Hotel

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There’s something really quite sexy about hotels. I’m not sure if I know what it is. Maybe it’s knowing that a sad and unappetising pannini is only ever a phonecall away. Or maybe it’s doing stuff in the window, because no-one will see and even if they do, they can’t stop you and you’re too far away to be easily identifiable...  Maybe it’s the free toiletries. God knows I nicked enough of those last time I was in a hotel. It didn’t help that the housekeeping cart was often parked near to my room, and I’d yoink a couple of extra bottles every time I walked past. I might have overdone that a bit, to be honest. It didn’t really dawn on me until I got to the airport and had to have my bags scanned as usual. The woman on the scanner looked at my bag as it went through the machine. Then looked at me. Then at the machine. Then back at me. Her face didn’t move, but she said “Really?” handed me two more of the plastic bag things you have to put your liquids in and then sent me to the back of the queue. When I’d embarrassedly shoved all of the tiny bottles of citrus-scented body lotion, or whatever, into their bags, and everything went through the scanner again, she didn’t even look up. She just shook her head slowly as my stuff passed though.

Anyway. 

Hotels, yes. I met a superhot guy at a film festival once, who told me later into our romancce, that hotel rooms really get him going. Actually, when I think back to the night we first got together... we’d got chatting and drinking and flirting and drinking and eventually I invited him back to my hotel room and he started to grin and said yeah, ok. 

To this day, I’m not sure if he was excited to be going back with me, or because I was staying in a hotel… Maybe he had his eye on the citrus-scented body lotion, but he was out of luck, because I’d already hidden the little bottles in my bag so that the housekeeping woman would replace them the next day, even though I didn’t strictly need them. This is the kind of diabolical shit I get up to in hotel rooms. Rock and fucking roll. Some people organise drug-fuelled orgies and chuck tvs out of windows. I steal the free toiletries and try to make a cheese toastie with the travel iron.

I thought about trying that once, actually. The orgy thing, I mean, not the toastie. Although both would probably end up leaving the room in a horrible greasy mess… I’d been invited to a few “parties” in hotel rooms by guys on Grindr, but they always seemed to be too drug-fuelled to be fun. Then, one year as my birthday rolled round, I thought about getting a hotel room nearby and having a select group of hot naked friends over to share it with me, as a really sweaty and X-rated birthday party. That, to me, sounded proper rock and roll. Or, at least, grunt and squirm. Besides, hotel rooms are pretty much screaming out for you to try having sex everywhere. There’s all that space and random furniture to go at it like monkeys on. Pointless desk, uncomfortable sofa, suspiciously large shower… It’s almost like they’re inviting you to think up as many unusual arrangements of bodies... But the more I thought about arranging one of my own, the more I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. I mean, as fun as it sounds, trying to arrange a threesome in my own flat was like herding cats. Getting several more people together in a hotel room just sounds like more work. I could easily see it all falling apart and me just sat there by myself, celebrating my birthday by trying not to cry as I have a wank. And I do that at home most weekends for a fraction of the cost.

I think part of the thing with hotel rooms, apart from the citrus-scented body lotion, is the fact that someone else will come in during the day and tidy up for you. It’s like, eventually, some teenage part of me brain gets to go “See mum? I didn’t NEED to tidy my room! Someone else came and did it for me while I was looking!”. Which is great, because however nasty you get with the sexy times, whatever mess you make, the room magically re-sets itself while you’re out the next day. Or at least, you can pretend it does. Except, for example, if you have to come back to your room during the day and the housekeeping person is still there. Because then, not only do you know that they’ve probably worked out what you got up to, from the lube stains, the peanut butter and the half a roll of cling film strewn about the place, but it kind of takes the fun out of doing it again, as the face of the nice lady currently getting paid minimum wage to clean up after you drifts across your mind at an inopportune moment...

Although, to be honest, that’s not the most awkward hotel experience I’ve had. It comes close, but still.

I was in a hotel recently, far from home, and woke up at 2am completely jetlagged and unable to get back to sleep. So I switched Grindr on, since if I wasn’t going to sleep in the bed, I could at least find other things to do there. I got chatting to a nice German boy in the next hotel, who was in a similar jet-lagged boat and eventually he invited me over to ‘hang out’. I accepted, pulled on my jeans and headed out into the night to find his hotel. He met me in the lobby, which I thought was a very gentlemanly touch, and we headed up to his room ont he 27th floor to do rather less gentlemanly things to each other. Eventually, when we were done, I got dressed as he started to doze off, we said goodbye and I headed out, without even attempting to nick his citrus-flavoured body lotion. And this is where his gentlemanliness unravelled a bit. I walked down the corridor into the lift, pressed the button for the ground floor and nothing happened. I pressed it again. Still nothing. Then, with a sinking feeling, I realised that to make the lift move, you needed a room key. Which I didn’t have because this wasn’t my hotel. I checked Grindr, but he was offline. Unsurprising. To be honest, I’d have been kinda hurt if he was still on there looking for someone else to do him properly this time.

I headed back to the corridor, not really enjoying the thought of waking him up to borrow his key, and then realised I didn’t know his room number. I hadn’t needed it on the way in because I’d just followed him. The corridor stretched off in front of me, rows of doors. No idea which was the right one, and hammering on a random door at 4 in the morning, hoping I’d guessed right didn’t seem like a good plan. Ok, so, stairs. From the 27th floor. Not the best, but at least I was heading down, so gravity wasn’t an issue. Except when I got to the stairs, the doors had a big sign saying “WARNING. THIS DOOR IS ALARMED. USE ONLY IN AN EMERGENCY” and evacuating an entire hotel at stupid o’clock didn’t seem like a great idea. At this point, I started to panic a little. I didn’t fancy sitting around in the lift for a couple of hours until someone with a key used it to go to the ground floor. So I started wandering around, trying any unmarked doors. Eventually, I found a supply cupboard or something that had a phone in it, and pressed random buttons until I got through to reception or concierge or room service or something. 

Oh, hello, yes, I was just visiting a friend in his room, and now I’m at the lift but I don’t have a key to use the lift…

Ah, ok. What room number?

I can’t remember.

No worries - what’s your friend’s name? I’ll look them up on the system.

I… don’t know…

There was a pause.

Ok… I’ll send security up to escort you out of the building.

Security, in this case, turned out to be an old man who knew EXACTLY what was going on and didn’t try very hard to hide the fact that we was laughing to himself all the way to the lobby.