True Hotel Tales: The Walk-In Couple

1.30 AM and I was sat behind reception when the front doors swung open.

"Ya doin' me 'ed in," I heard a woman say. "Serious."

"Just a joke ya silly c*nt," a man's voice replied.

I hadn't seen these people yet but already I’d decided that- sorry, sir, madam- the hotel was full tonight. Try Travelodge. 

They came into view: white couple, bleach blonde the pair, as if they'd used the same bottle. He was scrawny but obviously worked out. She looked like she'd been caught in some fake tan blast. She held a shopping bag with a bottle in it.

"Name's Carlson," he told me, leaning on the desk. "We booked on the internet."

Shit. No lying to them now. All three of us knew this hotel had vacancies.

"Sure," I said. I realised my only option would be to give them a twat room.

A twat room is a room that currently has no guests either side or above it. It's where you put Friday nighters who look trouble but not so much trouble you can turn them away. Not that that was an option now...

"Had a good night?" I said, processing their check-in.

"Yeah," he said. "And it's 'bout to get better."

She slapped his arse. "Dickhead."

He paid in cash.

"Okay," I said. "You know it's no smoking, yeah?"

"Don't smoke, mate."

"Because you can always smoke outside. I'll let you in and out and--"

"We don't smoke! F*ck me, mate, ya deaf?"

"Cool. Sorry. Here's your key, Sir."

An hour later and the downstairs corridor stunk of cigarettes. I sighed and knocked on their door.

"Reception." 

"Come in, mate," I heard him call.

Weird. People smoking in rooms don't just ask you to come in. They panic, whisper frantically, spray the room. They pretend to be asleep.

I opened the door and entered.

The room churned with a cocktail of tobacco reek and cold night air. They'd opened all the windows and the curtains were writhing in the breeze. She lay on the bed in boxers and a t-shirt, a bottle of white cider against a thigh. He didn't seem to be anywhere.

"I'm in here, pal."

The bathroom door was open and he was on the toilet, pants down and straining out a shit.

"'Owt I can help you with?" he said, smiling. His friend on the bed began to laugh.

I kept a straight face, didn't blink. His act was new but I'd seen the same drunk-arse tactic enough times. The idea is to freak-out the night receptionist, disarm them, make them stumble back to reception gobsmacked and listing. In my time I've seen men with their cocks hanging out their zippers, hen parties in their bras and panties, even one guy dressed in a teletubbie costume (Hat’s off there: originality’s a rare thing). As ruses go it's fiendish. If you're drunk. To anyone sober it’s as effective as a paper condom.

I pointed to alone sock hanging from the ceiling, its elastic stretched around the smoke detector.

"Bit early for Christmas decorations, isn't it?" I said.

I walked over to the window. Silly sods: they'd stubbed out their fags on the sill and left them in plain sight. Five years in this job. I deserved better than these amateurs.

I picked up a fag-end and walked back over to the man. He was still working on his shit.

"Sir," I said, "this is what we call a Monopoly moment."

"Eh?"

"Go or pay two hundred quid."

"What; a fine?"

"Uh-huh."

"We'll go." 

He wiped himself and pulled his trousers up.

"What?" the woman said. "We leaving?"

"Looks it," he told her. "C'mon, Gaile."

"Nah, f*ck him," she said. She looked at me. "We paid."

"Oi arsehole," he told her, "don't be an arsehole. Not paying two ton for you to be an arsehole."

"Such a c*nt..." she muttered.

They got their stuff together and left. An hour or so later I remembered the man hadn't flushed the toilet. The girls didn't need to see that in the morning when they came to clean the room. Especially if any of them were nursing hangovers.

Time to be a hero. I went back to the room and flushed the bog. Then I closed the windows. I went to switch off the bedside lamp and found a sheet of paper on the floor. I picked it up. A letter, in clear neat handwriting. I started reading.


Dear Gaile,

So frightened I could lose you. I can feel you passing through my fingers and it terrifies me. Forgive me. Please. I say foolish things. God, I love you. I love you so much and now everything hurts, everything upside down...

I read no further.

Smiling, I popped the letter in the wastepaper basket, switched off all the lights and left.