A scene in two parts.

Part 1. Saturday. Submission and air conditioning.

When I was nine or ten, I went to visit my grandmother in Florida. After all, what self respecting New York Jew doesn’t have aging relatives in Florida? It must have been 90 degrees in the shade. We took one of the hotel shuttles to the Miami parrot jungle, and my Grandmother, ever the old world European, insisted that I wear a kercheif around my neck so as not to catch cold in the air conditioning. I hated that stupid scarf, so when I thought no one was looking, I took it off and stuck my face in one of the AC vents in the van. Of course I caught a cold. My grandma never let me live it down till the day she died.

Since then, I’ve shared grandma’s healthy suspicion of air conditioning. So why the hell was I leaning over a desk while stark naked, with an air-conditioner pointed at me in full blast?

Keep your hands on the desk and don’t turn around.

Oh yeah. That’s why. I continued standing there, letting the AC wash over my body. My brain tracked onto the sounds of shuffling and clanging chains behind me. After a minute or two, I kind of wished I had that neck scarf.

Turn around.

Finally. I turned to face the source of the voice, who cuffed my wrists and slid a blindfold over my eyes.

It was Saturday night, after LPN. As I said, there’s been an influx of kink in my life as of late, and this was a new, unexpected chapter. I met him at a meet-up for perverts and sex bloggers some months ago. We seemed to click and scheduled a date a few weeks later. The date went less than well. After leaving a message on his voicemail and hearing nothing back, I kind of figured that was the end of it. Then I ran into him at registration at LPN. Some hours later, I was naked in his bedroom save a blindfold and handcuffs.

I’m going to hurt you tonight.

Who’d have thunk that such a disastrous date would eventually lead to this? By the time his hand came down against my flesh, the air conditioning had all but faded from my consciousness. For the most part, it was a beautiful hurt. I even let him take me into a deeper sub space than I’m accustomed to playing with. I let his commands rip through me as I took each hit.

There was one point, early on in the evening, where the pain switched from sexy painful to fucking-stop-it painful. He slapped my shoulders with an open hand. Hard. It left a large swath of sting on my back in a not so sexy way. After a little while, I decided I’d had enough of that.

But this is just warmup, honey. It’s just my hand. I haven’t even gotten started yet.

I don’t care. I told him. Lay the fuck off my back. Which he did… at least insofar as the stingy badness went. I only mention this because it informs the second half of my story, which brings me to…

Part 2. Sunday. Slight change of pace.

Bob once laughed in my face when I expressed interest in learning how to top.
Why don’t you just accept the fact that you’re a bottom? There’s no shame in it.
I can top. It’s just not something I do very often I think was my response.
Well, could you top me?
No . I answered almost immediately.
Why not? He asked.
Because I’d lose patience with your brattyness
I thought.
Bob likes to brat and taunt from the bottom, which I lose patience with easily. I’ve still taken to referring to myself as a bottom for the sake of ease. Sometimes when I top, I feel like a dog that’s finally caught up with a car it’s been chasing. It’s big, shiny, and I have no idea what to do with it. But sometimes I can fake it well enough.

Most of Sunday is a beautiful lazy blur. I woke up Sunday morning tangled in his arms and bed-sheets. It took me a split second to remember where I was and how I got there. Whatever redness I had from the previous night’s escapades had already faded. (I heal mutantly fast. It’s a blessing and a curse… for some, it’s a challenge.) His scent still lingered on my skin. We spent the morning curled up together, drifting in and out of sleep.

Flash forward. We were both more or less awake, talking about kink and our respective preferences. What’s amusing is that both of us identify primarily as bottoms, but for whatever reason, he felt particularly toppish towards me. The idea of me topping him came up. He was intrigued, but skeptical.

Flash forward again. I was straddling his back, tracing circles on him with my fingernail.
Oh lord. What was that thing you did to me last night that I couldn’t stand? I mused out loud.
I’m not gonna tell you.
Oh yeah. I brought both hands down right between his shoulder blades, just as he had done. He let out a yelp of pain. I slapped his back again. My hands left two reddish pink wings on his back.
Is that nothing?
No.
Another slap.
Does that feel like warm up to you?
No ma-am.
But it’s just my hand. I said in mock innocence.

I’m pretty sure it’s my demeanor, which is by and large cute and fluffy. While it’s not a false representation of myself, it’s a persona that I’ve cultivated both consciously and subconsciously. No one expects any toplike anything out of me, much like no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Flash again. He was a pile of goo with a warm pink ass, whimpering over my knee. Pay-back’s a bitch.

Needless to say, I completely surprised him. Hell, I completely surprised myself. I really want to explore this dynamic some more. I like the possibility of turning the tables, knowing that I can navigate an unfamiliar role convincingly enough. A dynamic where the power goes to the one who gets there first. Also, the idea of a payback scene is really hot. Next time, I think air conditioning will be involved. I don’t know how, but damnit I’ll think of something.

Does this make me a switch? A bottom who can top when necessary? I’m not sure that it matters. I get weird about labels, especially as far as kink and sexuality is concerned. It kind of annoyed me, in retrospect, that Bob completely dismissed me as a top because that’s not the dynamic I have with him.

I’m trying more and more to understand kink for the amorphous creature that it is. While there are conventions and protocols out the wazoo (in some cases, literally), at the end of the day, you find what works and run with it. It’s 2 AM and I’m fresh out of pontifications.

~ by Sascha on June 24, 2008.