Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories
Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Cleis Press
$15.95, 235 pages
My copy of this erotica collection came just in time for the holidays and I began reading it at a Microtel Inn Suites during my lonely two-day drive back to the Midwest. Rachel Kramer Bussel publishes many themed anthologies from a range of different writers, but I was on board with this particular idea from the beginning. I’m crazy about traveling and settling into unfamiliar places, perhaps partially because I’m still young enough to get a thrill from playing house. Most inexpensive hotel and motel rooms are often much nicer than the apartments I can afford to live in and part of the whole fantasy is that these rooms become mine, a place where I can do what I choose and be whoever I want. Like the main character in “Tightly Tucked,” I think the hotel experience is precious. Temporarily owning a space you have next to no responsibility for and using it to its full potential; the situation is refreshing and suggestive. A building full of beds. A building full of strangers. No one judging—or even knowing anything about—you and no one disturbing your peace. It is an excellent set-up for some really hot scenarios.
But while hotel hook-ups are the obvious theme here, role-playing and indiscretion become the real highlights of this anthology. People enjoy having sex in hotel rooms because they can slip into another character easily, like the submissive and her master in “The Royalton—A Daray Tale,” the slave in “G is for Gypsy,” or the frisky couple in “Tropical Grotto, Winter Storm.” Furthermore, people can more easily forget the hardships of the outside world, including, as these stories often point out, their actual relationships and marriages. Cheating, office romance, and other taboo relationships blossom from this setting quite naturally. Sometimes they are spot on; in “Heart-Shaped Holes,” a young, neglected newlywed encounters an experienced lesbian by the ice machine and is finally given some help with achieving an orgasm. One of my favorite stories, “Memphis,” gets the marital infidelity equation right. The story isn’t silly or ignorant concerning the gravity of the situation, just tough, hot, somewhat cheesy, and completely unapologetic.
A few of the stories weren’t very memorable and some of the writing sounds almost similar story after story. I recommend limiting your consumption to two or three stories per sitting. Maybe that should be obvious when it comes to erotica but I’m such a book whore that I breeze through the pieces I like least and only allow myself a break should I come across something seriously arresting. I challenged the stories: give me something sexy enough to make me drop my book! There were a few pieces that stopped me, my favorite being “Talking Dirty.” Somehow Shanna Germain achieves a lovely balance between sweet, painful, and sexy with this story about a man and his wife struggling with her extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder. She handles it amazingly well, allowing me to sympathize with both characters and their unique challenges, while urging me to cheer on their sex adventures. I was emotionally and sexually turned on at once, which I think is a hard (no pun intended) thing to come by.
One criticism I often have for erotic writing is that it gives me too much to work with. Description and detail are essential, but when everything in the story is dripping with sensuality, I lose my connection to reality and can’t seem to make the characters or their sex acts come alive. I suppose erotica serves a certain function as an easy read; it should describe the whole sensory experience as explicitly as possible and it should sometimes be light and fun and playful. Like beach reading, maybe it works well when it doesn’t involve the reader too much with conflict or complications, instead providing a pleasurable escape from real life. But sentences like these: “The billion ebony dark curls in her hair washing over the sheets. The way the sun on a summer day past had caressed her dormant skin as its rays whispered their way through the open windows and caressed her nakedness” feel too fake to me, suggesting soap opera dialogue. Amusing or not, I think sex should sound real. This is why I prefer scattered or incoherent porn movie dialogue to the likes of generic “Oh yeah baby” cries repeated in high-pitched whiny tones. Mentally, we should be able to put ourselves in the characters' shoes, our hands on their cocks and cunts.
In the end, I’m not the ideal reader for much mainstream erotica. I become critical of fiction on many levels and am completely at fault for letting my brain get in the way of truly enjoying what this anthology provides: a fun variety of mini sex adventures. There are also some very well-written pieces but I think it will mostly come down to personal preference. Take it to a hotel, because, believe me, it will inspire you to book one, dog-ear the pages you love, and skip the ones you don’t. This short story collection might provide some inspiration for the next time you travel, and, at the very least, it will give you something provocative to read in the lobby.
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