moan from Brad.

I was still stinging from the events of 10 minutes ago, and my head was awash with unbelievable jealousy, but I was also rock hard myself at this point and one hundred percent tuned in to the sounds coming from the tent. As I cracked some eggs into a pan, I wondered if Brad had cum down your throat during that last salvo of moans. Evidently not, as I then heard the sleeping bags rustle as positions were changed and I saw a foot which I assumed to be yours press upward against the nylon tent wall. I heard you say, "go slow", and could easily imagine that he was holding both your ankles spread apart, while he tried to work his oversized penis into you. A few seconds passed, followed by a sharp intake of breath from you followed by a protracted feminine moan as he slid deeper in. Evidently, he had a lot to work with as I heard you quickly exclaim "oh my god!"

I heard you both whisper something and share a quiet laugh just before the slapping started. With each slap came a cry from you, each loader and more insistent than the one before it. You orgasmed with a shuddering moan that reminded me of those first nights we spent together. It was the halting, pitch shifting moan of someone completely given over to their urges and fate.

Hearing you thus, in those throes of bliss, as another man brought you to orgasm via penetration alone, my jealousy and arousal surged through the roof. My own underwear was getting wet, and I feared the evidence might be starting to show. I had to find ways of moving about that hid my erection from Mike, who had taken to reading a book at the far edge of the camp.

I was considering going to get changed, when the slapping, which had only diminished slightly post-orgasm picked up the pace once more. Presumably, you had changed position and Brad was continuing to have his way with you. My suspicions were confirmed when a gust of wind blew a window flap aside. It only lasted a second, but the memory of what I saw will forever be etched in my mind. The first time I saw you having sex with someone else. It was one of those solitary experiences in life that is impossible to duplicate. Saying you were having sex would be like referring to a typhoon as a light drizzle, or the Himalayas a minor obstacle. In actuality you were being utterly pounded by a physical specimen the likes of which would have been at home adorning the steps of the acropolis in ancient Greece. Though not made of marble the man appeared hewn from living rock - with pectorals like grapefruits and an 8-pack of abs above hips and a penis that plunged harder and deeper than a pile driver.

I only caught about four strokes but the impression on your face said it all. You were no longer part of this world - dissociated from everything but the sensation of being drilled from behind and utterly filled with each slamming thrust. You were on your hands and knees with an arched back, head down, and your butt in the air. Brad had one powerful forearm wrapped under your belly and he used it to pull you up and back onto him. He held himself on both feet, hunched over behind you, and had one hand pinning your head into the mat. His own back and head pressed up into the tent ceiling causing it to bulge and shake like a bag of cats. Every time he smashed into you from behind, a reverberation would ripple down and back up your body. You were letting out little yelps of mixed shock and pleasure in time with the slapping.

While I had seen Brad naked before (you sitting in his lap would also prove an unshakable image), something about the act of him physically dominating you in this way, made me realize just how strong he must be. You appeared to be loving it, and as the tent flap fell back into place, the last thing I saw was a tremor seize your entire body. As he lifted your hips into his, your knees left the ground and you squeaked, stifling another orgasm while spasming out of control. It looked almost too intense, but you were pinned and despite your shaking and quivering, were unable to break free of either his grasp, or his cock planted deep within you. Seconds later I heard a deep moan from Brad and I knew instinctively that he hadn't pulled out, but was instead pressing you down and filling you up.

Part 10

Occasionally throughout life, I have noticed that events with certain levels of trauma and novelty act as memory markers; or nuclei to which proximally precedent and antecedent events are remembered more poignantly than they otherwise would be. Making breakfast mere metres away from my life partner having some of the best sex in her life ought to qualify as just such a marker.

However, I do not remember much of the events of the following few hours. It is as if a great dark cloud occludes the images and feelings. Perhaps the levels of jealousy reached that morning proved to be overly traumatizing and the brain deliberately avoids those memories for its own protection? I don't remember how the breakfast got finished, how the camp got packed up, or any of the conversation. Whether by grace or by curse such moments I can recall include some pretty gnarly snippets.

I remember it felt like ages before Sarah and Brad finally emerged for their breakfast. I would later discover from Mike that it was only about five minutes. Sarah's hair was all disheveled, her face was flushed, and her eyes appeared half closed, in a very relaxed state.

I remember feeling somewhat nauseous eating my own breakfast. It was surreal sitting across from them.

Watching Sarah receive a deep kiss and a butt grab from Brad before parting ways.

With breakfast served and the camp packed up, I remember Sarah's loose-fitting shorts. Climbing into the canoe I notice a dark wet patch is soaking her crotch and something dripping down her thigh.

I remember taking those first few paddle strokes with the woman I love sitting so beautifully in the bow, and wanting to reconnect with my partner. I wanted to let her know how I felt, and then feel that loving reassurance wash over me. But I worried that I wouldn't do it right somehow. I didn't want to make her feel shame, but also didn't want to go too far the other way and seem over-appreciative for the experience. I was also afraid that talking about it might ruin the experience for her, by applying undue pressure to cater to my neediness. So we didn't. Not for hours.

Part 11

Sarah and I have always had our struggles. Our relationship began as so many others of our generation - sex based.

Before I met her, I was recently out of a 5-year relationship in which my previous partner had allowed me the freedom to be myself. Unfortunately, this meant those negative aspects as well. I smoked, I drank far too much, and I rarely exercised. I grew lethargic and life seemed good. We loved each other deeply but there were cracks. I craved sexual novelty and allowed my kinks to get the better of me. I pushed them relentlessly on her and she did her best to accommodate them. It was selfish of me, and ultimately it led to my downfall. She got sick of dominating a useless man and left me for a man I encouraged her to cuckold me with. I had been laid off from work around the same time and my sense of self-worth was at rock bottom. Despite the opposite being true, the options seemed limited: suicide, or wander the world in a daze to see what else was out there. I felt like a complete failure with nothing left.

I spent some time escaping in a frontier town and met someone new. She was nice to me and made me feel good. She did not think I would be sticking around long and since neither of us had much to lose, we had sex and it was good. So, we had it again. It sounds pathetic, but I was feeling so bad; and during those moments with her I felt almost normal again. Like somebody had thrown me a life-raft of sorts. It was classic rebound sex, which I found out was near-enough the case for her too. It was just enough. I moved there with some slim hopes of pursuing a relationship. A paltry basis for doing so, but desperate to get my life back on track, it seemed like the thing to do.

To be fair, this beautiful new woman had qualities that I desired beyond what she provided me sexually. She could carry a tune and a conversation if you found her in the mood and if her confidence allowed. She was reachable with little effort through reason and rational thought. She had a broad set of skills, including the ability to MacGyver solutions to technical problems that proved both practical and endearing. She displayed the capacity for learning though determination and perseverance, as exhibited by her musical abilities and bilingual proficiency. And could she ever run! The grit showed through here the best, and it bestowed her with a body that most men would kill for.

Very shortly after moving to the frontier town, my efforts at courtship were stymied as she informed me of her intention for renewed efforts and dalliances with her ex-partner. I was crushed. No more than I had been recently before, but I was back to square one. Given that I'd been exploring a cuckold fetish for several years prior to receiving this devastating news, I was perplexed by how unaroused this turn of events made me. It seemed I'd been cured of that sexual-psychological vice at least.

After a couple dark months, the beautiful new woman's ex-partner had failed to live up to her expectations and hopes once again. I had another chance and I seized it. I'd spent the intervening time working as best as I could on myself. I cobbled together a sort of place to live, and a shitty but passably respectable job, and I bought myself a car to escape the winter doldrums of isolation and get out skiing and biking (which I knew she enjoyed). It must have worked. This woman was once again talking to me. Her interest in me grew once more and before I knew it, we were going on camping trips, paddling together, picking mushrooms together and making each other regular meals. On top of this, we were sleeping together again. I bought myself a face trimming razor at her behest, and the meteoric rise of self-confidence she helped me acquire blinded me somewhat when suddenly we had a life-altering decision to make. She was pregnant. We had only just recently admitted to each other love might be in the mix a month or two ago, and now we were faced with the prospect of spending our whole lives together. It was really fast.

Past experience had taught me that if relationships are no longer growing and allowed to remain stagnant, they ultimately crumble. Moreover, I'd been growing envious of the family lives I saw some of my friends embracing with the adoption of responsibility I craved. So, we went for it. Despite only having been together for 3/4 of a year, we decided to have a baby. It was wild. Lots of concern over whether we were doing the right thing, but this was overweighed in my books at least by the excitement of procreation and the promise of a life of commitment to someone - both to this new woman and to the child. And then of course, we bought a house. It was as rash as I have ever been over the span of less than two years. And I had bummed around Asia with no plans or money for almost as long.

This new woman brought me all sorts of grief and headaches as all my buried neuroses (and hers), were thrust into the limelight at once. At times I felt as though we wouldn't survive. We had to very quickly figure out how to live together and look past each other's deficiencies and focus on the good parts.

This new woman and I have always had our struggles. Our relationship began like so many others of our generation - sex based.

We made a child and our sex life evaporated. This woman, this child and I, had to figure out how we were going to live with each other in the absence of that.

This woman is my beautiful partner, Sarah. This child is my only son, and I... I am over the moon with happiness compared to where I was before meeting them. The key is trying to remember it.

Part 12

Sarah sat upright in the bow; her powerful strokes moving us forward with the gently flowing river. I was emotionally a bit numb after the events of that morning, so for hours, the only communication between us consisted of navigational shorthand. Though we weren't speaking, the rhythmic dip and pull of our paddles spoke for us. We were both basking in the afterglow of an intensely sexual experience, and a thinly overcast morning warmth. Eventually we would need to break our silence and discuss what was happening but for now we both had some processing to do.

The pale sunlight diffracted through clouds which were showing signs of dissipating. Brad and Mike lingered quietly behind, no doubt with their own thoughts on the matter. Swallows dipped and swirled through the air, adding a vertical dimension to the river's soft roiling current. While mergansers paddled in eddies looking for minnows, harlequin ducks zipped back and forth in flashes of violet, black, rusty red, and white along the shoreline.

How appropriate their presence on the scene, I thought.

The Harlequin character popularized as Arlecchino in Italian Commedia Dell'arte, later migrating into French theatre - embodied the paradoxically dim-witted fool and mischievous trickster. He was nimble and acrobatic, with a ravenous appetite for both food and other men's women. He employed both his trickery and physical prowess to attain both with mixed success. Ultimately though, he began and ended within the role of a zany comedic servant for his master.

Brad fit this role to a tee, with his humorous anecdotes of river antics, his wrestling in the shallows with Sarah, his adeptness with a paddle, his overall physical prowess, and the way in which he seduced and bedded my girl. He could not have been more of a Harlequin if he'd tried.

In the old 16th century plays, this character, though playing at being a dispossessed servant, would nonetheless subvert the roles of master and slave through trickery, by taking that which his master prized most. Ultimately however (and a source of comfort to me now), it rarely remained a permanent subversion.

My reverie was broken by a welcome interruption. You pointed at a wispy hole in the sky where blue was showing through and said, "Looks like it's clearing up! You game for skipping lunch and making up some of the kilometers from yesterday?"

I was glad to hear it and agreed readily. It would mean getting to spend more time paddling with you and hopefully postponing a reunion with the canoe that was tailing us.

You turned in your seat to face me and added, "Can you toss me the water and the food bag? I'll make us some sandwiches if you keep us on the straight and narrow".

I knew what you meant. "Sandwiches" was code for cucumber, cheese and sausage held between two crackers, and "keeping us on the straight and narrow" was just a silly way of saying, keep steering us so we don't crash into shore.

We'd been paddling together for a few years now. It had started out pretty rough, with ample arguing, a pair of crushed egos, and plenty of panic. After much practice, patience, and working on our communication though, we managed to make a surprisingly good team. It was a sort of metaphor for our relationship, which had been steadily getting better over the years as we learned to trust each other and slowly came to believe that we had each other's best interest at heart.

As I unhooked the nalgene from where it was lashed at my ankles and tossed it up to her (yea, my woman can catch), I gave an internal snort of mild derision. "Straight and narrow indeed" I thought. "This river may be calm, but our relationship is beginning to hurtle down a class V set of rapids with no end in sight". It was both terrifying and exhilarating, but so far I saw no reason to panic.

Part 13

As we sat facing each other in the canoe, Sarah set out two rows of crackers on the map case and began stacking them with cheese and smoked meat. I knew it was coming before she even asked:

"Are you mad?"

"No", I replied, not really sure if I was lying. "At least, I don't think so." Watching Brad use Sarah the way he did was difficult for me, but "no", I thought to myself. I had been trying for years to convince Sarah this would be a good thing.

"It's what we talked about", I added. This explanation was weak, as talking about something before-hand does not necessarily preclude any subsequent emotions. So, I attempted to clarify:

"It is quite hard for me. But worth it. Like climbing a mountain". I berated myself immediately after saying it. That was a cheesy and clichéd comparison. It was not at all like climbing a mountain. People who climb mountains experience the exhilaration of achieving physically demanding milestones. The exhilaration I was experiencing had not been because I accomplished anything. It was artificially induced. Like taking a drug and feeling good, it was "worth it", in the same way that a hangover after a particularly good party might be considered worth it. I knew Sarah would not be convinced and I was at a loss as to the best way to reassure her.

I shifted focus, and tried to ask her something that she could answer without needing to know exactly how I felt. Something related but not too direct. An answer to her question in the form of another question.

"When he told you to go to the tent, did you feel he was coming on too strong?" I asked.

"No, I really liked that actually". There was truth in your eyes, and a bit of lust.

"I could do more of that for you, you know", I proffered. "Being assertive I mean".

"You should", was your simple reply. "Just not on this trip", you followed up with a wink. This coy remark made it clear to me that the game was still on, that I had successfully managed to convince you I was still into it, and finally, that we would both be ok. I was flooded once more with a sense of wonder and love for you. It felt so nice to be on the same page. To be taking chances and going down the rapids together.

Communication was something we'd been working on over the last couple years. Both of us greatly feared upsetting the other's feelings. Early in our relationship we discovered that the cart could be easily upset by a misplaced critique here or a judgmental glance there. It initially led to a breakdown of communication as we both preferred avoidance over addressing our own sensitivities. We approached dialogue with a kind of emotional protectionism. This just led to building resentment, passive aggressive tendencies, and an exacerbation of our already fragile sensitivities. Lately though, on the advice of a couple's therapist, we began pushing each other's sensitivity boundaries; exercising them where possible and appropriate. It wasn't always easy, but it was slowly building emotional resilience, and making us stronger as a unit. It also allowed us to be more assertive with our own desires to generally positive effect.

You leaned forward and passed me a sandwich. "Do you want to hear about it?"

I was already hard after the wink and was getting in the mood, so I said, "yes". It was a tentative yes. I wanted her to "go slow" as the saying goes.