I recently did a co-topping scene in the dungeon that had a little backstory to it, and it led to an experience I’ve never had before.

There’s a woman in the local community that I’m friends with. She’s a bottom, and she seems to enjoy playing hard (judging from the marks in the photos she posts on Fetlife), so I asked her if she would be interested in playing sometime. We discussed it a bit, and I also discussed it with her top (who I’m also friends with), and it was decided that if I was going to play with her it would be in a co-topping situation along with him.

Fine by me. I’ve done that before, and it’s fun.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a dungeon party that all three of us were going to attend. I had suggested we play then, but the top said that he wasn’t planning on doing impact that night. Again, fine by me; I suggested we instead wait until a play party we’re all going to in November.

But then, that Friday night, the top approached me and asked if I’d be interested in joining them for a scene.

I was surprised, but happy to hear it. I had another scene before that, but after that one I would be glad to join them.

When I got to them, about 45 minutes later, he was applying rope to her, so I stood off to the side and watched, waiting. Once she was ready, I asked him who I should negotiate with (since he’s her top, officially). He seemed a bit taken aback by the question, but said that I should negotiate with him. So I did — I asked my usual negotiation questions, and he checked in with her for a few of them. Once that was done, we played, and it was super fun, and she had a ton of marks afterward.

The unusual thing, for me, was someone negotiating on behalf of the bottom I was going to play with. I’ve done something slightly similar — at Crimson Moon 2019 I asked someone to play, and she said to ask her top, so I asked her top and he gave his blessing. But since that was just spanking, and this scene was a little more involved, I felt it important to negotiate a little more.

Even though I trusted the top to have the bottom’s best interests at heart, I still checked in a few times, and we joked around a little bit (because that’s what I do) even as I spanked her pretty darn hard. I wanted her to enjoy herself (she told me she did, multiple times), but I also wanted to make sure I didn’t break any boundaries — for her or for him. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t, but whenever I play with someone for the first time I always want to be extra-careful. Sometimes it leads to the scene being less intense than the person might like, but that’s why there’s future scenes.

You’ve probably seen on Fetlife profiles a phrase similar to “if you want to play with me, ask my top/dom/master/protector DomlyDomMcDomerson69420”. This wasn’t quite like that. There was a level of trust that I had already built with both people. Had I not been friends with both of them, had I not talked to them both beforehand, I wouldn’t have gone along with just negotiating with him.

If you are invited to join a scene and pre-negotiation hasn’t happened, or if you don’t know both people well enough to trust that they both have each other’s best interests at heart, don’t join in. When in doubt, just say no. Or just say “maybe another time.” No amount of fun scene activities is worth possibly hurting someone in a way they don’t want to be hurt.