Master-or Mythtress?

I’ve decided I can’t possibly be a top. See, there’s some popularly held ideas about what defines a top, and they just don’t jive with my love life, or my social life. So I must be something entirely different.

For instance, tops get to have titles, and expect folks who aren’t their bottoms to use them. Think of Daddy Martha and Master Jeff, Goddess Hank and You Can Call Me Sir. I can’t be a top, because the only play name I ever considered taking on was Master Bates. That didn’t fly for obvious reasons.

I hear that tops are more important than bottoms. Woo. Imagine declaring a preference for a particular sexual/relationship energy, and suddenly becoming a higher being. Me, I always feel like I’m deserving of only as much respect as I wish to earn; I don’t feel more important than the bottoms I know, and I can just tell that I’m not a higher being. So I must not be a top.

Tops are experienced and competent experts. Real tops are born knowing how to flog, or how many layers of skin one may cut through safely. Not me. I don’t know how to do something until I’ve done it awkwardly a couple of times, I practice my skills (taught to me by both bottoms and tops) and I make the standard number of mistakes.

I know that tops are supposed to be dignified. Yet, I once did a scene when I had a bad allergy attack. I blindfolded the bottom so I could keep Kleenex wadded firmly up both nostrils lest my drippy snot fly out onto the carpet when I looked down. Dare you to think of that the next time you’re blindfolded during play.

Tops are never nervous when setting up for a date. Yeah, I fail miserably here, too. Think of me in seven-inch platform heels and a floor-length dress, tick-ticking nervously back and forth in my playspace, hearing my sweet lover’s footsteps on the stairs, and arranging myself in a nonchalant pose. Calm. Think calm. I wish I was a real top.

Wait. There’s something I’ve failed to consider. A friend of mine once observed that saying “Daddy has to go change her tampon” in the middle of play broke up the fantasy, brought real life into the scene, where it didn’t-at that moment-belong. Maybe all these ideas about tops are just that-fantasy material, and never, ever meant to mean anything in real life. Imagine that.

The perfect fantasy top also gets to be a regular human, with her own set of laudable traits and less-laudable foibles. If that’s the case, maybe I can be a top, after all.

* Elaine Miller is working on her omnipotence act.