Last week, I visited a kinky friend who just happens to have a very well-stocked playroom. We’d been talking about me coming over to check out his bedroom dungeon – a steel bondage bed with a suspension beam, assorted rubber straitjackets, electrical toys, and a new MaxCITA sleepsack – for a while. I was curious about playing with someone else’s gear, topping someone in his own space.
When I arrived, I oohed and ahhed over the view. I coveted his nicely curated collection of gear. This may sound strange, but it’s rare that I meet anyone who doesn’t have a professional interest in kink to begin with. That he also has toys that make me go, “Yum!” is even more remarkable.
Turned on as I was, I felt myself stalling. I plopped on his bed and stared at the bondage points. I had pictured tying him to the bedpost and whipping him. Using his equipment and taking him through the paces of all his fabulous gear he’d been telling me about for months. Breaking it all in. Even him. But now that I was here, it didn’t feel right.
“This feels like your space?” I offered in explanation for my hesitation. “I think I’m so used to being in command of my own space, with my stuff, that to take over yours feels … inappropriate. I feel like you should top me.”
Now, for the record, I don’t particularly identify as a switch or bottom, nor to I subscribe to any of the politics of such labels. I’m proud to say I know what it’s like to be flogged and whipped to tears because what I’ve learned from that experience informs my authority in taking someone else to that place. As far as most BDSM goes, I prefer to bottom experientially, so that I can be a better top.
I was staring at his MaxCITA bag, hanging from the suspension. “How would you feel about putting me in your bag?” I asked. Bondage is really, really hard for me to bottom for but given how much I love to bondage top, it behooves me to understand it from the bottom’s perspective. Graciously, he agreed to put me in.
I stripped down to my tank top and panties and stepped into the vertically hanging bag. Almost immediately my breath quickened, my feet twitched. My eyes got wet. I was on the verge of panic. I forced myself into slow, deep breaths.
I loved that he was slow, methodical as he secured me in the bag. No taunting or teasing. No wandering, invasive hands. This wasn’t a scene so much as a set up and I appreciated his intuitiveness in understanding that. It reminded me how invaluable, how indispensible trust is to any play.
Once I was up, the tears stopped. My feet were still. My breathing relaxed. I asked for a blindfold. The first one was tight, pressing into my eyes too hard and I spiraled back towards panic. He caught me, removing the blindfold and putting a different, softer one into place.
It was comfortable. In that quiet, sunny room, a late September breeze coming off the water, it was much like being in a hammock, drowsy from an afternoon of reading, sun. I heard him in the next room, filling a glass with ice. It occured to me to worry that he wasn’t close, that he might leave me. I let it go and dozed off.
When I awakened, I’m not sure how long I was out, I could hear the measured, rhythmic breaths of him sleeping in bed below me. I felt rested. Renewed. Happy. Peaceful. I understood the appeal.
This post reminded me of my experience in the novice RopeShare class I took last winter. I had never tied anyone up. Always been the bound, not the binder. For our last exercise of the tutorial we were asked to take the knots we’d learned and create a situation.
I was both challenged and intimidated by the notion of my partner as canvass for inventive passion. Suddenly, I had an insight into the fine art of rope topping. My ties totally sucked…but I had a little peak at the other side’s craft.
@advo
At the risk of sounding like those ubiquitous HSBC ads, “By understanding other people’s values, we can meet their needs.” Or something like that. I think the important lesson for me, though, is that how *I* like to be tied isn’t necessarily what the person I’m playing with enjoys. Like, I really, really don’t want to be fiddled with or have any external stimuli when I’m bound. That makes me freak right out. But a lot of people I play with love it when I’m causing distress, pain, and/or torment.
I already have a lot of appreciation for what my play partners put themselves through and the strength it takes for them to surrender. Being able to experience a taste of what they do makes me respect them even more.
a couple of things strike a chord with me here. Your description of sitting on the bed, staring, thinking and the dialogue that followed is very much appreciated. Planning is fine, probably necessary and perhaps appropriate for kink but being flexible is delicious. I remember encountering a device in the middle of a room once but when i was found caressing a post that’s presence drew me in, the device was discarded and the post used to bind and top me….”perfect” she said, “thats what we’ll do today” it wasn’t what was planned, it was what felt right….i love that You had the courage/strength/good sense to recoqnize and honor the moment. Second, expressing the appreciation of “the strength it takes [one] to surrender” is very kind and supportive….i expect that phrase will be valuable to me…it already had me pining to be beaten into another dimension… thanks for inviting me to post.
An observation: it seems to me you spend much more time talking about the equipment you play with rather than the people you use it on. Its almost as if the person is there for no other reason than to allow you to use your “stuff”. Perhaps this is your fetish or perhaps it is a mechanism a pro domme uses to rationalize the constantly changing partners, but it is interesting. I’ve noticed the same thing in other pro domme blogs. The other person is portrayed as a very minor component of the event, less important to the action than the equipment used or the act performed.
@pert
Play, as far as I’m concerned, is very organic. Going into pretty much any scene I may, at most, have a theme (e.g. bondage, corporal) but I try to be receptive and responsive to our energies and what’s really needed in that moment rather than plow ahead with some menu that neither of us have an appetite for simply because it’s what was planned that day. A lot of times people will gripe about “cookie cutter” sessions. That’s not something that’s ever made sense to me. One size does not fit all.
@Jenny
While I don’t think your comment is especially applicable to *this* post, I can see why you’d make such an observation about my blog. I am a bit of a gear fetishist, I admit. But I probably also focus more on the gear not as a “rationalization” for the changing partners but more out of respect for their privacy and a desire not to lay bare the details of these very personal, intimate exchanges and experiences for a public forum.
One of the defining characteristics of my practice is the high level of engagement and connection present between me and my play partner. I daresay there isn’t even one in my history who would say I made him feel like a “very minor component” during our scenes. I’m happy to write about what I do, what I used, and how I felt about it. But writing about the other person, whether in praise, criticism, or otherwise, is something I prefer to reserve for our private exchanges.
Thanks for your comment and welcome to my blog!
One of the defining characteristics of my practice is the high level of engagement and connection present between me and my play partner. I daresay there isn’t even one in my history who would say I made him feel like a “very minor component” during our scenes. I’m happy to write about what I do, what I used, and how I felt about it. But writing about the other person, whether in praise, criticism, or otherwise, is something I prefer to reserve for our private exchanges.
Not that you need me to defend you or vouch for you but I want to comment on what you say here. I am amazed at the connection and closeness I feel to you in session. In a way it doesn’t even feel like a session but more of a shared experience between 2 people ( or more 🙂 ). It has occurred to me that if I were just looking at things from the standpoint of my kink, fetishes, interests, whatever you would not be a natural for me to session with but the way you are and the way you look at things and relate to me and I am sure your other clients makes all the other stuff secondary.
A lovely post, and a lovely story. I can relate. And though I know it’s cliche, but the energy of a moment is so critical to the experience.
I’ve had two experiences that were similar to what you shared, in parts. One was a professional mistress who had asked me to dominate her for a session. For her, I think the emotions of the experience were coming from a very different place than yours – but she welled up at the start and had to re-compose herself.
In the second experience, it was the first time I laced up a particular woman friend I’d played with before. As I got her into the corset I could just see her totally emotionally transform. She was so stunned at her appearance, and the sensations that the corset induced – she became absolute and utter jelly. And we very easily and naturally switched roles as top and bottom.
Both experiences felt very organic and natural, and really beautifully special. Thanks for inspiring the recollections with your own. Your friend sounds like a natural 😉