I’m so thrilled that the contents of Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories just got finalized. I’ll post the Table of Contents here soon, but for now, I can share my introduction to the book (it may get tweaked a little in copyediting, but I couldn’t resist):
Introduction: Made for Sex
Hotel rooms are, in a word, hot. The minute I enter one, I want to strip off all my clothes and dive naked between the sheets, whether I have a lover there to share in the indulgence with me or not. Much more so than my own bed, hotel beds make me horny. They are, or at least, seem to me, to be made for sex.
Hotels give us the chance to unwind, relax, and, if we choose, become someone else. Behind closed doors, we are free to frolic, fuck, and flaunt ourselves. It doesn’t matter whether the hotel is in a faraway land or in your own hometown; the point is, it’s a clean slate. It’s not your home filled with all the reminders of what you could or should be doing. Other people have fucked and will fuck in the bed you’re about to sleep in; that can be a turn-on in and of itself. It’s your borrowed space, for an hour, a day, a night, or longer, and in that time, you can claim it, control it, use it for your own naughty purposes. Other guests are prowling the hotel, checking in, checking out, banging and getting banged against the wall. There’s a sense that anything can happenæand quite often, it does.
To me, the anonymity of hotel rooms, their personality wiped clean with each new guest, is part of their appeal. They beckon us with their welcoming ways. They offer an escape from the everyday, a chance to let loose and become someone else. In Do Not Disturb, I wanted to capture the ways hotels fit into our erotic imagination, whether they’re a necessity or a luxury. Hotels let us explore parts of our passion that get left behind in the rush of daily life.
The authors whose work you are about to read understand perfectly the allure of a fresh hotel roomæor a hotel lobby. Indeed, the entire atmosphere a hotel offers can simply scream of sex. This goes for five-star and by-the-hour joints. They each have something to add, and here you’ll find romps between lovers and strangers, reunions and quickies, as these characters indulge in their new settings.
Many of the characters here use hotels for secrecy, relying on the unspoken code of employees to never share what goes on. Others use them for flirting, for catching their prey. Many need a hotel room in order to engage in an affair or a roleplay. Whether exploring Japan’s love hotels in Isabelle Gray’s “So Simple a Place” or getting “A Room at the Grand” for a very special callgirl, the men and women you’ll read about get off on their surroundings. The hotel itself becomes a player in their affair, a sign of the lengths they’ll go to be together.
And this book wouldn’t be complete without some extramarital affairs that can only happen in hotel rooms, like the lovers in Lisabet Sarai’s “Reunion” or Gwen Masters’s “Memphis.” For these characters, the hotel room takes on added meaning for it is an ever-changing venue where their relationships grow, where they can savor each other’s bodies without their spouses knowing, or so they hope.
Hotel rooms are also perfect for quickies, those fast fucks that you only need an hour or so for, made all the more arousing for their brevity. In Saskia Walker’s “The Lunch Break,” a sultry waitress pounces on a diner, and in my “Hump Day,” a couple shed their business personae once a week to become the kind of people they could never be (or fuck) at home.
Even in the more innocent stories here, the vacation sex, the getaways among couples, there’s something just a little clandestine about these hotel room hookups. That air of perversion is what makes getting serviced in a hotel (or motel) infinitely sweeter than doing it anywhere else. It’s a private way of being an exhibitionist, of leaving the staff and fellow guests guessing (or parading around in your hotel robes). Sometimes it’s a neighbor who’ll lure you from the safety of your relationship, such as the lesbian who teaches Madlyn March’s protagonist a thing or two in “Heart-Shaped Holes,” or the way Elizabeth Coldwell’s fellow jurors wind up relieving some tension in between trial time.
There’s a hotel in New York, the Library Hotel, that has long intrigued me. They offer an Erotica Suite, filled with strawberries, whipped cream, red roses, erotic dice, Mionetto Presecca, edible honey dust, and a Kama Sutra pocket guide. They’re upfront in their intention that you truly savor their package, as well as your lover’s. I’ve never stayed there, or done more than pass by. In some ways, I prefer to keep its beauty safely tucked away in my imagination, the kind of room I’d use with a rich lover from out of town who’d seduce me with his or her accent, whisper to me in a foreign tongue before taking that foreign tongue and licking me all over. That’s another thing about hotel rooms: they are perfect to fantasize about. In them, and in your dreams about them, you can have any kind of sex with anyone (or everyone) you want.
I can tell you that the sex I’ve had in hotel rooms has been some of the hottest of my life. I get off on knowing that neighbors may hear me, and in fact, that brings out the exhibitionist in me. The sexiest porn director I know took me to his hotel room in Manhattan one night and while his porn star girlfriend was elsewhere, we indulged in one of the most dirty, powerful, delicious fucks I’ve ever had, and when he came all over my chest, I reveled in it. I didn’t wash it off, either, but proudly let it dry on my skin and couldn’t stop the smile that found its way to my lips as I took the subway home.
Once, in some random seedy L.A. hotel, another lover and I hadn’t brought any condoms, and instead had to make do with a paddle and a butt plugæpoor us. In a seedy Midtown motel, I spent a few hours romping with a very sexy young man who showed me all kinds of ways I could twist my body to extend my pleasure, then felt a shocked, naughty thrill as he entered the bathroom while I peed and watched me before dipping his fingers into the stream. Something I likely wouldn’t have allowed at home became acceptable in a place I’d likely never find myself again. And when I’m in a hotel room by myself, tucked away under the sheets, I feel naughty and decadent, even if the only party guests I’m hosting are my fingers and my pussy.
While I doubt hotels are going to be stocking this book in their dresser drawers alongside The Bible, I hope that it finds its way into hotel romps. I picture lovers reading aloud to one another as they get ready to mark their hotel room, or in the afterglow, perhaps leaving it behind for the next lucky guest. I hope hotel staff spirit it away and read it during their downtime. I hope the next time you enter a hotel lobby, even if you have no intention of getting busy with anyone you may find there, that you’ll at least notice the many erotic possibilities that greet you.
My most recent hotel rendezvous was at the ultra-fancy art-filled Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis. I was staying by myself for two nights, and while I didn’t share my bed, the room itself beckoned to me. I found myself getting horny as I dove between the covers, wishing I had a lover to share my good fortune with. Now I have this book, which I hope you’ll take with you on your travels, perhaps read it while lounging in a hotel lobby, or whisper from it into your lover’s ear before you make so much noise in your hotel room bed that someone calls security. However and wherever you read this book, I hope it turns you on as much as it does me.
Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York City
photo of Rachel Kramer Bussel on the set of the 
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