Always The Bride’s Maid…

Working at the hotel had it’s perks, there was no denying it; Katie got her meals free from the excellent kitchens, it paid unexpectedly well for what was basically a part-time domestic role, and she got a significant discount on rooms at any of the other four and five star hotels in the chain that were scattered around the world in far flung and exotic locales.

The downsides were that it was for the most part mind-numbingly boring work; cleaning the rooms was the worst of it, the personal hygiene of some of the guests left a lot to be desired. But the worst part was the bad attitude that a surprising number of guests seemed to hold against the maids and porters. At times she felt treated like a slave, pandering to the whimsical needs of people with more money than sense, and being barked at for the dubious privilege.

Swings and roundabouts she thought to herself as she pulled off the now starchy semen coated sheet from the recently vacated room 152, all a part of life’s playground.
She had never felt intimidated by the more rude and pompous guests but it was difficult to hold her tongue at times, and the stress of her unreleased anger tended to give her pounding headaches. Paracetamol did little to alleviate them.

After replacing the sheets and duvet Katie bundled the old sexually abused bedding into her cart and started off for the laundry. Approaching the lift she was stopped by Bill, the assistant manager.

‘Katie, I need to ask a favour.’ he said with a harrowed look on his face that said she wasn’t going to like it.

‘Yes?’ she asked tentatively.

‘Can you stay back tonight? Laura’s called in sick and she was supposed to be looking after the Bridal suite. We have a couple of newlyweds in tonight and she normally handles all that.’

‘How long?’ she asked.

‘Should only be till… maybe 1am, I’ll let the night-shift handle them after that.’

It had been a long day already and Katie really wanted to get home to a mug of cocoa and another chapter of ‘Life of Pi’.

‘Double time if you can do it!’ he offered sensing her reluctance and it was too tempting for her, the extra money would come in handy and she wasn’t in the next day. She liked Bill too and he had always given her time off when she needed it.

Katie agreed and Bill gave her a quick rundown of the usual routine for someone specially assigned to the bridal suite. It seemed pretty straightforward, nothing much out of the ordinary, just priority attention and the added power of being able to command the kitchen staff if any unusual culinary requests should be made.
Bill assured her that their probably wouldn’t be any, that they usually just stumble in drunk, have a ‘quickie’ and fall asleep.

How romantic, she thought, a drunken quickie on your wedding night. but she didn’t doubt the truth of it. Bill had been there long enough to have figured it out, and he was married himself.
Katie had always imagined her wedding night as being a thrill ride of passionate love-making with a soundtrack of whispered declarations of undying devotion lasting until the break of dawn.
She also imagined that her divorce would be bitter and acrimonious. Love and hate inhabit people in equal measures she always found. That was why she usually went for the type lacking in any real passion for life; the inevitable break up was so much easier than it was with the big-hearted types, though the time spent together was a lot less fun.

Katie tided herself over with casual sex between boyfriends; sleazy ship in the night encounters that satisfied a need and left no relationship hangovers, but usually came with a crushing physical one the morning after.
She was loathe to admit to herself that she enjoyed the anonymity of her one night stands, the heated, frantic, end of the night rutting, the freedom to be sexually aggressive without it seeming out of character.
But a part of her yearned for romance and connection, the part that was always sarcastically put down by her cynical side who told her that ‘true love’ belongs between the covers of Mills and Boon novels, not her bedsheets.

With a heavy sigh Katie wheeled the cart of cum-stained laundry into the lift and pressed the button for the basement.




The Bridal suite was spectacular. Katie had never had more than a glimpse of it before in her seven months in the job, and she was taken aback. The suite appeared vast compared to the standard rooms she was used to tending, and bathed in a healthy golden glow. The view out across the river with the lights of the city’s hectic nightlife sparkling on it’s calm surface was beautiful, breathtaking. She had never seen the city of her birth look so attractive.
The plush lilly white carpet seemed to absorb her weight with every step. She was tempted to lie down on it and feel it against her skin but resisted.

However she couldn’t resist throwing herself onto the super-king size four poster bed and luxuriating in it’s soft welcoming Goose down duvet and pillows. She had always imagined the bedding would be red; a passionate scarlet, but it was as flawlessly white as the carpets. The silky soft netting that hung from the posts was red though, and Katie could imagine her fantasy new husband parting the veils, as it were, to claim his marital prize.

There was nothing much to do really. The room was spotlessly clean and tidy, Bill had made sure the bedding was already changed by the previous shift, there were ample fluffy towels (also white) and the bathroom was fully stocked.
The newlyweds were due in at 10pm and Katie had already arranged for the courtesy bottle of champagne on ice to reach the room before them.

She took the two Belgian chocolate truffles and placed them on the pillows, then smoothed over the bedding again, removing every last hint of a crease. The room was perfect.
She considered one more roll on the bed, or maybe five minutes of rest to relax her aching legs but feared that she would fall asleep and be awoken by an angry couple yelling at her the one time she was given this responsibility.
Bad idea she decided, but was left wondering if Laura had ever brought her boyfriend here for her evening sex sessions. She had used the executive suites a few times, and knowing her she probably had done.
Katie felt a pang of envy and made a mental note to ask her sometime.



10pm rolled by and the couple had still not arrived. Katie busied herself with some room service duty. A group of three; two glamorous girls and a guy, the businessman type, had asked for champagne. She recognised the girls, they had been here before with various men and she wondered if they were escorts.
She knocked on the door and it was the guy who opened it. Katie brought the champagne bucket in and placed it on the table by the bedside, noticing the two girls sitting on the bed in their skimpy dresses. She put the three glasses down beside it and could feel the sexual tension in the room.