It didn’t matter the hotel.  All doors are the same and most men answer in a similar fashion.   Slowly.  The twist of the knob, the drop of the bearing, the click of the deadbolt.  Nearby a businessman enters his room fatigued, his once stand-at-attention oxford ballooning at the back as if in a giant exhale of exhaustion.  Maybe five doors down, with a cart beside him – two shiny silver domes, a bottle of champagne, strawberries, a room service waiter standing by. The waiter is young, wearing the white coat with the chain between buttons.  He glimpses you, no overt cues and yet he knows.  Your posture erect, wool Burberry coat, Lauren pumps, Coach envelope clutch.  You could just as easily be sitting at the pub across the street from the train station, waiting for your husband.  You could but you wouldn’t be.  And this boy knows it because he is still young enough that his sense of smell is acute.  He can smell you.  He can smell you in a way that gets beneath the surface of the minds skin, where feeling reigns.  His body looks up, locks on.  You draw every molecule in and down some invisible drain through the floor.

View full article »