Escalate slowly. If you’ve started with your softest mellowest flogger, step up to something a bit heavier. Add a bit more bondage to restrict your captive’s movement a little more. Start getting a bit pickier about how your commands are carried out. Challenge your bottom by requiring him to do something that requires concentration as he accepts increasing stimulation. (Janet once played with a top who required that she address him by obscene names, each one different, as he caned her: “One, thank you, dickhead! Two, thank you, fuckwad! Three, thank you, shitfor-brains!”)
You don’t have to continue to escalate; one of the arts of topping is to take the bottom right up to the edge where she thinks she can’t stand it any more, then back off for a while and do something nicer, then go up to that same place and perhaps a little beyond, then back off again…
IMPULSE TOPPING. Occasionally, while partway into a scene that you’ve planned carefully, you’ll be struck by a sudden inspiration. Following your instinct at such a moment can be risky, particularly if the bottom is expecting something different. But, if your inspiration isn’t a limit for the bottom, it may turn out to be your intuition guiding you toward something wonderful; some of our best moments in scene have been impromptu impulses of this kind.
On the other hand, sometimes you’ll come up totally dry – with a bad case of the “blank-paperitis” we mentioned earlier. A good strategy here is to do whatever worked last time, or, if you’re in the middle of a scene, you can backtrack to do some more of whatever was working well earlier: there’s no rule against more of a good thing.
One top we know taught us another excellent strategy for this moment: do nothing. Simply stop and re-center yourself. Take a deep breath or two. Look at yourself and your bottom. Wait. Inspiration will come. The bottom isn’t going anywhere. This can seem like a very long moment, but really, it’s usually only a minute or so… and many bottoms love suspense.
KEEPING IT GOING
Good tops are full of all kinds of sneaky ways to keep a scene going without breaking its energy.
A lot of the ideas we’ll talk about in this section fall into two categories: ways to keep the energy going in a scene that is supportive and nurturing, and ways to accomplish the same goal in a scene that’s harsh and is built around a fantasy of nonconsent. In both cases, you’re trying to do the same things – to get support and information for yourself and to provide support and encouragement for your bottom – but the way that you accomplish those goals will depend on what role you’re playing.
TAKING CONTROL. An important thing to remember is that your goal is to “turn off your bottom’s brain” – to enable her to melt into a malleable, will-less state of arousal and hypersensuality. The more control, verbal and physical, that you exert, the easier it will be for your bottom to relinquish control to you.
It’s a good idea to offer your bottom as few choices as possible. “Lie down on the bed” is not such a great order, because it leaves too many questions open in the bottom’s mind. “Lie down on the bed, face down, with your head facing the headboard, your legs together and your arms outspread” is better.
You may still want to offer your bottom choices as part of a head trip – “Six with the cane or 50 with the flogger? You choose.” But do so intentionally, and make it clear that you’re offering the choice not because you’re floundering but because you enjoy seeing the bottom struggle with the decision.
It can work very well to take control of a bottom in a physical way as well: pushing, grabbing, dragging, holding down. We did a scene that played with this sense of physical control:
Dossie was a recently captured slavegirl in a country where she didn’t speak the language; Janet was a new owner who wasn’t the talkative type. While Dossie begged, whined, offered bribes, fumed and refused, Janet simply physically forced her (with a little help from a few floggers and canes and paddles) to kneel, to dance, to suck Janet’s breasts, to masturbate, and other critical “slave skills.” For a couple of verbalists like us, it was a fabulously freeing scene – Dossie couldn’t talk her way out of it, and Janet found herself able to be physically rough, with hairpulling, shoving, armtwisting and so on, in a way that’s usually difficult for her.
Giving clear, forceful directions can be difficult for many tops, perhaps especially women, who are culturally enjoined against being directive. An exercise Janet teaches in her workshops for novice female dominants is to have the bottoms rub their mistresses’ feet as the mistresses give specific directions about where to rub, how hard and in what rhythm. Although this exercise may sound simple, it is difficult for many attendees. If you have trouble giving orders, it might be a good way for you to practice this important skill.
ASKING FOR DIRECTION. While the fantasy of much BDSM is that the top is taking his or her pleasure without regard to what the bottom wants, the reality is that you’re doing this for mutual enjoyment – and you can’t attain mutual enjoyment without some guidance from your bottom about what he is enjoying. But most bottoms don’t like to feel like they’re running the scene: if they wanted to run scenes, they’d be tops. So you need to figure out ways to get the information you need without seeming to relinquish control.
The ritual of requiring the bottom to kiss the whip or other implement is really a script for consent. The threat builds anticipation while giving the bottom an opportunity to voice any concerns. Others enjoy having the bottom choose which toy he wants to experience; we know one who likes to lay out all his toys, then tell his bottom, “Bring me one item to give you pain and one to give you pleasure.”
Other ways of asking for direction are verbal – and in these, tone of voice and turn of phrase matter a lot. You know and we know that the sentences “I’d like to cane you now, would that be OK?” and “You’re about to get a caning you’ll never forget, you little slut” really mean pretty much the same thing, but they certainly don’t feel the same to your bottom.
The trick to asking for direction from top space is to phrase the request in such a way that it sounds like you’re demanding it for your own pleasure, not fumbling around trying to figure out what will please your bottom.
HOW TO BE SUPPORTIVE. Bottoms need a lot of support when they’re doing their thing, and, depending on the flavor of scene you’re doing, there are a lot of different ways you can offer it.
If a bottom is doing something intense and difficult to please you, she deserves and needs praise. If your scene has a nurturing tone, you simply may want to offer that praise: “I’m proud of you” or “You took that really well” or “You look so beautiful doing that.” On the other hand, very few interrogators compliment their victims on how well they take their torture. So if you’re role-playing a scene of nonconsent or harshness, you have to be more subtle – but a muttered comment about the stubbornness of this particular victim accomplishes the same goal without breaking role: “Ah, she has spirit, I like that! More to break.”
A particularly devious top trick is to use the lowered boundaries of scene space to “implant” messages of self-esteem. We’ve done a couple of scenes together in which Janet is a schoolmistressy authority figure and Dossie is a young girl; Janet enjoys telling Dossie that “a pretty little thing like you is going to be very popular with the big girls around here” – creating a nice sense of dread as she builds Dossie’s mental self-image.
It can also be very helpful to “coach” your bottom through the tough parts by reminding him or her to do things like breathe and relax, kind of like a labor coach in childbirth. If you’re being a supportive top, you can simply tell your bottom what you want her to do: “breathe along with me” or “relax your butt muscles” or “listen to the music.” If you’re being a mean top, you may have to get a little more creative. “I want to hear you scream” accomplishes the same goal as reminding your partner to breathe (it takes oxygen to scream), but sends shivers up the spine in a totally different way. You can also order your bottom to do something like relaxing her muscles, with appro
priate penalties if she tenses up.
CHECKING IN. Since bottoms occasionally forget how to safeword for one reason or another, we think it’s a good idea for a top to have a mechanism she can use to “check in” to make sure that everything’s still basically OK.
Many people check in verbally. “Still with me?” or “Do you remember your safeword?” are easy and readily understandable. However, they can be inappropriate for some scenes (prison guards rarely ask their victims if they’re enjoying themselves), plus bottoms can sometimes get too nonverbal to respond properly.
In his book SM 101: A Realistic Introduction, Jay Wiseman suggests the “two squeezes” check-in: the top takes hold of some part of the bottom’s body (often the hand) and gives it two firm squeezes. The bottom lets the top know that she’s OK by taking hold of some part of the top’s body and giving it two squeezes back. If the top doesn’t get the two return squeezes, he tries once again; if the squeezes still aren’t forthcoming, he assumes that something’s wrong and that it’s time to break role and talk.
Other forms of check-in are physical: looking for welts to make sure the whip is landing in the right places, watching for changes in breathing or sound, feeling bound hands and feet to make sure they’re still warm and getting enough circulation. Such check-ins also get you close to your bottom’s body, which he usually doesn’t mind.
CALIBRATING YOUR BOTTOM. Many tops, when playing for the first time with a new bottom (or with a new toy on a long-time bottom), use some variant of a “one to ten” strategy. Usually, the top gives the bottom a very gentle stimulus and says, “That was a ‘one’ on a scale of one to ten. When you’re ready for another one, say a number that tells me how intense you want it.” The top spends several minutes letting the bottom “call the shots” in this way, learning about the bottom’s reactions as she goes. Eventually, when the bottom seems to be getting a little bored, the top says, “If you’re ready to stop calling numbers and let me decide force and timing on my own, let me know.” The bottom can go on one-to-tenning for as long as he needs to feel comfortable, and the top gets a good idea of how well the bottom can handle this particular sensation.
BOTTOMLESS PITS AND “THE FOREVER PLACE.” Sometimes, a bottom will get so endorphined out or go under so deeply that she feels like she just wants to go on doing this forever and ever and ever. A bottom who is in this condition will not be able to tell you if you are doing damage to her body or mind. She may go very still, no longer struggling or making noise – this can be scary if you’re not ready for it. Or she may still be moaning and crying, but be unable to respond to simple questions or orders. Or she may seem fine – Dossie grins and giggles, appearing deceptively on top of it all, while Janet chatters nonchalantly.
If your bottom goes into “The Forever Place,” that places an extra burden of responsibility on you; she has no judgment, so you have to provide enough for both of you. Keep an extra-close eye on physical signals like welts, bruises, abrasions and blisters, and watch for dizziness, trembling and nausea (all signs that the bottom is beginning to “overload” and may be on the verge of fainting). Be ultra-respectful of the limits the two of you agreed on beforehand: a bottom in “The Forever Place” may be absolutely thrilled to see the brass knuckles that she said “absolutely not” to, but that doesn’t make it OK to use them – such a bottom’s consent is no longer very meaningful.
Bottoms who never seem to get enough are called, somewhat ruefully, “bottomless pits.” Such bottoms can be frustrating for a top, because you can wear yourself to a sweating panting frazzle and still get a wistful “Are we done already?” for your trouble. Some tops like to keep one or more very intense toys or techniques for use in convincing the bottom who thinks she can never get enough.
Dossie remembers a public performance she once gave:
In the early ’80s, two other women and I produced an erotic performance, the first public S/M demonstration in San Francisco woman-space as far as I know. We staged a kidnapping of a “random” victim from the audience (actually my lover), and made a big point of establishing consent so the audience wouldn’t freak out – including having my “victim” select the whip I would beat her with, which was a relatively gentle braided cat. We had planned a counting scene for a birthday beating, in which she was supposed to control the length and intensity of the beating by counting strokes at the number she was comfortable with… so the scene started out “one – whack – two – whack – three – whack – three – whack – three – whack” and so on. Our agreement was that when we got close to her birthday age, I would hit her as hard as she liked and end at 33. Well, she got into the Forever Place and forgot she was supposed to want to stop, and kept counting “30, 30, 30.” I couldn’t get her attention, and I couldn’t very well break the rules of play I had so carefully established, so eventually I had to give up, announce that she had won, congratulate her and escort her off the stage, hoping nobody would notice me shushing her when she wanted to know why I had stopped when it was feeling so good.
CLOSURE. Ending the scene is one of the most important factors in helping make sure you and your bottom will both remember the scene fondly later. A sudden, unexpected or clumsy ending can take all the joy out of a scene that’s been pretty nice up until that moment.
Ending a scene takes place in three parts: preparation, closure and aftercare. During the preparation stage, while you’re still actually playing, you need to signal to the bottom that the scene will end soon, so he can begin to come back into the real world and pull himself or herself together. Dossie likes to pick out a fairly heavy toy such as a cane, show it to the bottom, and ask the bottom to pick how many heavy strokes between one and ten (or 20, or 50) he is ready to take before ending the scene.
If your scene is more about control than sensation, you may want to give the bottom a particularly difficult task – “repeat the following phrase 100 times, without error, while acting as my footstool” – with the understanding that the scene will end when he completes the task to your satisfaction. You can string something like this out according to your own judgment by choosing how picky you want to get about what constitutes successful completion of the task.
Janet remembers:
I was doing an ageplay scene in which I was a very naughty nine-year-old girl and my Daddy, having spanked me thoroughly, was making me write a letter of apology to the principal of my school. I was so completely in role that my handwriting was the Palmer cursive which was taught to children when I was young (and with which I had struggled in great frustration in grade school). As he rejected one draft after another – too messy, too short, not apologetic enough – I sank deeper and deeper into role, and got more and more frustrated with my poor handwriting. Fortunately, he saw that I was growing genuinely upset, and chose that moment to “accept” my latest draft – even though it was not as good as some of the previous ones.
The main thing to remember about closure is to avoid suddenness. Withdrawing from your bottom while she’s still floating around out in bottom space is clumsy and unkind, and can feel like a dreadful abandonment. Give your partner plenty of warning, in whatever way works for both of you, that the scene is drawing to an end.
WINDING DOWN. After the formal scene is over, most players want and need some decompression time – hugging, cuddling, talking, dozing, eating, showering, whatever it takes to stabilize both of you back in the real world. (We offered a fairly lengthy set of suggestions for decompression in The New Bottoming Book.) It’s not a good idea to let your bottom attempt complex or dangerous tasks right after a scene, when he may still be endorphined out and perhaps still in suggestible bottom space.
An S/M scene is not over until both (or all) of you have returned to the real world, to a more or less functional mental state, intimately connected and happy as clams, albeit perhaps a little stupid. This is a good time to relax and enjoy the connection. Some traditions have it that after a scene the bottom should scurry about and clean up the to
ys, but we prefer to wait until the bottom is recovered enough to do so without breaking anything. We like to respect and enjoy the general incompetence of warm fuzzy endorphined-out bottoms, and share in that state ourselves.
So invest some time in snuggling, sharing something to eat or drink, perhaps a warm bath (hot tubs are great for this!). You can rub any sore muscles, or have your bottom rub yours. Putting icepacks on bruises, brushing hair, washing any body parts that might have gotten sticky – grooming behaviors feel good here, and are a nice way to indicate caring nurturance.
Sometimes, especially after a particularly intense scene when you’ve been a very good top, your bottom may need support in returning to normal consciousness. If your bottom spaces out and you feel like you can’t quite reach him or her, stay close and in physical contact. If you stay connected, you can probably enjoy the spaced-out feeling too. Allow a little time. Call the person by name; Dossie likes to blow in her ear. Touch her firmly, rub muscles, and gently move joints. A glass of water or something to eat is always grounding. Ask about the journey – talking gets us back in our heads – and welcome your friend back. Remember, if your bottom goes very far out it’s probably because you were a very good top.
The New Topping Book Page 10
