Anna’s day off

As arranged, Anna checked in first at the bland chain hotel, appreciating the bored demeanour of the gum-chewing teenager on reception. She always felt a little self-conscious, arriving at a hotel during the day like this, as though what she planned to do was written all over her face. To the girl behind the counter though, Anna was just another business customer, her smart suit belying the satin and lace underwear beneath.

Anna took the key card and headed in the direction the disinterested teen had vaguely gestured at. A gaggle of cheaply-uniformed cleaners stopped laughing and scurried off to their tasks at her approach, but Anna saw no other hotel residents, which also pleased her. The more anonymous she could feel, the more relaxed she would be this afternoon. Her hand shook a little in anticipation as she attempted to slide the key card into the designated slot of room 306, and she laughed impatiently at her foolishness as she had to remove it and reinsert it the right way up. “Come on, Anna,” she muttered to herself as she entered the room, “it’s not as though it’s the first time you’ve done this.”

She placed her small suitcase on the bed, and went quickly to the bathroom, where she checked her hair and makeup and then briskly removed her jacket, blouse and skirt, leaving her wearing only an insubstantial black lace bra, black stockings, black high heels and a tiny black lace thong, which she adjusted so that the diamanté bow rested centrally at the top of her pert arse. She released her hair from its business-like bun, running her fingers through the dark blonde curls so that they framed her face and trailed down to her breasts. She looked at herself appraisingly in the mirror, smiling to herself at the thought that her business colleagues would never recognise this wanton creature. In her job she had to be professional and in control at all times, and her buttoned-up appearance and serious persona reflected that duty. No-one who worked with Anna would ever guess that when she booked a day off, as she did every few weeks, that she would be in a hotel, preparing for…

Anna dragged herself from this train of thought – she only had a few minutes of preparation time left, and if she didn’t have everything just so for his arrival there would be hell to pay. She briskly moved back into the bedroom, unsnapping the case and rifling through it with practised ease. Lifting the mattress, she placed a complicated snarl of belts on the bed frame, which she deftly untangled before remaking the bed. Next she removed a variety of implements from the case, lining them up neatly on a low table that she pulled over to be within easy reach of the bed. She checked the time on the digital clock once more, and her heart started to race as she realised he would be here any moment and she wasn’t in position. She grabbed another mess of straps and quickly fastened a leather collar around her neck, velcroed a leather cuff onto each wrist and contorted herself so that she could fasten each one to a strap that hung down her back from the collar. Thus bound, she knelt down at the foot of the bed, head down and eyes on the floor like a woman at prayer. Not a moment too soon, either, as the key card locked clicked and he entered the room.

Although not able to look directly at him from her position on the floor, Anna felt his presence in the room acutely. He was a physically large man; tall, with a broad chest and muscular thighs and arms that made Anna, a curvaceous 5’6″, feel petite and delicate. He invariably wore jeans and a t shirt, dirty workboots, and from this and his strong, labour-roughened hands Anna had deduced he worked at something manual, perhaps building, although she had never asked. Their arrangement worked best if neither of them knew details of the other’s life. They hadn’t even exchanged surnames, never mind their CVs. “Nice outfit.” he commented; his accent was what Anna thought of as “working class”, what she would have referred to when out with her privileged, moneyed friends as “common”, but she liked it, liked the differences between him and the soft, polished boys she normally mixed with.