There are a lot of different ways to choose a hotel. Certainly, if you're traveling for work, you might prioritize convenience above all else. This is the official conference hotel. Or, this hotel is closest to where the client meeting will take place. And if you're traveling for pleasure, proximity – say, to museums or art galleries, or to the ocean – can be a deciding factor there, too. Being close to great restaurants or nightlife, depending on where you're traveling, can be a motivation for some. And then some hotels can be an attraction unto themselves, with luxury accommodations, amenities. Traveling on a budget, you could pick on price. Booking at the last minute, and you could be left with whatever you can get. And in the end, it's rare for any one place to check every box. For some folks, the hotel room is fungible – ‘it's just where you sleep,’ his father in-law used to joke.

They'd picked this hotel because it was close to the beach, but also because it had one of those floating bars in a pool that overlooked the ocean. (This seemed particularly decadent to him – wanting to see the ocean, but from sufficient distance that you could decide for yourself whether you cared to feel the sand between your toes, much less anywhere else – while all the while enjoying something cold, alcoholic, and vaguely tropical tasting). The pictures of the floating bar had been the deciding factor, although the cocktail menu from the hotel's main bar and dining room was fascinating. The menu listed dozens of drinks, no two quite alike, and all of them credited one way or another to bars and bartenders from other hotels around the world. The descriptions of the drinks were beautifully written and the photographs were sumptuous. He remembered pointing it out to his wife. “This menu might as well be a coffee table book,” he quipped. He had made a mental note when they were booking the room to try as many of the drinks as he could, within reason of course, and to note their favorites so that they could try to recreate them at home. There were ingredients he'd never seen anywhere before – citrus shrub, violet bitters, and rose extract in one; rosemary, crushed ginger, and grapefruit oil in another. Rums and gins and tequilas he'd never seen before paired with exotic and intriguing liqueurs. As good as the views from the pool bar were likely to be – of the ocean, not to mention the other guests – it was the cocktail menu that captured his imagination more than anything else. This was going to be an incredible trip.

This wasn't a special occasion, exactly. They weren't traveling for or even over an anniversary or other ‘special date.’ These trips were special, but they were less tied to an occasion than to a promise that they'd made to each other to do something decadent for themselves now and again – something that they'd have seen as unjustifiable and absurd ten years ago, but that had started to seem more and more important as the years slipped by. The kids were out of the house and, while college tuition wasn’t quite in the rearview, thanks to some careful planning, the mortgage and car payments were. The truth was, they could afford it, and something about not only being on the downslope, but believing that you could actually feel the acceleration as the river meandered on its way down towards the sea, gave this promise some force. For once, they stuck to it. Never mind saving to buy a lakehouse. These kinds of trips, with the thin strip of blue-green water in the distance, dotted with blindingly white sails and the occasional flash of bright neon color, and the dinner tables with starched linen tablecloths. These were something that they could give each other now, before time took something from either – much less both – of them that they knew they might not get back.

The trip was uneventful and in spite of rising painfully early to make the first of the three flights that it had taken to get here, he was energized by the smell of the ocean and the heat of the late afternoon sun. The cab ride to the hotel from the airport started in full sunshine and ended in that honey-colored, almost dripping golden light that signals an impending sunset. On impulse, he tipped the bellhop to deliver their bags to the room and dragged his wife, laughing, outside and down a long, rocky path marked ‘beach access.’ Bypassing the floating bar and the promise of a climate-controlled view of the ocean for the up-close-and-personal experience of it on their first day, they kicked off their shoes and eagerly charged across the rapidly cooling sand towards the water. The white sand was aflame with the rapidly shifting kaleidoscope of colors as the sun set, and they stood with their feet in the water, sinking slowly as the waves came in and out, watching the light fade. He would notice the salt stained cuffs of his khakis the next morning, lying in a crumpled pile by the chair next to their bed; but for now, there was nothing but the sound of the waves and the warm feeling of her small hand pressed inside his. “Come on,” he said gently, reluctant to break the spell, “let's go get changed and grab a drink.”

They made their way back up the beach and along the rocky path to the hotel's security gate, shoes in hand. Standing at the gate, he fished one of the two key cards out of his pants pocket and handed it to his wife, absently. The gate buzzed and clicked, and his wife pocketed the key as he swung the gate wide for her to pass through. There was a small faucet and a neat stack of white hand towels just a bit further on, along with a sign inviting them to please wash the sand from their feet before returning to the hotel. Turning the tap, they rinsed quickly and dried their feet. He noticed now for the first time the pair of sandals his wife slipped on – new, he thought (or perhaps not; truthfully, he was terrible at this game and she had far more clothing than he was capable of keeping track of). Grinning to himself, he slipped his bare feet into the well-worn boat shoes that were, at least for him, a kind of physical signal to himself that it was, in fact, vacation time. These shoes made no appearances outside of vacation, and whatever wear and tear they sustained, they were a tangible reminder of the carefree and casual way these trips so often felt to him.

The lobby was filled with the shifting amber light of the sunset playing through and across the big windows across from the reception desk. Crossing the tile floor, the followed the signs just beyond the desk for the bar and restaurant. Down a short flight of a few low, carpeted stairs, they found themselves in a small, handsomely appointed waiting area. Through double doors immediately in front of them, there was a brightly-lit dining room, already filling with guests and the happy clink of silverware and glass. “Room service” his wife mouthed at him a moment later when he cocked an eyebrow and tossed his head slightly in the direction of the host, who was looking at them expectantly as they approached. He shook his head, smiling graciously, and turning, followed his wife through a smaller open doorway just to the right of the host's stand, which led down a short, somewhat more dimly-lit hall. “Speakeasy vibes” he said absently as he walked along behind her, more to the top of her head than anything else. She nodded pertly and fixed him with a grin over her shoulder as she went, bouncing lightly now. She knew he'd been as excited about the bar as anything else in the hotel and his anticipation was stoking her own.

Rounding a corner at the end of the hall, they passed through another doorway and into a beautiful, wood-paneled room. Booths outfitted in red leather ringed the room, which seemed somehow to be both larger than expected and more intimate than he had imagined at the same time. Smaller, two-top tables with white linen tablecloths filled the middle of the room, each with a small floral centerpiece and a wide, squat pillar candle burning in the middle. Along the right wall of the room was an absolutely magnificent bar.

The room had a tasteful nautical theme – there were a handful of life preserves hung about the room; a large, slightly rusted navigational buoy sat in the far corner, evidently marking the doorway to a pair of restrooms, their frosted glass doors more hinted at than seen. Along the front of the bar, where in a more urban setting you might have found purse hooks, perhaps, were strung a series of marine signaling flags. The bar itself shone brightly, managing at once to seem well-used but also very well-cared for. There were candles along its length every few places, as well as plain wooden stools, all in a row. But it was the back wall of the bar that was the showstopper.

At intervals along the back wall, looking for all the world like the ruined columns of some great Roman temple, were old ship masts. They shone, like the surface of the bar, polished to a rich and glossy sheen. But the battered wood itself seemed to attest to a former life spent plying the sea itself. Polished glass shelves stretched from end to end, between each of the masts, rising all the way up to the ceiling, so that the top shelf stuff, whether it was the really good shit or not, was a good twelve feet off the ground. The wall behind the shelves was painted a plain white – the word ‘sunbleached’ ran through his mind as he took in the sight, although he immediately frowned at the notion that something inside could be bleached by the sun. Lit from below by a series of small spotlights, the glass shelves, covered by what must have been hundreds of bottles, refracted beautiful, jewel-like light in all sorts of crazy directions.

The masts were heavily fitted with brightly polished brass, which matched a rail that ran along the wall leading towards the buoy and the bathrooms. It was like a library, he thought absently – a thought almost immediately reinforced by the sight of one of the bartenders, dressed simply in a pressed white dress shirt and a pair of neat, but casual khaki shorts, confidently climbing up the first few rungs of a rope cargo net that was stretched taut between the floor and ceiling behind the bar, almost like a rolling library ladder. As he watched, the bartender descended the net ladder, placed the bottle he'd retrieved on the bar in front of a customer, and then dragged the cargo net, evidently mounted in what he could now see was a track in the ceiling and likely another in the floor, to another spot, five or six feet to his right. Here, the bartender again climbed a few steps in search of another bottle, this one on the very highest shelf, with which he descended again a few moments later.

He was in awe. “This is so …” he started. “Fucking cool,” she finished the sentence, pulling him towards two open seats at the far end of the bar. He had been so completely preoccupied, he had not even noticed how crowded the bar itself was. Every seat was filled. Amanda wove between tables lithely, trailing him in her wake, and slid in one smooth motion onto the very last stool, patting the open seat next to her, a Cheshire grin spread across her face. The effect of the bar was even more impressive from this close – he felt almost reverent, somehow; the combination of polished wood, gleaming metal, and richly-colored light seemed nearly church-like. Flashing a handsome smile, the same bartender who had moments ago been aloft for a bottle slid two cocktail menus, bound in leather that matched the seats of the booths, across the bar. “Welcome,” he said. “Be right with you.”

Like children at Christmas, their heads together as they unwrapped a much-anticipated gift, the two of them opened one of the menus and began to read. His left knee rested against her right, and the warmth of her bare thigh radiated against him as he read.

She chose a drink called The Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. The base of the drink was a mixture of two rums, one a demerara rum and the other a Barbadian rum, shaken with falernum, orange curacao, and fresh lime juice. Had the description of the drink not explained falernum, he’d have had no idea what it was, but the allure of the drink wasn't just the novelty of the ingredients (or its supposed history, dating the 1940s and a properly post-colonial British yacht club bar, still in operation) – it was watching the drink prepared. It seemed simple enough – shaker tin, jigger, a chilled coupe glass, and a gleaming paring knife all appeared on the bar so that it somehow seemed both as though there had been a flourish (there had not) and as though they had just appeared there (this could not be true). Up the cargo net; this time, down with both rums. Over, up, and then down again now with the falernum. Somehow, he missed the fetching of the orange curacao altogether. A small bowl of chilled limes appeared from what he assumed was a refrigerator under the bar and they watched the simple operation of halving and juicing two limes by hand. He took a moment to note the size of the bartender's hands, as well as the deft, powerful way he cut the fruit and juiced it, veins standing out momentarily in his forearm as he put the brightly-painted, green metal lime-juicer they kept in the kitchen drawer next to the spatulas to shame. The assembly and shaking was impossibly fast and well-practiced, and by the time the drink was doubled strained into the glass, there seemed little question that they would be spending the rest of the evening in this magical place. A paper-thin wheel of dehydrated lime floated softly across the top of the drink as it slid across the bar.

His Aviation – a drink he knew she also loved and would be excited to taste – arrived next and they were transported all over again. The lemons cut and juiced on the fly; the selected gin retrieved and the complementing violet and cherry liqueurs fetched and measured so seamlessly that it seemed all part of a singular performance. Stirred, not shaken – the faint purple color emerged beautiful and clear – and garnished with a single cocktail cherry. They traded sips in satisfied silence, the background noise not really registering. As quickly as the paraphernalia had appeared, it was gone again and the bar-tender was earnestly polishing the bar a few feet away with a spotless white towel, surveying the room.

They had evidently come in the midst of the pre-dinner rush – as soon became clear, many of the other guests were waiting for tables in the restaurant and enjoying a drink before dinner. Gradually, the crowd thinned. At one point, the bartender invited them to choose any open table they cared to, but neither of them was inclined to give up their seats so close to the show. Other guests had seemed almost oblivious to his performance; but the two of them sat, sipping, and watched him create drink after drink, the cadence and flow of his hands was almost as intoxicating as the drinks themselves. Not once did he appear to steal a glance at a recipe, nor did he appear to consult any map about the location of the bottles.

At some point, they ordered a second round, eager to try something new, at least as much for the simple pleasure of witnessing the creation of something they hadn't seen yet, let alone tasted before. “What's your favorite drink to make?” his wife had asked. Her tone was earnest, and he was struck by the absence of her usual guarded politeness. The bartender looked up, caught off-guard perhaps for just a moment. He thought for a moment, a smile playing across his full lips and gently creasing the tanned skin at the corners of his eyes. His eyes were a piercing blue color – the same blue, he thought, as the bright strip of ocean in the distance, visible from the pool. His jaw was square and covered with a heavy five o'clock shadow. His head was shaved and the clean, angular lines of his face were complemented by the shape of his skull. He stole a glance at his wife, as the bartender began to propose a drink for her. In a moment, the sound of the bartender’s voice was lost in the gentle wash of other noise in the room – he wasn't paying any attention to the drink at all. He was looking directly at his wife's face now and the way in which her face seemed to have transformed in an instant. Her green eyes flashed as she stared, listening intently to the bartender. Her mouth was open just slightly and her lips were parted almost lustfully. There was color in her face – not from the drink, he didn't think – but instead that healthy, unwitting flush that betrays genuine arousal. He saw and recognized it immediately. His stomach leaped.

Glancing back, he realized immediately that the bartender saw it, too. There was something knowing in his eyes as he looked back across the bar and when he turned and made eye contact with him now, he was struck by how kind and curious the eyes were. Despite the white-hot sexual telepathy that he felt sure he had just witnessed, there weren't the eyes of someone intent on stealing your date or humiliating him. They were friendly, open even. A question, somehow.

As it turned out, a beat later, the question turned out to be whether he also wanted a second drink. There was a hot plume of embarrassment that gave way to a spreading flood of shame. He could feel it washing over his face and the cold sweat across his back was an immediate and recognizable cue. They had talked about this fantasy so many times, discussed it again and again, for years, and always with the same result – “maybe someday,” but of course, never now. Never here. Never this time. The weight of decades of social conditioning, vulnerability, and insecurity came down on him in a flash, like the lid of a piano slammed on his fingers. It felt as though he had actually had his hand slammed in a door somehow – and of course, he knew, even as he felt the pinching, burning feeling at the bridge of his nose that signaled tears were close, that this was completely in his head right now. That in fact nothing had happened. At all. One way or another. Take a breath. Get a hold of yourself.

He forced a wan smile. “I trust you,” he managed, surprising himself that the words actually felt true even as they spilled out of him from somewhere unexpected. He offered a few observations of flavors he liked, suggesting only that an interesting bourbon would be a lovely place to start, and then, placing his hand on the small of his wife's back, he excused himself, took hold of the brass rail (as much for his own entertainment as for any need of steadying himself) and set a course for the buoy in the far corner of the room. “Bathroom,” he muttered as he stepped away. There was a sharp slap that was almost certainly louder than intended as the flat of his wife's hand connected solidly with his right ass cheek as he stepped around her stool. Whatever his face said, looking back, hers was all comedy and mock horror. She winked at him and then casually lifted the rum-soaked remnants of the dehydrated lime and without breaking eye contact with him, bit into it hungrily.

The bathroom door appeared to be made of rough-hewn deck planks. Affixed to the right-hand side of the door, opposite the polished brass hinges, there was a polished, brightly painted oar, which, it turned out, was the door handle. Forgoing the toilet altogether – the trip to the bathroom was after all just a pretext for getting shit together – he stepped in front of the single sink and stood facing a large, brilliantly clear mirror. He reached down and ran the cold water in the sink. The room was paneled in the same deck planks, although the floor was tiled in muted dark slate, shot through with faint hints of green here and there. A brightly polished sextant sat on the side of the sink – a decoration. Shutting the tap, he rolled up his shirt sleeves past his wrists and plunged his hands into the cold water up to his forearms. Closing his eyes, he focused on the sensation of the water, the coolness, the wetness. He imagined he could feel his pulse had slowed, and then, gradually, he became sure that in fact it had. Opening his eyes, he looked into the mirror.

Considered cooly, now, as he stared into his own eyes in the relative quiet of the hotel bathroom, the notion that he felt ashamed of this fantasy was easy enough to understand. You didn't have to be any sort of internet sexpert or relationship podcaster to know that this was a common enough fantasy; and yet, it still flew directly in the face of monogamy monoculture. He knew he didn't believe it made him less – he was staring directly into his own eyes, speaking to his wobbly psyche directly now – it wasn't somehow about being weak or wanting to be humiliated. There was genuine joy and excitement in thinking about her pleasure. That moment of connection he was so sure he had seen wasn't actually threatening, he reminded his reflection. You threatened yourself, he scolded gently. Stop enforcing their rules on your life. He inhaled deeply and slowly, allowing himself to become conscious again of how the water had run out of the basin now. Of how the cool droplets had run down his wrists, across his palms, between his fingers. He shook his hands lightly, splattering the dark tile with a few small drops of water. He wasn't sure whether it had been five minutes or fifteen. He ran a hand through his hair absently, grasped another oar, this time on the inside of the door, and swung the door open on its hinges.

The distance between the bartender and his wife seemed smaller, in spite of the very obvious large, polished bar between them. He inhaled deeply now, noting the faint, but rich smell of the leather in the booths and the higher, more pronounced odors of wood and salt water. His stride was long and confident now, his head clear. (This trick of reminding himself that he might not be able to control what feelings come, but that he could choose how to respond to them, was something he credited to the therapist his wife had suggested he see years ago. It remained one of the single most important gifts anyone had ever given him) Taking his seat at the bar, he angled his body at 45 degrees to his wife, who was now deep in conversation with the bartender. The visual effect would have been clear to anyone looking at the scene from above – this was now a very clear triangle, and one oriented very intentionally towards his wife and the bartender. His fresh drink slid gently across the bar to him, the bartender's strong, tanned hand outstretched. Perhaps he'd pulled down ingredients while he'd been standing over the sink; what was clear at any rate from the perfectly cool and balanced taste and the flawlessly clear block of ice in the glass, was that the bartender had waited to mix it until he was ready to enjoy it.

The conversation was casual, but somehow filled with innuendos. They were clever and wry; not the sort of awkward, obvious and ham-fisted threesome jokes that so many movies and TV shows seem to rely on anymore. There was undeniable sexual tension – the air between the bartender and his wife seemed alive, almost as though there were sparks arcing back and forth between them, thrown by some unseen, primitive wireless set. At one point, to emphasize something she'd just said, his wife placed her left hand over the bartender's right and threw her head back, laughing. Her wedding ring sparkled. Sensing the opportunity to affirm her, he gently squeezed her thigh beneath the bar, all the way holding eye contact with the bartender. It felt as though something clicked, like a tumbler in a lock, and from that moment, it seemed clear that something had been set in motion and would continue along an uncharted course with the three of them aboard.

At 11, with the restaurant closing for the night, this bar was also scheduled to close up shop. When the bartender produced the bill, almost sheepishly, he made a point of charging the drinks to their room, taking the time to write the numbers clearly and legibly, and to underscore them with three quick strokes. It seemed almost too obvious and for just a moment, he felt like he might have broken the spell. But before he had a moment to consider this possibility, his wife gently placed the second room key, which she had pocketed at the gate on the beach, atop the bill. He felt a blooming warmth inside him and as he glanced at her to his left, he saw that same fire already blazing in her face.

In the elevator, riding up to their room, she had practically leapt on him the moment the doors closed, her tongue in his mouth and a frenzy in her fingers, which grasped at his shirt front and tugged on his belt loops, pulling his hips into hers. Lifting the hem of her sundress, he grabbed her ass with both hands, shocked to discover that somehow, she had already lost her underwear (either that, or never been wearing any in the first place). His mind reeled delightfully, like a dancer spinning joyfully around a crowded dance floor to a riotous beat. She could feel the thickness of his cock against her stomach as he pulled her into him, hard. The quiet chime indicating that they had reached their floor signaled the end of the round, and they smoothed their clothes as the doors slid apart, only just in time to avoid giving an elderly retired couple an inadvertent reminder of their bygone youth.

In their room, she disappeared immediately into the bathroom and he heard the sound of running water. Their bags had been placed atop folding luggage racks at the foot of a king size bed. The bed was made up entirely in white and looked very impressive. The foot of the bed faced a balcony overlooking the ocean – this had been an extra expense that he had quietly gone ahead and, on impulse, booked himself without asking – and on either side of the sliding patio doors were two leather armchairs, each with a small end table beside it. Unsure now about what to do – there had been so little directly said to this point that he found himself almost tempted to second guess it all again – his eyes settled on a polished brass ice bucket. Glad for something useful to do and even more grateful for the distraction, he grabbed the bucket and the room key and stepped out into the hall. He started back down the hallway in the direction of the elevators, thinking that he might find an ice machine there. Ten or fifteen feet further along the hallway, past the elevators, from an open door came the tell-tale hum of a compressor. As he ducked through the doorway, he heard the same distinctive chime ring out from the elevators. His heart leapt. Round 2? He thrust the bucket into the mouth of the machine as ice cubes clattered and rang loudly in the metal bucket.

It wasn't until he was walking back to their room, along that same hallway, not quite daring to look up, that it occurred to him that there wasn't anything in their room to drink. The ice bucket had seemed like such a smart idea in the moment, but now it seemed ludicrous. He couldn't help but smirk at himself now and what he had done in his nervousness. Approaching their door, he took a deep breath, and inserted his key card. The light flashed green; there was a faint, mechanical whirring as a deadbolt inside was withdrawn automatically, and he pressed the handle and stepped across the threshold.

At first he didn't notice anything. He had turned on only one of the lamps by the bedside, and the room was warmly lit with indirect, yellow light. The door to the bathroom was slightly ajar, giving off the faint dampness of a hurried shower. He allowed the door to close quietly behind him with a faint click, and only then did he notice the second key card sitting along the near edge of the dresser. Next to it was a bottle of bourbon – he recognized the label immediately as one he had seen on the list in the back of the cocktail menu. He paused, listening.

The light in the hallway had been bright and now, back in the room, it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust. His heart thundered in his ears now, making it impossible to hear anything else in the quiet darkness, although he strained to catch any sound at all from the room beyond. But it was his eyes that finally suggested the outline of two people, standing on the balcony. His breath caught in his throat.

The bartender was dressed the same. He probably had not had any opportunity to change, although perhaps there was an employee locker room where he had freshened up before slipping into the elevator unseen. But his wife stood out on the balcony wearing what he recognized as a new, fishnet coverup that she'd bought for this trip and the beach (or more likely, the pool, he corrected himself involuntarily). And nothing else. He could see the full curve of her ass outlined in the fishnet, which did little to hide the bare flesh beneath it. And as he stepped into the room, she turned and he saw what the bartender had undoubtedly already seen – her full, pale white breasts, barely concealed at all between the half open front of the coverup. She looked stunning. Smooth and bare, she looked incredible, outlined he realized now in the light of a partial moon, which he could see as he walked towards them was now visible over the ocean a few hundred yards from the hotel patio. His wife's hand was on the bartender's hip and she smiled at him as he paused to set down the ice bucket. It seemed like a nod passed between the two of them somehow, although he would wonder later how it had been possible for so much that was so important to be left unsaid in the moment. (All of those years of talking this very idea to death might have had something to do with that – what was left to say, except yes?)

There were three highball glasses sitting next to the bottle of bourbon. Details, he thought. Using the tongs, he lifted individual ice cubes from the bucket and dropped a few into each of the three glasses. He unstoppered the bottle with a faint, hollow thunk and moments later, the room filled with the musical sound of pouring liquid, clinking ice, and glass. With two glasses balanced in the palm of his right hand, and the third glass in his left, he crossed the room and stepped onto the balcony. Handing the drinks around, there was a brief moment of unintended levity. His wife raised her glass in a toast, but, not immediately finding anything clever to say, the three of them broke instead into uncontrollable laughter immediately. It broke the tension perfectly. He tasted the bourbon – even in the midst of the moment (this moment), he had the wherewithal to observe how fine it tasted. And then the bartender leaned in and kissed his wife on the mouth. He savored the taste of the bourbon as the kiss deepened. For a moment, he considered stepping forward and touching her (should he touch him? Had they ever asked?) but instead, he allowed himself another sip and just took in the sight and the sound of the kiss as it unfolded.

Somehow, drinks found tables and as he watched, hands found bodies. His wife's thin, delicate fingers found buttons and the dress shirt fell away to reveal a tan, muscular chest and flat stomach, a faint trail of dark hair marking a path from his navel into the waistband of his pants. Those gifted, quick hands that had so effortlessly cut, mixed, and twirled fruit, bottles, and glassware now found the soft curve of his wife's hips. As they kissed, the hands moved up her waist and then around to the small of her back, and then down, to her firm, round ass. The sharp contrast of those tanned hands and his wife's pale ass cheeks blazed in his mind. The bartender's belt was open a few moments later, and then the entire ensemble moved together somehow without direction across the threshold and back into the room, drifting inexorably towards the bed. Slipping out of his own shirt now, unbuckling his own pants without ever taking his eyes off the two of them, he sank down into the leather chair, naked. Almost at the same time, he watched from behind as the bartender's pants fell to his ankles, revealing muscular cheeks and well-defined thighs and calves.

The bartender's hands found his wife's tits and he felt his cock rising in his lap. The bartender kissed his wife's neck and she gasped. He worked his way down her neck to the hollow of her collarbone, and then, as she cupped his bare head in her hand, he kissed her breast. Across the room, his wife's eyes locked with his and he knew she could see how hard he was. She grinned wickedly and blew a kiss at his cock, winking, just before a look of first surprise and then pleasure flashed across her face. He was entranced. He had never seen these expressions, never heard these sounds. They were familiar and unfamiliar somehow, at the same time; like a song you knew well, but sung in a new key. It was incredible.

The bartender pressed his wife gently back towards the bed, where she first sat, and then, with his fingers gently insisting, fell back across the bedspread. His hands ranged over her with the same deftness, touching, caressing, pinching. They moved deliberately, without wasted motion but almost rhythmically, as though conducting unheard music towards its obvious eventual crescendo. The faint gleam of the moonlight from the balcony now lit the back of the bartender's bare head as he bent and kissed the tops of her thighs. Her navel. Spreading her legs confidently, now, the bartender kissed each of the small hollows where her inner thighs met the delicate, sensitive skin between her legs.

His hand was already on his cock, stroking almost absently now, feeling how hard he was for her; feeling almost proud, like he wished she could see. Almost on cue, she raised herself on one elbow, lifting one knee to give the bartender still more room, and to take in the stunning sight of her husband in the chair opposite the bed. His cock looked bigger than she felt she’d ever seen it, although this briefly registered as absurd, but only for a moment. The bartender's tongue darted across her lips and with a decisive movement, flicked across her clit without warning. She cried out and saw as she did how her husband's eyes blazed and his hips thrust upwards almost involuntarily.

He watched as her orgasm rolled across her like an electrical storm, low and slow, with flashes and rumbling thunder in the distance at first, then louder and closer, until the steady beat of the rain became a downpour. She lay back, and he watched as she let it wash over her. His hands. His tongue. He couldn’t have said exactly what the bartender had done, but it was clear that it had been exquisite. And quick. Or had it? He had no sense of time. He heard her shudder and sigh.

The bartender stood now, and his wife rolled over, bouncing gently on the bed as she landed on her back, almost giggling. Flipping her hair with one hand, she settled on her back with her head at the end of the bed, her hair cascading down. Digging her heels in, she pushed herself forward another six inches until her head hung over the end of the bed. He watched as she took the bartender gently by the hips, guiding him towards her face. This was a new trick – not something she had ever done with him that he could recall and certainly not something she had ever talked about. He watched transfixed. The bartender stood over his wife, resting his cock on her face, stroking it gently against her cheek as she licked and kissed it. It was incredibly erotic to watch. Her lips parted now and she kissed the head of it slowly, swirling her tongue slowly around it. The bartender let out a groan. He watched her hands gripping his ass tightly now as his wife began to pull his length into her mouth. The bartender was big, and thick. His wife's lips were stretched around it completely, but she kept pulling, clearly asking for more. After a few seconds, she pushed back on the bartender's thighs and he stepped back quickly. She came up sputtering at first, but immediately grasped him around the base of his cock and began again. And this time, still more disappeared. She tapped out once more, gasping, and then, looking directly into the bartender's face, she nodded once, and guided him back again. This time, she pulled him deeper and when she seemed to reach her limit, he reached out and took her hand in his, and pushed. He sank in to the hilt. One beat, two … and then he pulled back, his wife gasping for air. The first blast of cum hit her full in the lips and across her open mouth. The second was all over her throat. A third and then a fourth were on her chin and her cheek in short succession. She smiled wickedly and licked the corner of her mouth.

Back on the bed, she turned over onto her stomach now, facing him. He watched as she climbed up now onto all fours, joined by the bartender whose pale blue eyes now fixed him with a careful, almost compassionate stare. He nodded and locking eyes with his wife, watched as the bartender took his still-hard cock in his hand and guided it into her from behind. The look on her face was something he would never forget. There was still cum on her chin. Her expression was a mixture of surprise and concentration. He thrust into her and he could see clearly that she pressed back into him. She cried out. After a few strokes, the bartender reached down and gently took her by the wrist, lifting her hand from the bed in front of her and pinning the arm behind her, held her up off the bed by first one wrist, and then by both. Lifted up this way, her tits hanging free beneath her, him cum running down her neck and between, she looked more beautiful and sexier than he had ever seen her before. Long, slow strokes gradually gave way to harder, quicker fucking. The slap of his hips against her ass filled the room. And then she cried out, cumming again, her face momentarily hidden behind her hair as she groaned loudly, swearing.

His own orgasm was like a freight train, barrelling through him and out of him so forcibly that he staggered, unaware suddenly of when or how he had gotten to his feet. His wife's face and tits were completely covered in cum now, and he could not have said where one load ended and the other began. She looked stunned, but somehow, pleased with herself at the same time. It was a glorious mess.

The bartender came again moments later, loudly, too, this time across her ass and back. It was slightly less than the first time, but unmistakable and no less erotic. Slipping off the bed behind her, he went to the bathroom quickly, where the sound of running water followed. But when he emerged with another of the hotel's spotless white towels, damp with warm water, he found the husband, kneeling in front of his exhausted wife, stroking her back and kissing the crown of her head. He handed him the towel, smiling, and then as the two of them touched and kissed tenderly, the bartender dressed silently.

He walked the bartender to the door, glancing over his shoulder at his wife, who lay on her side now with her back to them both. A handshake felt oddly formal; a hug seemed very intimate just now, especially since his cock still protruded proudly in front of him. Instead, he said simply “thank you,” and as the bartender went to slip out the door into the hallway, he caught him by the wrist and pressed something into the palm of his hand. The door closed with a soft click and the deadbolt whirred back into place. The bartender glanced down at what he held in his hand and smiled. The room key.