Conquer Me: girl-to-girl wisdom about fulfilling your submissive desires

by Kacie Cunningham

  It sounds bleak, I know, but if this does happen in your relationship (as it is likely to at some point, to at least a small degree), all is not necessarily lost. This condition is treatable and the treatment is communication. (I know… you know that by now, but it’s worth saying anyway.) At the end of this book is a section devoted entirely to getting your D/S back on track if it has strayed, so there’s no need to address it here. Suffice it to say that there is hope, so take heart.

  Before we wrap this up, let’s tackle the more common definition of topping from the bottom. In the opening of this chapter, I used a tongue-in-cheek description, but it isn’t entirely inaccurate. There are “submissives” who, for reasons I shall probably never know, insist on actively attempting to wrest control away from their dominants. I have observed this behavior many times, and have often wondered at the motivation behind it. This malicious behavior is, for me, easily distinguishable from unfulfilled “conquer me” feelings because of the non-verbal cues present within the submissive. A submissive who is having “conquer me” feelings typically has an air of longing, yearning, or even quiet sadness about her. Alternately, she may be slightly edgy or irritable, but seem contrite and discouraged about it, because she doesn’t want to feel that way, but isn’t sure how to fix it. While her outward behaviors may be a pale imitation of those in the paragraph below, the cause sets them apart.

  In my observation, a submissive who is actively and intentionally bottom-topping is just being a bitch. She is exhibits several of the following traits: snide, defiant, loud, manipulative, shockingly disobedient, demanding, controlling, selfish, unreasonable, melodramatic, or just generally rebellious. It quickly becomes obvious to the onlooker exactly what she is doing. It’s important to note that she is aware of what she is doing… it is not unintentional or accidental. She is fully conscious of her actions and their meaning, and either does not care about the consequences, or has accepted them as a reasonable risk and chooses to behave in this way in spite of them. If called on her bad behavior, she often denies having done anything wrong, turns the situation around and twists the dominant’s words, and/or simply rejects his rebuke, refusing to be held accountable.

  This type of misbehavior mustn’t be confused with playful “bratting,” which some dominants think is adorable, and find amusing and pleasing. The differences are actually very clear… a submissive who is attempting to be playful will have very different non-verbal markers, such as a “little” voice, a twinkle in her eye, a mischievous smile, a wink, and/or a bouncy, lively body posture. She is simply full of fun, and her intent is not at all to top from below, but to engage her dominant in play. She may go so far as to poke fun at him good-naturedly in ways that she knows are acceptable to him and do not disrespect him. If he feels that the line is crossed, and corrects her, the playful submissive will immediately fall into line, typically contrite that she went a bit too far, and very eager to get back into his good graces (though she may pout a bit or try “puppy” eyes).

  If you’re a dominant and you aren’t sure which category your misbehaving submissive falls into, there’s a bit of a test. If she has a playful attitude, give her the benefit of the doubt, and try drawing the line to see how compliant she is. She may whine or pout a bit (we’re none of us angels!), but if she gives in more or less gracefully, you’ve got your answer. If she doesn’t have a playful attitude about her, try talking to her about her behavior. Maybe she just needs you to conquer her a little bit. This can be a bit trickier, because it won’t require the same action every time. She might not be able to articulate what’s got her panties in a twist, and if she can’t, it’s a good bet that it’s due to “conquer me” feelings. The submissive who is intentionally being disruptive and topping from the bottom may claim that nothing is wrong with her and that you are the problem, and attempt to find ways to make you responsible for her behavior, or deny that anything at all is wrong, or any one of a thousand other things designed to make your head spin. She will not seem willing to let go of her behavior unless you give in to her demands, whatever they are, and also is likely to demand that you fix her problem yourself, since you are the cause of it (she claims). This particular trait is unique to intentional topping from the bottom. The submissive who is simply needing to be conquered will not be unwilling to help solve the problem unless she is experiencing hopelessness about it and doesn’t believe there is a solution, but the difference will probably be very clear to you.

  Keep in mind, it’s possible she’s just had a pisser of a day and isn’t handling it well. Submissives are people too, and people have bad days, and sick days, and menstrual days, and all kinds of things that affect the way we interact with you dominant types. Submissives get into bad moods, too, so just because your submissive has a day occasionally when she closely resembles that paragraph up there about the monster-bitch “submissive” doesn’t mean she’s a bad apple, or that you’re a bad dominant. Just between us, I’ll tell you that there have been days that Master has wanted to tear his hair out over my behavior, but he keeps me because ultimately he knows that I’m not any more perfect than he is, and that at the core of it, my heart is pure. He knows that even when I’m acting up, I want to be good. Later, I apologize and we work on fixing the problem together. And as long as you and your girl truly desire to have a D/S relationship together, so can you.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Up, Up and Away!

  And this little masochist, she’s ready to confess all the things that I never thought that she could feel. - Tori Amos, “Hey Jupiter”

  WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MASOCHISM AND submission, anyway? It seems that so many people take those terms for granted, not knowing what they actually mean, and assume them to be interchangeable. You, dear reader, are ahead of the game, because you know what those words mean - or at least what they mean to Merriam-Webster. But what people really want to know (and are usually afraid to ask) is what life is like under these labels, these dubious titles.

  A masochist is someone who enjoys pain, to put it simply. Not all pain, though… a headache is just as unpleasant for mas-ochists as for anyone else. For some, this enjoyment of pain means that they actually process pain as pleasure. For some, it means that though the pain itself feels indeed like pain, they enjoy the end result which is often referred to as “subspace.” We’ll get to that in a minute. Most masochists, in my acquaintance, experience both. It is entirely possible to be a masochist and not be at all submissive. Likewise, it is possible to be submissive and not be masochistic. The two are stand-alone, yet not mutually exclusive.

  Of course, you’re wondering what subspace is, or at least, how I define it. Personally, I have experienced two different types. One is an almost trance-like state of altered consciousness that I can reach upon suffering great pain. And one is a more mellow state of near-Zen that I can reach with no pain whatsoever - I call it “headspace,” to differentiate it from the pain-induced “subspace.” In subspace, I am largely useless because I feel drugged, which I effectively am, from the endorphins that the body produces as a pain response. Headspace is the state of mind in which I am at my most submissive, because I am completely centered and focused upon the object of my attention, and desire nothing more than to be found pleasing. I have also experienced some combination of the two, where the pain response melds with the submissive response, and that is truly heady stuff. To better understand what I’m trying to describe here, allow me to share with you a personal experience.

  And I lose myself in that voice, like the ocean closing silkily over my head. Everything outside of the pain and that voice ceases to exist, and I ride it. It comforts me, holds me safe, steadies me, provides light and hope in the darkness of what feels like endless pain. I follow that light, and when I come to it, I find that the pain is everything. It’s all around me, it’s my whole world. I am in a world of pain, pain at Master’s order and my acceptance, and it is exquisite. It is all-consuming; it swirls around me like currents and eddies,
buoying me, cradling me. And in that moment, it is no longer pain. There is nothing else, nothing to compare it to, and it loses meaning as pain. It becomes sensation, high sensation permeating me, changing me, forging me in fires of trust, acceptance, and love into something stronger than I was before. Something more.

  The difference is acceptance. If I fear the pain, fight it… I panic, I think it will not end, I cannot escape it, and it will be that way forever, hurting. The pleasure comes to me when accept. When I let go of fear, and instead allow trust to carry me away, there is pleasure. Because I cannot control it. I cannot decide when it will end. It is when I see this, know it, accept it as my world, my truth, my everything that I can bear it, even revel in it. It is what comes in that moment of acceptance that makes me crave the pain. It’s the twin energies of fiery pain and sweet soothing love flowing over me like water that induce me, seduce me to give in. I am reduced in those moments to a being of energy myself, without pretense or convictions. I am simply made to feel, and I do. It is all that is required of me in those moments. I exist solely to feed Master’s pleasures, and it pleases him to hurt me… and it pleases him too when I let go to it, accept it fully, and go quiet.

  I do. My breathing steadies, evens out. My body stops panicking and gasping for air, my mind quiets. Pain, and Master’s voice. The world is good. My eyes lose focus, I can’t see anything except into my own mind. I see sounds like ribbons of color and taste colors like Lifesavers candies, emotion becomes sensation and sensation becomes the sky. I am free, I am quiet, my mind is stilled and I am His. My body goes a bit slack, not anticipating, not expectant, simply open and ready, pliable, yielding. My mouth rests open and I breathe through it, as if I am asleep. I’m sure it’s unimpressive from a spectator’s standpoint, but from the inside looking out, it is magnificent.

  That’s my point of view of what I experience when the two come together, the pain response as well as the submissive response itself. There are times I have experienced the pain response alone, of course. I wrote the following about the night that I was whipped for the first time with a single-tail.

  Crack! Oh god, oh god, oh god, I can’t, what could have possibly made me think I could do this! I gasped so hard I had a moment where I worried I’d swallowed my tongue. I gripped the cross and raised up on tip-toe, stunned at the feeling. Stunned. Imagine, for a moment, that someone has just used an eyedropper to drop battery acid on your skin. That’s what it feels like. It hits, burning like fire yet cold as ice, the sting is enough to make you see stars, your head spins as you try to breathe, get it under control, but the feeling keeps going. Seeping into the skin now, it burns deep, incinerating nerve endings, cauterizing them, and spreading. Finally, it fades slightly, having spread out and dissipated somewhat. I dropped my head, breathed heavily and deeply.

  Crack! Again the whip, and the spectators faded into obscurity in the face of the all-consuming pain. My world was the size of a dime, a marble, full of red and black and green swirling pain. I sagged against the cuffs, and wondered again if I could take it. I took a deep breath, grimly got myself under control, and forced myself to. I reminded myself that I had asked for this.

  CRACK! The hardest stroke I was to receive fell, and I flew… I was way out, flying high, I screamed as it hit. It welted almost instantly, but did not break. I was in a world of light and sound and color though I was blindfolded… a beautiful, savage place of peace and pain. Fast, hard, the strokes landed with no pause, pain pain pain pain pain! I screamed, sobbed, gasped… and broke. Sobbing, the tears came behind the blindfold. “Please,” I choked out. Another stroke. “Please!” I cried, desperate, like a wounded animal who will do anything to escape the pain, but is trapped. I was trapped, I didn’t dare move too much or he’d miss his mark, my hands were restrained, I was broken, desperate, shameless, would have done or said anything in that moment for some peace. Another stroke and I choked on a sob, feeling less than human. Not made of flesh and bone and breath… but of blood and pain and fear.

  And after he’d taken me down, he asked me where I was, how I felt. “Calm,” I told him. It was true. I felt pure, clean, calm, and centered. It was one of the deepest spaces I’ve ever experienced. Nothing in that moment could faze me.

  You may be asking yourself now how the second experience could possibly have been a positive one. How, after all that, could I have come out of my restraints in such a state of peace? The honest answer is that I don’t really know. I don’t know exactly what chemical processes take place in my brain that cause me to respond to pain the way that I do. I only know that the end result is what I crave, and the pain is a vehicle to get me to that place. No drug can compare to the high, and no day at the spa can compare to the sense of ease and relaxation that I have afterward, when my limbs are heavy with languor and I bask in the warmth of the feeling.

  Of course, pain is only a small part of life as a submissive, if you choose to have it at all. Pain may be the drug of choice for masochists everywhere, but pleasure is the drug of choice for submissives. The pleasure for submissives comes of being found pleasing. It fulfills us as nothing else can, on a level that pain can never reach. It is our very purpose for being, and when that is actualized, we are most wholly ourselves, completely happy and at peace. This is the Zen-like state that I speak of. It is something that is very difficult to capture in words. It’s the feeling that I get when I am kneeling, waiting to serve, when my focus is entirely on the one I am serving. I am not worried in those moments about bills, or the fact that the car needs new tires, or work, or anything else. I am entirely in the moment, in the now, and my only function is to submit, to await his pleasure, whatever that may be. It is at these moments that I am most at peace, because I am open and vulnerable and safe all at once, without shame or inhibition. This is what I refer to as headspace. There’s no substitute for it; the subspace from pain is attractive in its own right, but it cannot replace the emotional ecstasy which comes from this fully realized self that headspace provides.

  This headspace is nearly impossible for me to achieve fully without a high degree of trust, so it isn’t something that I can experience with just anyone. The potential is often there, but the circumstances must be right in order to provide the kind of environment which is conducive to being so very open and vulnerable. When it all comes together so that I can experience this amazing feeling, everything else fades away and I can revel in simply being me, being his, for as long as it lasts. And that is a beautiful thing.

  But those are my experiences, and it must be said that everyone perceives subspace differently. I know a woman who giggles uncontrollably when she reaches subspace, and another who cries as if her heart were breaking, though afterward she’ll tell you she had the time of her life. I even knew a woman once who would space so deeply that she would occasionally faint. It is always an intensely personal thing, and only you know what is usual for you. Then again, certain events may sometimes occur which might change the way you experience subspace in any given scene.

  If you have not experienced it yet, I hope that you will not look to my experiences as the definitive example of subspace. If you begin to slip into it, but it seems different than what you’re expecting, it could throw you for a loop, and possibly even impair your ability to fully “space” (as it is typically called when used as a verb like that). You should open yourself to whatever possibilities may come, and understand that your subspace will be unique unto you. Don’t expect it to perfectly follow anything you have read, or heard. Another point to mention is that sometimes subspace is different depending on who you’re playing with, and the level of emotion that you have for that partner. Even though subspace is widely accepted to be primarily chemical, there is an undeniable psychological aspect that must not be discounted. For instance, if you don’t trust your partner, you may be less likely to space, because subspace leaves you vulnerable, and your mind may refuse to allow it in order to protect you.

  Finally, don’t automatically assume
, if you don’t reach space during a scene, that it is because some part of you distrusts your play partner. It is very common to have scenes that do not result in subspace, for any number of reasons. That doesn’t mean you still can’t enjoy yourself, and it certainly does not mean that you have done anything wrong, or failed in any way. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen and it’s not always clear why. If you and your partner can talk about it after, you might be able to work out what prevented it and work on it in future scenes, if you choose to, but it should not be seen as a failing. Even if subspace is the ultimate goal for you in a scene, the scene itself is the journey, not the vehicle, and should be enjoyed for its own sake.

  THIRD INTERMISSION

  I’m feeling restless. Unsettled. Yearning. Longing.

  I can feel my breath move in me as if it’s searching for

  something, and then I exhale. I can feel my skin tickling

  with the desire to be touched. I can feel a little burning

  in my heart, afire that I haven’t felt for so long I don’t

  recognize it. It is familiar in the way that things are,

  fleetingly, like a few notes of a beloved melody caught on

  a breeze, then gone before you can recall the name of the

  song, or why it touched you so. It comes in… not waves,