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The
Pain Game Review by Marianne
Messina
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Cléo
Dubois: In Search of the Outer Limits
When
I think of gaming as in horse races and roulette tables, I think of how
some people bet small, yet bounce, holler, and cheer their number on,
as
if any of that would change their odds. Meanwhile, the quiet high
rollers
who have played it all, lost big and won big, wait so coolly for the
ball
to land on that number or the horse to cross that line, you'd scarcely
know they were in the game. Their energy is silent and turned inward.
The intensity of the two players
in Cléo Dubois' new S/M video The Pain Game comes from this
latter kind of energy. It is immediately obvious that both Brad Chapman
and Creed are bottoms experienced in the breathing and imaging
techniques
that make S/M play a deeper, more inward experience. As players, these
two resonate with Dubois' style. Her approach is always quiet, her
movements
slow, her voice soft. She seems to have the primal concentration of a
predator,
blending with the environment until the culminating strike. I noticed
this
quality the first time I saw Dubois demonstrate flogging. She seemed to
be at the reins of a vast energy, holding it in, holding, waiting for
the
moment when it would explode in the stroke.
"Absorb all the pain into your
body quietly," she instructs Brad at one point in the video, as if
noise
would diffuse some power greater than a scream. When she said this, she
had just clamped tiny toy clothespins all around the lip of Brad's cock
bulb, and she was removing the clothespins one by one. "What goes on,
must
come off," she teased.
Brad, a comely, well-toned man,
was hooded at that point, lying on his back on a table in Cléo's
dungeon. Light, unobtrusive musical sounds crept along in the
background.
Suspension ropes pulled on his nipple rings; his feet were spread and
suspended
off the end of the table; his arms were rope-tied to his sides while
some
very intricate rope and knot work imprisoned his balls.
When she first started topping,
Cléo informs us in a biographical segment of the video, she didn't
want to "deal with" bondage—too complicated. She started simply by
doing
what she knew, which was spanking and whipping. Then "little by little"
as people brought their fantasies to her, her repertoire gained more
variety
and complexity. Now if you see Dubois at a demonstration, she will most
invariably incorporate ropes and knots into the scene. She appears to
work
slowly and cautiously with the rope, yet in no time, the bottom is
bound
or suspended, firm and fast.
In the negotiation session with
Brad, which takes place early on in the video as a fire dances in the
fireplace
behind them, Brad tells Cléo that he really enjoys bondage a lot.
"It gets me out of my head and lets me fly to places," he adds.
The negotiation scene is real,
as are all the scenes in this video, exactly as they would be if you
experienced
a session with Dubois. The play scenes take place in her private
dungeon
("My dungeon is quite the place," she tells Brad. "So I've heard," he
answers).
Negotiation, a most important part of the exchange, establishes how
each
person can get the most out of the scene. In the video's introduction,
Dubois points out that the uninitiated are led to associate S/M only
with
brutality: "I don't see anywhere the concept of consensuality or mutual
enjoyment." When she negotiates with Brad she says, "I like the pain to
turn whoever I'm playing with on." She and Brad agree that Brad would
like
to push his limits. "When I bottom, it's the same for me," Cléo
admits, "I like a little incentive... that I might have to stretch my
limits."
In the scene, Cléo feeds
Brad's bondage fantasy while also pushing him to accept that extra
measure
of pain. She flogs him, alternating between light strokes and heavy
ones,
instructing softly, "I want you to breathe." Then she picks up the
intensity
until Brad's whole torso trembles and he appears to be crying. She
eases
up and approaches him, and then begins to slowly rub her fingers over
his
back. "You needed that," she says. But shortly she stands back and
resumes
the flogging. "Just go there," she tells Brad, issuing some of the
hardest
blows yet. When she is done, he is sobbing quietly and she goes around
in front of him, gently touches his face, then his chest. She has
successfully
tested his limits. He never said the safe word, "yellow."
Despite the hushed, almost
spiritual
atmosphere of the video, with delicate sounds by Frank E. Truncale
ranging
from Indian percussion, strings, and flute, to simple drumming, it is
as
intense as everyone from Annie Sprinkle to Dossie Easton says it is.
Part
of the intensity comes from Cléo's manner, from the degree to which
she pushes her bottoms—and Truncale gets credit for always turning the
music "edgy," or lightly adding effects to the natural sounds, just
when
the pain levels approach a zenith. But also, The Pain Game is
very
visual. Filmed with two cameras, it shows the bottom one moment and
Cléo
the next. This helps the viewer get a better feeling for the mutual
experience
of this power exchange.
Cléo, with her dark, boldly
red-tipped hair, is dressed impeccably in corsetry by B.R. Creations.
Creed,
the second bottom in the video, is a stunning spectacle with her soft
curly
blond hair, blue eyes, and perfectly trim body. Not only that, but Cléo
works some ritualistic and artistic elements into Creed's scene that
are
visually quite powerful. The first is a bloodless ritual piercing, 18
small
needles forming half circles on Creed's chest—nine needles at the base
of each breast. This scene shows Cléo inserting the needles one
by one, in close-up, including the coup de grâce, a needle
through each nipple.
The second creation is one Cléo
calls "the bird," because she attaches a series of clothespins, each
decorated
with a white feather, in two rows down Creed's back. Some of Cléo's
bottoms have called this the "zipper" scene because of the way the rows
are suddenly yanked off the skin and leave zipper-like tracks behind.
"I'm
making you wings," Cléo tells Creed, who is kneeling on all fours.
"Yes, Madame," Creed responds, "I am looking forward to flying."
The operant metaphor, flying,
seems to be something Creed can internalize. "Your bird is flying," she
says after the excruciating process of her twin nipple piercing. And
later,
when Cléo attaches a "leash" (made of strings and rubber bands)
to the needles in Creed's flesh, she begins to pull on them. "Let's see
how hard the bird can fly." As she tugs on the leads, Creed arches
backwards
and together they create a sort of bouncing motion. In the midst of
Creed's
heavy breathing, Cléo steps between Creed's legs and rubs her knee
into the white-pantied crotch. This is one place where Truncale takes
the
natural sounds, like talking ("Do you want more?" "Yes, Madame." "Go
for
it.") and breathing and gives them a high-speed echo to magnify the
sense
of euphoria in the room.
In the final scene of the video,
shot in Cléo's office, she tells how she got from the strictly raised
Catholic schoolgirl in France to the S/M educator and player she is
today.
This section is spliced with photographs (a particularly precious one
shows
a winsome four-year-old Cléo) from Dubois' personal history. She
alludes briefly to the couple's work she does and to the spiritual
component
of S/M that has taken on more importance as she has matured in the S/M
arts. In this section, you get a glimpse of how deep Cléo's work
runs, and a glimpse of the life S/M. |
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Pain
Game & Tie Me Up
the
DVD Collection!
Item #670-7156
DVD 108
minutes
Price: $40.00
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