06 Erotic Story: Room 412

[A Wednesday in a city that isn't mine]

The plane lands at four. By six I'm in room 412 of a hotel I won't remember the name of in a month. The bed is too big for one person. The window looks out over a river and a slow line of headlights crossing a bridge. I open the minibar, find a small whisky, and pour it because I can.

I've been doing this for three years. The flights. The hotels. The dinners with clients where you laugh at things you don't think are funny. I'm good at it. I'm also tired of it.

I drop my bag on the bed. I take off my tie. I unbutton the top of my shirt. I sit at the small desk by the window with the whisky in one hand and I scroll through my phone for ten minutes the way you do when you don't actually want to talk to anyone.

The hotel WiFi works. My ex is engaged. I see it on Instagram. I don't feel anything in particular. I close the app.

I take a long shower. The pressure is good — the only thing that's reliably good in a hotel like this. I stand under it longer than I need to. I think about her, my ex, and then I stop thinking about her, because that's a road I don't need to walk down tonight.

I think about the woman two seats down on the plane, the one with the book. I think about her hand on the page. I think about how she put her hair up and pulled it down twice in the same flight. I let myself.

When I come out of the bathroom, I'm half hard.

I sit on the edge of the bed in just the towel. I look at my bag on the chair. There's a small leather pouch in the inside pocket that travels with me everywhere now, the way other men travel with a razor. I bought it a year ago. I've stopped feeling weird about it.

I unzip it.

The stroker inside is dark grey, soft silicone on the inside, firmer on the outside. The shape is nothing — a sleeve, that's it. The point isn't what it looks like. The point is what it feels like. I bought it after I read three reviews from men older than me who described it as the first time they'd actually slowed down with themselves. I'd been rushing for years without knowing I was rushing.

I take it out. I take the small bottle of water-based lube too. I get back into bed against the headboard. I leave the lamp on, not the overhead — just the warm one by the bed.

I take my towel off.

I pour a small amount of lube into my palm and warm it between my hands. Then I take my cock in my hand — already half-hard, slick now — and I move my fist slowly. Long, easy strokes. I close my eyes.

I think about the woman on the plane. I let her have a name. I let her be in this room. I imagine the way her hand might feel on me, hesitant, then not.

My breath gets longer. My cock fills my hand. I keep moving slow.

After a minute or two I reach for the sleeve. I add a little more lube. I slide myself into it slowly — the silicone gives, then grips, and the inside texture catches on me in a way my own hand can't replicate. I make a sound out loud in the empty room and I don't care.

"Fuck."

I work it slowly. I don't grip too hard. I let the rhythm find itself. I tilt my head back against the headboard and I think about her — not my ex, not anyone real, just her, the imagined woman, her mouth open, her eyes closed, the small sounds she might make.

I get to the edge fast. Then I stop. I take my hand away. I let myself breathe.

I do that three times. Each time I let myself get closer than the last. By the third time I'm shaking. My cock is so hard it almost hurts. I'm sweating in the cool hotel air.

I think about the woman on the plane sliding into the room. I think about her sitting on the edge of the bed across from me, watching, telling me to keep going.

That's the one that does it.

I let myself work all the way through it this time. The sleeve grips me. My hand grips the sleeve. My hips push up into it the way they would push into a person. I'm making sounds I haven't made out loud in a long time. The fantasy gets sharper, more specific — her hand on her own thigh, watching me, her breath catching in time with mine.

I come hard. Long. I feel it in my chest. I groan into the empty hotel room, and the sound of it is the loudest thing in this city.

For a long minute I don't move. The sleeve is still around me. My breath slows. Somewhere on the bridge outside a car horn goes off.

I clean up. I rinse the sleeve in the bathroom sink with warm water and the small bottle of toy cleaner I always pack. I lay it on a towel to dry. I towel off. I get back into bed.

I sleep for ten hours.

The meeting in the morning goes fine. I don't think about the woman on the plane again. I think about getting home.

But the next time I check into a hotel — three weeks from now, a different city — I'll bring the pouch. And I'll take my time.

That's the part nobody told me before. The taking time. The stopping rushing. The being on the road and still, once in a while, getting to know yourself again.