THE KING GAME
If the master is not happy, he snaps his fingers and his servant dies (to be instantly replaced by another servant, ad infinitum). The game is a competition to see which servant can survive the longest, and it makes the players exquisitely attentive to each other.
...
I place a master on a throne, or arrange him/her comfortably on a sofa with lots of cushions and grapes and other comforts. Then I say, 'If anything irritates you, no matter how minor, snap your fingers and your servant will die and we'll send in a replacement.'
I appoint a timekeeper to time how long the servants survive.
'We'll call fifteen seconds good! And twenty seconds excellent! Anyone like to try for twenty-five?'
This gives the masters permission to be severe, but even so, some will frown and allow their servants to make blunder after blunder. I interrupt such scenes and point out the moments when the master became irritated:
'You wanted to kill him after three seconds because his demeanour challenged you, but you thought that wouldn't be fair. Then you wanted to kill him because he cringed. Then you wanted to kill him because he asked you what you wanted. Then you wanted to kill him because he passed right in front of you on the way to the drinks cabinet. Then you wanted to kill him because he took a position behind you that made you feel uncomfortable. How will our servants learn if you're so forgiving?'
Often the masters have no idea that the servant is annoying them.
'Are you biting your lip and frowning?' I say.
'Er . . . yes.'
'Well, that's a sign that you're not happy, so kill your servant!'
Or I'll say, 'You're shirting about on your throne. Snap your fingers if you feel restless and we'll try a new servant!'
'But he hasn't done anything wrong!'
'The servants have to make being onstage a pleasure, and yet you're visibly unhappy. The sooner you kill a bad servant, the sooner we'll find one that it's a pleasure to work with!'
Or 'You didn't like it when she shoved her elbow into your face.'
'I wanted to give her a chance.'
'Don't give her a chance. She's been pestering you from the moment she stepped onstage, isn't that right?'
'Yes.'
'Well, if you don't kill her, she won't improve.'
'What did I do?' she says, astonished, because she'd thought she was succeeding.
'Well, for a start, you took big steps and waved your arms about. No servant is allowed to do that. It looked as if the regular servant was ill and they'd brought in a scullery-maid.'
I turn to the master: 'Then she stood over you and made you feel so uncomfortable that you crossed your leg away from her (an unsuccessful James Bond did that when the baddie approached him), and then she held eye contact, forcing you to look away. And then she asked if there was anything you wanted and you didn't like having to make a decision.'
'True!'
I'll often ask the servants if they know why they were killed.
'No idea!'
'Perhaps the master can tell you.'
The master may not know either - masters are told to kill on impulse, but sometimes they'll say things like 'You weren't respectful!' or 'You were too servile!'
If masters kill on impulse, I can usually tell them why they were irritated, and this gives them insight:
'The servant asked you if you wanted anything - that's why you killed her.'
The servant protests: 'But I'm a servant! Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?'
'Servants are paid to take the weight of trivial decisions away from the masters.'
'That's right!' interrupts the master. 'You were supposed to know what I wanted!'
The servant still looks baffled.
...
After the students have floundered for a while I advise them to:
* Enter with a purpose
* Never say, 'Is there anything you need, ma'am?'
* Be physically and vocally discreet
* Convey that the space belongs to the master and that you intrude into
it only when necessary
* Don't look servile - or as if waiting to be punished
* Don't out-stare (out-status) the master
* Don't leave awkward pauses
One of the things this makes me think about is how hard it is to listen to what I want as a dom, and insist on it in a scene: someone may be acting out submissiveness to me, but they might not be doing it in the way I prefer. And it can be subtle issues of body language and personal space - I might sense "impertinence" without being able to put my finger on it. And we all know that there are some kinds of grovelling and offering of services that can be pushy and offputting, if only subliminally.
There's a bigger philosophical issue here about D/s: should my goal be to train someone how to be the most pleasing possible submissive to me? For some submissives, that's their dream. They might have hard or soft limits - for example, not liking the word "obedience". But that's not really challenging, since within that, they want their behaviour to be shaped for my maximal pleasure.
On the other hand, many submissives may have a certain image of submitting that is their kink (like "looking servile"!), but it may not be precisely what I find most pleasing. For example, the idea of receiving corporal punishment for misbehaving. Or say being made to sleep at the foot of the bed. Neither are a big part of my fantasy life. But given that the reality is that we are equal, consenting grownups, negotiating what we want out of the relationship on the basis of some shared kink, there should be room for talking about that too. Although it gets more complicated when it comes to the idea of being picky about their micro behaviour, as in the Johnstone passage. But I'm interested to hear from people how they deal with this paradox in their D/s relationships (maybe the central paradox for D/s): how to be the king or queen, while still ensuring the other person is getting what they want.
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