A Letter to my Bottom(s): A Top's Perspective.

Previously on T.S.R

…I am no new flesh, no brand new electronic in brittle Styrofoam packaging, smelling all naive and fresh. I have an ex who later turned a gay porn actor. He is online being fucked. You want the link?

...When they demand: yoghurt-flavored baked chicken, coconut rice, my mystery spices sauce and stewed spinach-no stems please-, I think what alien creature is this?

…I have preached and mis-preached at the temple-Tacos Balcony; screwed pre-prime meat, kept and paid school fees for a man.

…He chats like someone we can find a ranch in Laikipia, make a home and just read and write.

By J. Sisulu

In the dynamics of the gay game, amidst the confusion of roles and the politics of labels if (and that is a qualified if) one settles to the role called bottom then one settles for power. Real power.

Dear Bottom. Kindly have a seat. I have a mandate here and I will get right to it in simple points:

1. Power.

You may not realize it per se but self declared, self loving and flaunting it bottoms are at the apex of gay power. They send “please call me” and sure a reverse call shall be placed to them. They sulk when at a club and not only shall the bill be paid but a relocation to Westie shall ensue. I once dated a bottom who after a weekend of heavy screwing went for a Sunday gay bash in Makadara and was arrested because neighbours saw men kissing on the balcony and called cops. There is no prize for guessing who went to bail him out. Now that is power, physical and psychological power over another man. 

2. Coitus Operandi.

I have scientific proof (don’t ask me to quote the journal that published the findings – we are a family blog and citations will ruin your reading enjoyment!) that bottoms enjoy the operation and performance scientifically referred to as Coitus better and more than women. The constant thumping on to the prostrate which is the nerve centre of sexual arousal gives them an upper hand in the game of life. So long as the man hole is properly oiled, the bottom is laughing all the way to sexual seventh heaven. Whilst the top juggles pumping, ensuring the man hole is well oiled, wanking jerking off the bottoms man piece, kissing et al, the bottom only twists around to ensure the top is hammering his prostrate right and square!

But a bottom must get schooled. Don’t expect this proficiency from the class of 2013 bottoms . It takes time and skill and well some initial pain. Once schooled its constant sexual nirvana.  

3. Green Grass syndrome.

Bottoms (Most) suffer from the grass is greener on the other side syndrome. You get overfed with the power stated above and get addicted to the extent you think you are gods with an ego to march. High on power they disappoint, cheat and mistreat one top after another. They are with one top and think some better top is somewhere out there. They see a fellow bottom whose top lives in Kilimani, drives a huge Japanese recon while shopping at galleria and he wants him. So the Umoja top is promptly dropped and the bottom is fighting a fellow bottom over a man. A man!!!!  In between friendships are broken, loyalties shift, hearts are broken and you pick up a drug thingy- “shitundu, cigarettes, alcohol and ecstasy. (Believe you me, ex is on available. A pal who works for some airline dishes it out to all the bottoms that frequent his apartment). Soon you my dear bottom is swallowing every shade of man piece that dangles around you.  And the labels follow, “takataka ya kanjo” (the local municipality trash), “Envy’s register-keeper” etc. Bottoms dear, grass ain’t greener on the other side and if it is, it’s probably growing on sewage. Beware brother bottom, beware.

4. Age and cycle of life.

Bottom, you won’t be forty and fab. So rock it now and rock it great. Dress in those red skinnies (am told red is in or has it since been tossed out?), rock the geeks, venetian and whatever eye-wear. Pick the loudest colours, say luminous and rule the dance floor. Sag your pants and wear the 4k supras. Snap them fingers and shake the bubble butt like its hot mandazi (bun). Forty is coming and coming fast. So if you are young and bottom rock it until you drop it.  Now, if you are forty and bottom, well you know what it means to be lonely. You have written the book, done the book tour and lectures. And woe unto you if you were lucky to escape HIV or if you have it and you are nicely on retrovirals and you didn’t find a man to keep in your twenties. At forty, tops your age are married with two or three kids and whereas they are still on the market, let’s be honest here: a forty year old bottom does not appeal. At forty you must have a support network of fellow oldies that congregates every evening and talk about the good old days of Tom Mboya’s Pipes, and drink Tusker mixed with Sprite.     

5. Dear bottom, be a man, please. 

Fine you are bottom, you have a feminine side to you, and you love a man piece inside you. Yes to all that but please be a man. I don’t mean don’t do drag, snap fingers and sashay around. Hell no, by all means do that. Use make up the much I care, live your life loud. But please be a man. Go to college and get a job and most importantly keep a job.

Being a bottom is no licence to sleep the entire day on a top’s bed and in his sheets, watch his cable TV, clear his refrigerator, wait for his mboch (house help) to wash your clothes, wait for him to toil the whole day and come back to make supper for you, ask for airtime and fare to town to drop off some Real Husbands of Hollywood C.D’s (burnt on the said top’s laptop) and ask for M-Pesa so that you buy your pals Pizza. Wait, pizza is junk food! Hallo tummy watcher?

No top wants a toddler for a bottom. I beseech thee: Go get the damn papers, get and KEEP a job. No partying till you call in sick or showcase some gay drama at work that they can’t keep you. Save, invest so that when you are forty and lonely, you can sit with fellow oldie bottoms and whine about the days you had power to make a top buy the dream holiday to Maldives and you at least paid for the return tickets cause you had your own change - so that the tusker/sprite sipping support network can have several venues to meet, in the leafy ends of town say Nyali, Karen, the Naivasha Country house or the Laikipia ranch hacienda. Bottom, be a man. 

Well, I am not an intellect but in my view a power bottom is one who has good control of his behavior when around people and when in bed. He just doesn’t get laid for the sake of getting laid, but does things he knows is right and augurs well for his own pleasure and that of his partner.

 J. Sisulu

Next week on T.S.R the conversation continues:

and Cole gets even…

…a new guy huh..legs and arms entwined, his head positioned across the guy’s chest, in all probability a hairy one, the kind of chest that men of his taste had, his hands probably resting on his balls whose size is comparable to grape fruits breathing heavily after a moment of sin

 …‘Relax baby’ he says to me breathing heavily. ‘Ukikaza rasa ndio itazidi kuwa uchungu’ (If you clench your butt it will be more painful)…

 …Mister if you gonna subject my ass to all that fire, (flicks an imaginary weave) you got to feed me. Why all the bile?

 …Huh, you say bottoming for a guy makes you a lesser man? I hate to break it to you (and of course your shrink). I am bottom, you give the orders, and I take them. Never apologized for it. Maybe you should try it out!
...My ass is only exit, no entry!

The author is a writing enthusiast. His short story ‘Motel Ngara’ appears on the ezine Storymoja. Storytime Africa listed one of his stories 'A Married Man' for African Roar 2012. He also authored the 2-part ‘Spheres’ article that ran on T.S.R in June 2012.