Room service

There's something about hotels that sits perfectly with BDSM. The bland, anonymous rooms have nothing of their own, but are full of the quiet, uncaring atmosphere of in-between places that are not personal to us. They are not living spaces but functional (even the very nice ones) areas for sleeping. Or more precisely, in this case, fucking. Prostitution, love affairs, the traditional honeymoon night - all these acts of fucking are consonant with hotel rooms. They are morally grey spaces, where taboo and judgement is lifted or side-stepped: staff have almost certainly seen it all and come the morning it will all be laundered, washed and forgotten about. Hotels are paid for spaces, which adds to the transactional nature of what is going on. Things of value are bought, making them under your control, part of a system of exchange in which there is power and ownership. Things that need privacy, to be kept away in a floating island separate from the day-to-day happenings of whatever lives we come from, you can be anyone. They can be anyone. Which means that, on a certain level, you can be free.

Sexuality begins in hotels.

And it begins like this. The lift door closes with a quiet ping and I place a hand on Mr Smith's pleasingly broad chest. The thrill of the chase has never interested me - I tend to prefer the spoils of victory and I am looking forward to all the little revelations that come with a new partner. Once in the room, I strip him naked, it came as a surprise to find out, a few months ago, that this is a sensation often unfamiliar to men. I like either removing their clothes myself or getting them to do it in front of me, slowly. The important thing is to make them very conscious of the act of stripping as a thing in and of itself, to make a show of themselves, and to start to see themselves as things that are on show.

This is perhaps where the hotel room comes into its own. It will reek of associations with his prior flings and lovers so he will have assumptions and expectations that I can subvert. He's married but open, with more of a history of swinging than kink and the kink he's done has been on top. I like knowing his preconceptions and to be able to push and press against them. That means he does not come here as a lover, but as a toy. And we do not come here as equals, he comes to me, to serve me.

All my toys are beautiful and I take pride in helping them understand that. All my beautiful things are toys, and that's a lesson too. A dominant is a teacher and a trainer, but the best lessons are object lessons. And the best learning is in doing. The first play session we have is calibration, they always are. He's well behaved, and stays where he's put. I tend not to go for the bratty ones, I won't fight a submissive, certainly not until I know them well enough to be sure of winning. Although there are multiple ways and means of doing that too. He's probably stronger than I am, so there's a pleasure in his pliability, his giving up of control.

I place him in a convenient position, like a puppet, his eyes close and breathing slows. Blindfold on, and pushing him face down onto the bed. He falls. I smile and strip, safe in the knowledge that he cannot see though may be able to hear. There's an element of teasing going on, of course, and I'm building his anticipation, as well as playing on his nerves. Self-confessed "bad at pain" types are fun to play with, though they almost always can take more pain than they think, if warmed up to it.

Hands are the best tool for getting feedback from unfamiliar bodies. I stroke, slap, scratch, pinch and pull my way around his flesh, working out where the sensitive parts are - aside from the usual. I use the physical sensations to try and get a better read on what is going on inside his head, which is where the fun stuff lives anyway. I won't know what he's really thinking until a few days later, the images or fantasies that float beneath his eyelids whilst his body is under my control, so I work with what I do know: he's here, he's given himself up to me and I have a bag of kit and all night.

His face has gone slack and he's gone non-verbal, he has become a non-person. A pile of muscle and bone that twitches and whimpers like a living landscape. I'm an artist of flesh. I make red patterns on the smooth, broad skin of his back. I'm an orchestra conductor of a gentle, low soundscape of groans made as I press lubed fingers into his arse. I'm a trainer, watching his bottom rise up to meet me whilst I fuck him with a strap-on. I check him over, thorough inspection of his function as a sex-object - the mouth, the fingers, his ability to make me orgasm.

Later there will be laughter and chatter as we return to ourselves, as I rest his head on my chest and play with the back of his neck, enjoying the warm, sweating animal presence of his body, like a horse ridden hard. The memory of the heady feeling of total control remains. As ever, that is the element that I enjoy the most - the fact that I can do whatever I want. Whatever and whoever Mr Smith is when he is at home, in that hotel room he is mine.