On Denial (and topping from the bottom…)

I have, at best, a mixed relationship with pain when it comes to sex. My own appetite for it is very low – I can tolerate, and will sometimes even enjoy, a good spanking, but anything beyond that just does nothing for me, either physically or psychologically. I am not a masochist.

I’m not a sadist either. I am more willing to inflict pain, but even that is guided largely by my partner’s desire for it; beating someone’s arse till it’s bright red, then repeatedly slapping her face while we fuck (for example), is not a sequence of activities that I find intrinsically pleasurable, but if it makes her happy then I have absolutely no problem incorporating it into our play – after all, the more aroused and stimulated she is, the better the sex for both of us.

Still, I will never be an impact play expert, because it’s not really where my heart lies. If someone needs pain to be a regular, structured part of their D/S dynamic, I am probably not the guy for them – and I’m ok with that. I’m much more comfortable when power and control are used and expressed in other ways, and perhaps foremost among those is denial.

I’ve written about denial before, specifically in the context of orgasms. Telling my partner not to come, and then watching that agonized struggle play out on her face, is one of the single hottest things I ever get to do; likewise, having to respond to that demand, when it’s made by someone who knows just how (and how far) to push me, hits all of my submissive sweet spots…and then some.

That knowledge is crucial, because at its best denial is an unavoidably (inter)active process. One of the biggest sins anyone can commit during D/S play is to conflate submission with passivity. I don’t want to fuck someone who is passive when we’re together – who merely wants to lie there and be done to. When I top someone, it’s important to me not just to take something from her, but to make sure I take something she really, really wants, whether that’s an orgasm, or my cock, or her freedom of movement…or simply the permission to do whatever it is she’s craving at that particular time.

I was thinking a lot about that the other day – about those “oh pleeeeeease” moments, when my partner is so desperate for something that she will literally beg me to give it to her. It’s intoxicating in a way that makes me wonder whether I am a sadist after all, though ultimately I think I get off less on her pain than on the anticipation of the noises she’ll make when I finally relent. That’s how I know I’m doing it right – those fucking incredible noises, and the way they hit me somewhere so deep that I want to forget about whatever it is we’re doing and just pour myself into her.

Moments like that can be triggered by all sorts of things. The one that prompted this post – the denial I’m unbelievably hot for right now – is what I guess could only really be described as the literal form of topping from the bottom. And it goes a little bit like this…

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Your thighs are visibly trembling as I hold you in place above me. I look up at your body, stretched and somehow incredibly vulnerable – though maybe that’s more a function of the way you’re staring down with parted lips and a question in your eyes that we both know you don’t need to ask out loud.

But eventually will.

Your position is superficially dominant – you have the high ground, gravity is on your side – but you retain only the illusion of control. My hands cup your arse in a way that feels at once casual and fiercely proprietorial. They are loose and relaxed, bouncing you gently as if they’re simply weighing you up. Taking your measure.

I have different options. I can settle under your buttocks like this and merely take whatever weight you try to push down on me, in an effort to get to my cock. Or I can take a firmer grip on your biceps, and make it more of a tussle, as I have to almost lift you up in order to keep you in place. Either way, you understand that this is all about my hands now – my arms too. What they will and won’t let you do. Where they’ll push and pull your body, as you wriggle and fight against them. There’s a physicality to the way we grasp at each other; it’s dominance that I have to actively assert, and which flows directly from the greater strength and weight of my body.

If I feel like it I can lift you away from my cock to straddle my face, where any initial whine of disappointment will taper off with each soft stroke of my tongue. I’ll jam my thumbs into your skin and brace myself into the mattress, allowing my lower back and thighs to take some of your weight as my arms hold you in a vice above me. I could make you come like this, almost against your will; you want to squeeze and shudder around my cock instead, and it’s only when you’re close that you start to waver, start to grind down impatiently as my tongue slips over your clit.

Denial is most effective when you make someone believe – even for just a second – that despite all previous evidence, it really is going to be this easy. That’s why I want you to feel the orgasm building. “Yes,” you’ll say, your voice shaky, “oh yes, please, just like that”, and I’ll nod up at you, my hands giving a little under your arse, letting you press harder against my mouth.

The further I push it, the more of a struggle it is for both of us when I stop – by this point, I’m almost as hungry to feel you come as you are. You clutch at the headboard, fingers scrabbling for purchase. I don’t want it to hurt, not really, but it’s hard not to be turned on by the anguish on your face as I wrestle you back towards my lap.

Fucking you like this would be so easy now. I could hold you open and thrust up hard, the muscles in my arse flexing and driving my cock a little deeper each time. With my hands on your hips, I could fuck you as hard like that as if I was kneeling behind you. Or I could fan my fingers out across your stomach, applying enough pressure to tilt your torso as my other hand supports your lower back; at that angle, depth won’t really matter, and I can almost just massage your cunt with as much or as little of my cock as I like.

I’m not sure you care which way I do it – not now, when you can feel the shaft sliding against you, thick and hot, and your hips are twisting jerkily as you try to manoeuvre me inside. This might be the bit I enjoy the most, and you know that, because I can never wipe the smirk off my face when I tease you with the tip, or force your fingers down to your swollen clit. The pre-fuck anticipation, mixed with the thrill of watching you suffer and squirm on top of me, is what will stay with me afterwards, and what I’ll wank over when you’re not there.

And no, I’m not afraid to let you know that I need this as much as you do, especially right now, with your cunt so wet that you’re almost sticking to my skin. I want you to know that – to feel me twitching against you, my arms straining and my stomach tense, just from the effort of holding back and denying you this thing that both of us now crave. In this position it’s impossible to feign indifference, so instead I’ll let you drink in the desire on my face. I’ll hold my breath each time my cock threatens to slip inside your cunt, and each time you’ll clench just a little harder, certain that I’m finally going to crack and give it to you.

There’s an intimacy in being able to see our different struggles mirrored in each other’s eyes. At its best, denial has a two-way cost; this shouldn’t be painless for me. Showing you the toll it takes will make it easier for you to be even more vulnerable in the future, I think.

Because it’s different when you’re spread out on your knees in front of me, waiting for the touch that might never come. That is power in absolute form; symbolic as well as material. There you are blind, and bereft of contact or reassurance. You cling greedily to every word I toss down towards you; to the seductive, agonizing brush of my velvet cock head along your slick cunt. I am omnipotent, God-like, and the sight of you prostrate in supplication only makes me want to deny you even more. I can wrap your hair in my fist as I tease you, or make you yelp with sharp smacks of your upturned arse. I can edge you with a vibrator as I ease the first inch or two of cock inside you, and when you ask to come, when you fucking dare to beg me for it, I can pull away completely, leaving you open and gasping with need.*

Here though, we are too closely entangled for that – too connected in every sense – and my control of events feels looser, more contingent. Here there will come a point where I simply can’t deny you any longer, because to do so would be somehow inhuman.

You have no mask when you’re on top of me like this; I can see what every careful touch and movement does to you. It is that which finally forces my hand, I think, and again it’s less sympathy than it is an impatient, almost gleeful desire to see the look of relief on your face, and to hear that long, low moan as I pull you slowly, firmly onto my cock. You toss your head back, eyes squeezed shut. Your thighs lock against mine, as if you’re afraid this might be a trick – that I’m going to lift you up and make you beg for it all over again – and I stroke your shoulders, your sides, in silent reassurance.

I’m still in no rush to make you come, but with the weight and heat of my cock inside you now I’m not sure you are either. You’re no longer frantic – it is easier to relax and submit like this, even while my hands continue to conduct your movements from their anchoring points at your hips and tits, your waist and throat. Depth and pace suddenly feel like secondary concerns. The ordeal is over, and you know that an orgasm is just around the corner.

You know it.

You think you know it…

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*Just so we’re clear, this is also awesome.