SALON

Wednesday, Nov 24, 1999 5:00 PM UTC

The randy bellboy

A member of the night shift offers seduction tips to the lonely traveler.

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Topics: Travel,

My recent book tour introduced me to a whole new group of erotic friends and teachers. One of my favorites was Adrian Ryan, a bellboy turned freelance writer who gave me a first class e-mail tutorial in the practice of creating your own personal hotel scandal.

I first heard from Adrian a month ago when I wrote a column about getting lonely/horny on the road and not always being sure what to do about it:

Susie Dahl-ink,

Just read one of your recent Salon pieces about your book tour. YOU CRACK MY ASS UP. Before I became a multimedia superstar, I was a graveyard shift bellman at the Benson Hotel in Portland.

Let me speak from experience — if it wasn’t for road-weary travelers (one or two of them authors!) staying at the hotel, I’d have had no sex life for most of my early 20s. As it was, I saw more action than a Bruce Willis flick. If you get frisky and can’t bear to face those terrifyingly sterile hotel sheets solo, call the concierge fer chrissake!

Adrian Ryan

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Dear Mr. Ryan,

Believe me, I’ve had my eye on the concierge before. What exactly do I say to them when they pick up the phone? I need to know the four-star etiquette!

Susie

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Silly! You don’t call and ask for sex … you call and ask for an IRON or a NEW REMOTE CONTROL or ROOM SERVICE. Then you answer the door in a towel. Voil`! That is, if you can find a female or heterosexual male hotel employee. That’ll be a challenge.

xo,
A.

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OK, you’re going to need to go gentle and slow with me. I have opened the door in my towel, and the staff person has behaved very modestly toward me. Of course they are not about to throw me on the bed, as they could be fired for that. Do I just give them eye contact and refuse to look away? Whisper “Open Sesame”? Something Mae West-ish? Please tell me exactly how this transpired in your experience.

S.

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Good heavens! This is quickly becoming “Adrian’s Online Correspondence College of the Art and Science of Schtupping the Housekeeping Staff.”

As well you know, EVERYONE is a horndog deep down, and there are few, if any, who would turn down a luscious and furtive shag with a willing babe. So, the trick lies in the fine, lost art of seduction. Hotel employees are very timid and will be painfully wary of diving in, dropping their britches and going to town without firm assurance that there will be no hysterical calls to the front desk should their southward parts be suddenly exposed. They must be coaxed! You need to make the fact that your pants are pounding crystal clear. This requires a bit of bravery and a momentary abandonment of one’s dignity. How bad are you jonesing anyway?

Wait until after 11 p.m. when the graveyard staff comes on shift. They always have time and freedom to play. First go downstairs and check out who’s working. The guy or gal parking your car will probably be the one to spirit any late night requests up to your room, so a little window shopping is a wise play. I mean, you don’t want to get all gussied up (or down) to discover Jabba the Hut in a bellman’s cap drooling in your doorway with the extra towels you just ordered, do you?

This is also a great time, if the goods are fresh, to make a little flirtatious small talk. You know, “Nice night, when do you get off, does your cock curve to the left or the right?”-type stuff. Discreetly reveal your room number (easy these days since most hotel keys are coded for security — you can feign a bad memory and have Mr. Bell-Stud decode it for you). Then when he/she gets the call to your room later, the soil will be tilled, as it were.

When he/she arrives, fake trouble with the television or getting the window open. Invite them in to “take a look” at the problem. (We are assuming at this point you are in a towel or other scanty, promising apparel.) Then keep him/her around with idle, mindless chit-chat, all the while — this is important! — staring at his/her crotch. A minute or two of polite conversation while your gaze is fixed, basilisk-style, upon their bulging nether regions, and voil`! You’re as good as laid!

If at first you don’t succeed, call them back up demanding menial things until they get fed up and put out for the sake of peace and quiet. Or you can get really bold and just have some of that cheesy softcore hotel porn playing when they arrive. Don’t be shy!

The wage slaves of the better hotels are used to being hit on, and the worst that could happen is they could say no. Or you could wind up with some skinny fairy (like me) and wind up braiding each other’s hair. What do you have to lose? Go, baby, go!

A.

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Dear Addy:

I arrived at the Cambridge Marriott at 1 a.m. last night, with all your instructions in mind. As you recommended, I scanned who was on the skeletal graveyard staff, and to my dismay, there was only one old coot who looked like he needed a walker just to get my hotel key for me. (Yes, I know, some old coots are fine stuff, but believe me, this one was close to nodding.) I offered to carry the bags myself, and he gratefully acquiesced.

Upon reaching my room, seventh floor in the back, with two heavy bags in hand, I realized I was too tired for hanky-panky anyway. It was just as well that there were no temptations on the night shift to distract me. I flipped on the room’s light switch as I considered whether it was really necessary to take my clothes off at all, since I was going to fall asleep right away and get a wake up call at 6. But there was just one little problem.

I picked up the phone and called downstairs. “I need a different room,” I said. “There’s no bed in here.”

“No bed?” Mr. Coot didn’t trust his hearing.

“Well, there is an unmade hospital gurney, but I’m not quite ready for that yet. Maybe next week.”

I lay down on the shag carpet and waited for my prince to arrive with a new key. I knew it would only take a half- hour or so.

So you see, Adrian, I’m ready for action, win or lose, but I need the right furniture, and I need my beauty rest!

Susie

Susie Bright is the author of the new book "Full Exposure" and many other books, and the editor of the "Best American Erotica" series. For more columns by Bright, visit her website. More Susie Bright.

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