Room service - 1

Strange how it happens. You've been escorted to your hotel room, you open the door to a completely unfamiliar bedroom and suddenly you're overcome with the urge to tear each other's clothes off.

What is it about hotel rooms that gets men and women hot, flushed and ready for action? The idea of the countless sexual trysts that took place there before you? The fantasy of what they might have been like? The people they may have involved? Maybe it's the anonymity of it all – you could be anyone, anywhere, with no visitors, no phone calls. Maybe it's the full-length mirror, or the abandonment of being on holiday.

Or perhaps it's just the thought of escaping the real world. One thing's for sure: hotel rooms are absolutely guilt-free. You can stay in your room naked – or barely clothed – the whole day and night, order room service, have bubble baths, do practically nothing ... and that bed is always the most prominent piece of furniture in the room. You watch TV from the bed, you often eat your room-service meal on the bed. That's just too tempting for most couples. It is for me.

Last year, my boyfriend and I travelled through Spain. It was a spontaneous trip. We were travelling on a shoestring, but with a bit of detective work we managed to find decent accommodation.

As we enjoyed the basic yet sexy lodgings available, our 10-day trip turned into a 10-day sex fest. Sex in a big old wooden bed, sex in an austere little room high up in a castle, sex on a blanket on our patio, sex in the garden of our B&B – we had sex everywhere, culminating in us making love on the windowsill of our hotel room, overlooking a busy cobbled plaza. I felt as if we were wrapped in a cocoon and no one and nothing else mattered.

You don't have to be in another country, or even with a full-time lover to enjoy the benefits of raunchy hotel sex. Here are some tricks I've learnt that make hotel sex great sex.

Splash your cash

We may have been lucky with our budget accommodation in Spain, but great hotel sex is usually a case of you getting what you pay for. Don't expect your woman to turn any special tricks for you at a cheap little motel where the TV is padlocked to the wall and the bathroom is a rinky-dink shower booth with a loo in it. That stuff reminds her of the real world. Take her to a place that allows her to relax. Let her live her fantasy.

Don't despair if you can't go completely over the top expense-wise – a well-chosen guesthouse or even a beautifully set romantic chalet will have the same effect. One of my exes once hired a lakeside cabin for us to escape to.

We'd hardly put our bags down before things got completely out of control – it had been a long drive and all the anticipation for our dirty weekend just bubbled up and took over. It was a frantic quickie but when we'd finished, I walked into the kitchen to find that the sweet old lady from reception had popped in and left our towels on the table for us while we'd been busy. Which brings me nicely to one of my main reasons hotels are so good for sex.

The little people

Those quiet, efficient housekeeping people are a key cause of you having earth-shatteringly good sex in a hotel. Use as much oil as you want, spill the champagne, shove the room service tray to one side, destroy the neatly made bed, pull the bedding onto the floor, use every single one of the 10 000 towels at your disposal and you don't have to clean up any of it.

At home I know that I'm ultimately responsible for doing the laundry, straightening the dining-room table and chairs, and mopping up the water on the bathroom floor. In a hotel, these things are never a concern – in fact there's something quite suggestive about my lingerie draped over the bedside lamp. Just remember to hang up the Do Not Disturb sign before you get too engrossed.

Mirror, mirror

I love making love in front of a mirror. Many mirrors are better. And sure, you probably have a couple of mirrors around your house, but often in hotels you find a perfectly mirrored corner in the bathroom, fantastically huge mirrors on the dresser or, better still, above the headboard. You could even move one there if there isn't. Watch your partner pleasuring you, watch yourself. It's a sensually surreal experience to watch as if you were a third person. If your woman is brave enough, she'll enjoy it too.

Image: Stefan May/Men's Health

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