Learning by doing

I've always been a fan of learning by doing, being the impatient type who likes to jump into things. Sometimes this works in my favour and at other times I should really wait to be taught, like when I was 17, got into the family car and promptly drove it into a gate.

But at least in my kinky endeavours as a bottom, learning by doing is exactly the right approach for me. I'll never know unless I try and as I grow more confident in myself and my ability to decide what I want, I'm being much more experimental and pushing my boundaries. Fortunately for me I'm experimenting with very experienced bottoms and tops and so far haven't done anything that's unduly traumatised me!

And in my brief topping career so far, it's certainly been a learning by doing exercise. As I posted previously I first topped a few months back with spanking and hairbrushing my friend C. The first minute he was over my lap was mostly me trying to find a rhythm and making my hand effective as an implement. It took me a while but I did manage to impart a spanking that counted and when I moved onto the hairbrush he really felt it. A good start to topping. He was brave and I was grateful he trusted me.

But I think the other night playing with Eliane, she pushed the boundaries of bravery and trust, offering up her bottom to a first time caner. (You can read her version of events here). Learning by doing may work for me but it could have gone horribly wrong for her. We had no toppy supervision and I was certainly feeling my way!

It ended up being an interesting experiment in many ways. I was very conscious of the burden of control being on me. I was in charge and although we both knew she could safe word at any time, the onus was on me to not push her to that point.

For the first strokes I concentrated on keeping the cane flat and tapping it down in a continuous rhythm, no one stroke was particularly hard but it was building as I kept going. It served as a nice warm up and Eliane was taking it well. I was getting a feel for the cane, how it would bounce, the angle it would land, trying to be accurate in the landing.

When I lifted the cane for the first proper stroke I flicked it down relatively gently. Accuracy was more important at this stage than a stroke that counted. The first 5 gradually built on each other, getting slightly harder, but nothing that disturbed Elaine too much until number 6 where she gasped as it flicked down. I liked that reaction.

That was the first 6. But as they were just a warm up for both of us, I bent her over for 12 more and these were much more serious. Feeling slightly more confident in my accuracy I flicked the cane harder and asked Eliane to count them out.

Again I started off slowly and got increasingly harder, with lots of time in between strokes for me to check both my accuracy and how Elaine was doing. The first 3 were warm ups, but the following 6 were certainly much harder, I wanted her to feel it now.

By counting she helped me to keep the caning to her pace, only counting when she was ready to continue and her gasps let me know how I was doing strength wise. Unfortunately for Eliane one or two of the strokes went astray but she continued to present her bottom to me. Wasn't she brave? But I also think we both wanted to finish what we started.

The last 3 were the hardest yet and I was fascinated by the cane's affect on her skin. How the flesh flattened on impact, went white and then a lovely red line appeared. Certainly a view I'm not familiar with. Once I'd finished I kept her bent over the sofa as I admired my handi-work then gave her a big hug and sincerely thanked her for offering her bottom to me for a self-taught caning class. I was quite proud of myself!

But apart from obviously learning how to use the cane (where to place it, how hard to go) and reading her reactions, I also was learning my own feelings on topping. I very much enjoyed wielding the cane, but more from the point of acquiring a new skill and making a half decent job of it than anything else. I loved the way she submitted so prettily for me and I was slightly awed and humbled by her trust and confidence to let me do this.

However, compared to when I'm bottoming, the feelings were very different. As much as I enjoyed the whole experience it wasn't a turn on for me. So for now topping is still just a nice interlude when there's nothing else on the menu. Fun, but ultimately not something I'll fantasise about.

That said if another pretty bottom presents itself to me, I'd have difficulty passing up another opportunity to play, not least for the kinky skill development ;)