Hotel

When I went down to the lobby looking to escape the corporate party, I never expected the bartender who would look at me like he knew exactly what I needed that night.

I could never tell them apart. One kissed me tenderly; the other tied me up and used me. It took me too long to realize there was never a mistake: they planned everything together.

I woke naked between the two of them, my body wrecked from the night before, and from the brush of that green ruler along my back I knew they weren’t finished with me yet.

For years his wife called me “the mistress.” But I never was. I was his sex worker, and this is the truth she never wanted to hear.

When I felt my sleeping son’s body pressed against my back that dawn, I did not move away. Something older than me chose for me, and I knew I no longer wanted to stop it.

He watched me from the armchair while I knelt in front of the stranger I’d picked at the bar. It was my first night being a whore.

I had tried it before and only felt pain. That night, in a hotel room with a stranger, I discovered how wrong I was.

I lay naked on the table on purpose, not covering myself, just to see what he’d do when he came in with the hot oil.

I’m a closet tranny. I’d spent months obeying his emails when he wrote that he’d be coming to my city, and I knew that afternoon he’d do with me everything he had ordered.

That night I put on the red thong, the fishnets, and the wig in front of the hotel mirror, and for the first time I didn’t recognize the same old boy.

We were newbies and nervous, but that couple sitting at the back of the club looked at us like they already knew exactly what we’d come for.

He had spent years perfecting an expression that revealed nothing. But that afternoon, in the hotel lobby, his eyes betrayed the one thing he must not feel for her.

She knew exactly what she wanted that night: a man who would look at her like she belonged to him and give her no reprieve. She only had to walk through that hotel room door.

She knocked on my door at midnight with red eyes and a broken voice. I didn’t expect the last night of the trip to end with my student in my bed.

When the whiskey spilled on my pink dress, I knew that wedding wouldn’t end the way I thought. I didn’t know the bride’s uncle would be waiting for me in the darkest hallway.

Three days at the beach, five friends, and a phone that was never turned off. I thought I was among innocent laughs; others saw it as a show.

When I arrived at the restaurant in my black dress with lace underneath, I already knew I wasn’t leaving there as the faithful wife I was pretending to be.

I had barely gone a few steps when my phone started vibrating nonstop. It was her, and she wasn’t going to let me get away that easily that night.

When my phone buzzes at four in the morning I know it’s him, that no one else wanted him tonight, and that he’ll pay anything if I show up.

I want to put on my wig, make myself up, and give in to a stranger who’s read my stories. One night only, no strings, before it’s too late.