“Here, Bottom. Put this in your mouth,” S says.

“Yes, sir,” I mumble, but I open my hole willingly.

It’s dark in here, and there seem to be many people around. Are they watching the three of us, or are they too involved in their own scenes to pay attention? It’s pretty intense, whichever. I look up and his dark eyes are commanding. W sits to one side, watching intently as I guide the fat meat onto my tongue. It’s a lot to take at once.

“You like that, don’t you?” she says. I do.

Of course I do. It’s a remarkable wedge of breaded pork torchon, with a snappy dijon sauce that really cuts through the unctuous pieces of meat inside. A deep-fried mozzarella stick, made of pork head. We’re at Momofuku Ssäm in the East Village for dinner.

See, I’m a bit of a social bottom. More, when it comes to food, I’m a power bottom. Steven and Winnie are food tops. And last night on 2nd Avenue, the three of us got into some serious pig play.

It started in the cab on our way to drinks. I tried to pay as we got out near the Angelika but W wouldn’t let me. Okay, I said, I’ll play bottom tonight. Yep, said S, just keep that up, hear? At the Pegu Club, with our greenish gin cocktails almost gone, S dominated me again. “Eat that last half devilled egg. It’s yours.” I demurred, but he forced it on me. He seemed to enjoy the power.

Later, as we sat down to dinner, W had our Trebbiano d’Abbruzzo corked and chilled (she had bought it and brought it because it goes so well with the food here). She was already limiting what I’ll taste, choosing what relationships I would have, bending me to her ideas of food-and-wine pairings. It was hot.

I like to be led. I like to respond. I like to play my role and feel a food top’s power flow over and through me. I enjoy tasting other people’s experience.

I got up to wash my hands.

When I come back, Winnie and Steven have stopped studying the menus. He has been here four times. She, eleven. I was still a dewy virgin. As I pick up the plain printed sheet to see the options, W tells me, “Yeah, I’ve pretty much decided what we’re going to eat, cause I know all the stuff here. So I’m just going to order.” Bottom.

She doesn’t say it this time, but I hear the word in my head, a little pork-inflected parseltongue whisper.

“The mackerel looks pretty good,” I offer.

“You want mackerel?” She shoots me a look.

No. I look down. By your command, mistress.

W rattles off items to the waiter—oysters, pork buns, tripe salad, bánh mì, mackerel, brussels sprouts, the torchon. We’ll have ham for dessert. If I’m good.

Waitaminnit. Did she say mackerel? She did, and when it comes, it’s really good. Fresh, mildly pink, with ponzu, daikon, and umeboshi. Bottom has done well. (See, bottoms are not entirely passive. Their role is to accept, to receive, to obey, but also to suggest and engage. The top speaks the will, but there is movement in the dance, some give and take, beneath all that dominance.)

S cuts our food into threes, and tells me which piece to take. When I haven’t got enough fish sauce on my crispy sautéd sprouts, he practically grabs my wrist in his firm grip and makes me dip further into the bowl. The baguette-meat-terrine-julienned-pickle bánh mì is divided into two crunchy pieces, and he tells me that he and W are going to share one. The other is for me. He pushes the plate at me. I have to take it all.

“We’re having ham now,” W announces. At this point, I’m wide open. I’m hers to stuff however she wants. “You’ll like it, it’s good.” She selects the Benton’s from the menu’s country ham subsection and when it arrives, S grabs a piece of ham and eats it just like that, naked. In front of me. W snarls at him for not gracing the perfect pink-and-white slice with some redeye gravy and eating it on toast. “Do it like this,” she tell me.

Even among tops, there’s a top. The two of them have been tag-teaming me all night, but over this plate of ham, she’s got a little will on him. Alpha top. I try the ham plain first, to please S. It’s salty and remarkable, and the fat sweet like prosciutto. I double back quickly to follow W’s guidance—toast, gravy, ham—and service her with a smile. Oh yes, it’s very good that way, I say. They both look pleased. I know what I’m doing.

“Don’t even think about it, Bottom,” they say, as the bill comes. I let them extract their pleasure from me. Domination, acquiescence; strength, appreciation. I give it up one final time and turn my gaze downward. I am full; they are sated. A slow smile creeps across my face, but this one I don’t show to them.

Yes, I am a food bottom. And we are always in control.