Love Hotel
It felt like a love hotel, or an approximation of a love hotel, at least the way I imagined one might feel despite never patronizing one—a place where I might barter with the staff for an hourly rate. Instead it was a historic 1916 hotel with a Victorian facade purchased and operated by a tech startup flush with invested capital. The hallways were skinny and painted mustard yellow to conceal discoloration. There was an unmanned reception desk with boxes stacked behind the counter. A small podium was tucked inside the entrance where a rotation of blurry-eyed attendants sat. Some lifted their heads to say hello when I entered or exited. Others did not acknowledge my presence and continued to watch short form videos on their phones. They were the pretense of customer service and management. When I arrived, the attendant delivered rehearsed instructions for how to enter the room using the keypad and half-heartedly smiled when I apologized for my confusion. No worries, enjoy your stay in New Orleans, she said.
The room was small, and the towels in the bathroom were coarse and thin, like poolside towels, any plushness they once possessed scorched by chlorine and dryer heat. There was a tray on the desk with an electric kettle, four cups individually wrapped in cellophane, and an assortment of tea and instant coffee packets. I washed my face, unpacked my suitcase, and searched for an outlet to charge my phone. I opened the french doors and stepped onto the balcony, a short concrete platform overlooking St Charles Avenue. A room with a balcony was extra, an extravagance I justified because the reservation was on my company card. Leaning against the wrought iron fence, I craved a glass of Prosecco or Moscato, something chilled and sweet that would make me nauseous and tired, that would make sleep easier, but the mini fridge was empty. And there was no furniture like I imagined, no chair where I could read in the early morning light. The view wasn’t particularly extravagant either. The balconies of the opposite building were empty besides two folding plastic chairs and a black garbage can. Traffic flowed continuously on St Charles. A green streetcar passed with a few riders aboard. The oldest continuously continuously operating streetcar in the world I read online.
I hurried inside, embarrassed to be seen by a stranger who might recognize this desire for beauty and perceive that it has eluded me—who might similarly be disappointed by the gap between the imagined and real.
The second night I returned disheveled and sweaty. I undressed immediately, throwing my clothes on the bed. I texted him—I’m gonna shower quickly. I’ll text you when I’m done. Ok, he responded. However, the fire alarm began to ring as I turned the shower, startling me because the sudden screeching sound appeared to correspond to my hand twisting this lever. I paced naked for five minutes as the alarm continued to blare before I cracked the hotel room door and sniffed for the acrid smell of smoke that might prompt me toward action.
But my sense of smell is nonexistent, a fact I often announce to strangers at parties as if it’s a learned skill, like tying a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue, rather than a sensory deficiency. I’m less vocal about my lack of smell nowadays because it elicits concern: Is that a recent development? They ask and lean backward to increase the distance between us, I imagine, because they are worried I have covid. Oh no, don’t worry, I reassure them, I have always been like this.
When the alarm did not subside, I pulled on my Ethel Cain hoodie and jeans, hurriedly stuffed all my books into my tote bag, and located the fire exit at the furthest end of the hallway. The staircase ejected me into an alleyway that led to Lafayette Square. A dingy leather chair was tucked into the entryway, I imagined, as a place where hotel staff could smoke uninterrupted. I walked along the edge of the park and toward the front of the hotel. Green and purple strings of Mardi Gras beads dripped from the branches of the oak trees like loops of colorful loose threads. I wondered if they were the same beads I passed beneath a year earlier when I walked laps around this park, hoping Z would call me, that we could resolve our miscommunication.
A crowd of disoriented patrons in various states of undress gathered outside the hotel entrance. I stood beside an older couple with Irish accents who smiled at me but did not attempt to make conversation. A fire engine arrived carrying half a dozen firefighters who gathered in the lobby. The attendant, the helpful one from the first night, apologized profusely and explained. A drunken kid pulled the fire alarm when she threatened to call the police to get him to leave. New Orleans is a city of inconveniences. Being drunk here is convenient. No one announced we could return to our rooms, but we did, several of us shuffling past the firefighters and into the elevator. I showered quickly and douched, in case. I sprayed perfume on the inside of my wrists, which I then touched to both sides of my neck and the insides of my ankles. When staying in the love hotel, I thought. Ready, I texted. He responded immediately. Be there in 15 minutes.
He was outside my hotel room door. I adjusted the volume on my phone, anxious for us to be in silence together and also for the album I chose, Hercules & Love Affair’s 2008 self-titled, to become a topic of conversation between this stranger and I. It was a recent discovery, a recommendation from a friend who knew I enjoyed Anohni. She co-wrote and performed vocals on several songs, my friend explained. I lowered the volume until the lyrics and instruments were indistinguishable, like the crackling static of an old TV. I double-checked the safe to ensure my laptop and blow dryer were locked inside and tucked one of my credit cards into the interior pocket of my suitcase, feeble safeguards I realized as I imagined the worst case scenario—that he might possess a gun. This image made me momentarily reconsider. My hand froze on the door handle. But he was already outside. I could see him through the peephole and decided that the possibility of being instructed to unlock the safe with the barrel of a gun pressed against me was an acceptable risk for the potential of physical intimacy. And besides, I rationalized, we had followed each other on Instagram since the prior spring, and one of his earliest posts, a teenage selfie of himself and his friends at a concert, dated back to 2013.
I offered him a tour of my room; Here is the bed, the desk, the bathroom. His opinion differed from mine. I nodded attentively, relieved that we identified a topic of conversation so quickly. The room is small, he agrees, but it’s historic. He emphasized the word historic, his voice rising on the last syllable, a vocal gesture that reminded me of someone raising their hands as a shield, like he was defending himself from my criticism of the hotel, which he perhaps considered a judgment of his home city itself. It reminds me of some of the hotels in the French Quarter, their aged charm, he insisted. He was amazed that my grant writing job paid for this room and expressed his desire to advance his own career, to become an ambassador rather than a bartender, so that he could travel for work too.
I smiled. His face was long and soft. I stared at his lips, tracing his cupid’s bow with my gaze. The V-shape was pronounced and broad, like a canyon or cliff face. I clasped my hands in front of myself, occasionally massaging my bottom lip with my index finger. Should we sit on the bed? I asked. He looked into my eyes and kissed me, forcing me against the wall. His tongue entered me like a shovel sinking into a garden bed. I pushed my hand against the wall to stabilize myself and then looped it around his neck, letting him support my weight. We paused. I inspected his face. Am I what you expected? I asked. Yeah, he said and laughed before kissing me again. I thought of the line from a Richard Siken poem I underlined that morning: “Do I have to stick my tongue in your mouth like the hand of a thief, like a burglary, like it’s just another petty theft?” I considered reciting this line from memory but did not; I wouldn’t have for Z either, reluctant to force profundity, to prompt his undoubtedly biting response.
The stranger carried out his promise, moved from my mouth, to my neck, and then my hips, where he pressed his lips against my soft stomach as I squirmed. And then we lay at odd angles alongside one another, the sole of my foot resting on his cheek. Did you say that you like feet? I asked, unable to remember if it was him or another one of the men I was messaging. When they’re beautiful, he said and grabbed my ankle, pulling my foot over his cheek as he planted a number of kisses along the long edge of it. He did not open his eyes as he did this.
I wondered what this moment meant to him. But I recalled when he hesitated a few minutes earlier after I asked him if he was enjoying himself, if he felt good. He hesitated and fumbled for words to explain this novel experience of taking me in his mouth. I don’t know if it feels good, he gestured, and I understood he was asking whether he was good at sucking dick. Oh, yeah, you were great. Though I didn’t elaborate or ask further questions because I was reluctant to initiate a discussion about whether fucking a trans woman should change how he understood his sexuality. It was simpler, I thought: we wanted to be inside another’s mouth, momentary shelter, like animals hiding in abandoned burrows. And I didn’t want either of us to explain or categorize these hours we spent together. I wanted this evening together to exist outside our need to translate its significance. We were novelties to each other, like rearranged furniture. I asked him to kiss me again. I enjoyed how he searched the corners of my mouth, as if he was scavenging his pockets for spare change. Z only kissed me like that when he was drunk or we were breaking up.
He crawled out of the bed and searched for his jeans. I touched the wet spot on his underwear. Is that from you or me? I asked. He avoided the question. Was he blushing? Tomorrow I want to take you to a couple of my favorite bars, somewhere with dark corners, he insisted, and I found this idea romantic, his hand on my thigh or reaching up my skirt while we made out, half-finished cocktails on the table beside us, the glasses sweating, our mouths tasting like licorice, but I couldn’t find words to explain I was unable, that I couldn’t fathom spending time together this way yet.
Instead I pressed my tongue into his mouth. And then I closed the door behind him.
Image: Pace Taylor, And Then You Were Gone, 2023.
Currently: Michael Haneke’s 2001 film The Piano Teacher, which is adapted from an Elfriede Jelinek novel of the same title.