The Woman Trying Out an Airbnb Sex Swing

In this week’s story, a sexologist celebrates her birthday with her dom: 30, single, Europe

DAY ONE

9 a.m. I’m at D’s apartment in Berlin, packing my things. D and I have an interesting relationship. He’s my friend — we have romantic feelings for each other that we haven’t really addressed yet — but he’s also my dom. I’m here in Europe to see him and visit some family. I also turn 30 later this week, which was kind of an excuse to visit.

After spending a few days with D, I’m getting ready to fly to London. Since I’m in Europe, I figured I’d check out a couple Airbnbs that I keep hearing about in the kink community (they come equipped with sex swings, handcuffs, toys, those kinds of things, so are very popular with those in the know). I’m a licensed clinical sexologist and sex writer, and I want to see if these Airbnbs are as good as they sound. (With some assistance from D, of course.)

11 a.m. My Uber is here. I kiss D good-bye for now. He has to stay behind in Berlin for one more day for work. He’s an adult performer — yup, a proper porn star.

2 p.m. I board the plane while daydreaming about what will happen when D meets up with me in England. I think about looking up at his piercing blue eyes as he grips his huge hands around my neck. The flight attendant announces that the plane is ready for takeoff, and I snap out of my fantasy.

6 p.m. Arrive in London. I reminisce about how much my life has changed since the last time I was here in 2020. I was traveling alone for my second international speaking gig about how to become a sex writer. I had just enrolled as a student in one of the only graduate programs for sex therapy in the United States. I was in a relationship with my relatively vanilla ex. Now I’m completely done with my master’s program and working with clients on sex-related issues, writing about sex and dating for popular publications, and working as a resident sexpert for resorts and cruises all over the world. And the best part about it all is that D and I sometimes travel to these events together. We met at a sex conference and hit it off right away — that was a year ago. Since then, he’s become my dom, my favorite person to travel with, and I guess you could say a part-time boyfriend, even though we are hesitant to really have those kinds of conversations yet. It’s all a bit vague.

7 p.m. I take the tube to my friend’s apartment and spend the night with her. I fill her in on what I did during my visit to Berlin: juicy stuff, like attending a porn film festival, and more sentimental moments, like meeting D’s mother for the first time.

10 p.m. As my friend leaves me on her couch so I can sleep, she says that she can see me moving to Europe soon. I can imagine saying good-bye to New York forever, but not yet.

DAY TWO 

10 a.m. I wake up in a good mood because it’s officially my birthday week.

1 p.m. Take the train to Southampton, a two-hour ride from central London.

3 p.m. I walk to the Airbnb that I rented for the night, which is a short walk from the train station. Once I get there, I leave my carry-on and backpack by the door and start to explore each room. My jaw drops. The bed in the first room has three holes carved out of it so that submissives can place their head and hands through it, similar to pillories that were used during medieval times for punishment by public humiliation. Hot. There are also erotic paintings on the walls and a shelf with kinky toys like paddles, riding crops, floggers, and ball gags. There’s also a slender metal cage, perfect for a submissive like me who loves pet play. Meow.

5 p.m. I send D a message to let him know that I arrived safely and can’t wait until he joins me tomorrow to stay in the second kinky rental. I’ll have to enjoy this one alone, but that’s okay. The whole point of coming here was to see if these apartments are worth the hype because I plan to send clients here, or at least talk about these types of escapes as travel options. So while I’d rather not be alone tonight, it’s not for nothing.

7 p.m. I spend the rest of the night watching Fifty Shades of Grey. Very on the nose. D is honestly like my personal Christian Grey, minus the mommy issues. (He’s also more emotionally intelligent.)

11:30 p.m. After watching both the first and second Fifty Shades movies, I fall asleep.

DAY THREE 

11:30 a.m. I walk to the train station to meet D and immediately spot him. “Finally reunited,” I yell, even though it’s only been one day. We get an Uber to check into the second place, and I show him pictures of the house from last night along the way.

Noon This one is even nicer, damn! The first room has a bed with a mask and handcuffs attached to it. One of the other rooms has a large sex swing, and there’s also a hot-tub room. We’re both in heaven, but we’re also hungry so we quickly run out to a café down the street for sandwiches.

3 p.m. We take a nap, and when we wake up, I feel his erection getting harder against my butt. His hands wander to my boobs. He starts kissing my neck and touching my clit. My breathing gets heavier, and I start to get wet. I grab his dick and slowly put it inside me while he continues playing with me. As much as I love having sex with him, this is the only awkward part for me, because his dick is big, so I usually find my mind thinking, Oh boy, here we go. Just relax. We switch positions. As I’m face down on the bed, it feels like my face is sinking, and we use that as an opportunity to incorporate sensory deprivation. I test my limits and see how far I can go with my breathing being restricted. It feels like such a rush inside my body, the less I can breathe. My moans and screams become muffled. I can’t speak to use our safe word, red, so I urgently tap D’s leg twice, signaling that I need to adjust my face and be let up for air. I gasp and tell him that I want him to mark me as his property as he comes on my ass. We both orgasm, and then do our usual post-sex routine: pee, cuddle, aftercare.

6 p.m. We eat snacks and watch Back to the Future, one of his favorite movies. D thinks it’s crazy that I’ve never seen it.

9 p.m. We go to the sex-swing room. Most of the wall is mirrored. He lifts me into the swing and adjusts my hips so I can receive him. My legs are basically spread eagle. He thrusts into me, and I watch myself literally swing into him.

10 p.m. We snuggle in the huge comfy bed that feels like a waterbed and doze off.

DAY FOUR 

10 a.m. We find somewhere near the Airbnb to have coffee and pastries.

11 a.m. Back at the apartment, he initiates sex, but I’m sore from yesterday, so I laugh and say, “Not right now. Later.”

3 p.m. We walk around (Germans love their long walks), just walking and talking about random things like the possibility of hosting kinky retreats together.

6 p.m. He takes me to a bar that makes witch-themed cocktails. He knows how much of a Harry Potter fan I am. Plus, I’m a Scorpio who loves Halloween-related stuff and dark themes. We order two “love potion” cocktails.

9 p.m. Happy and tipsy, we walk back to the rental. He carries me to the bed, places me flat on my stomach, and uses the handcuffs attached to the bed to keep me restrained there. I close my eyes. It feels like there’s a long pause before I hear any movement from him. Suddenly, I feel his hand lifting my skirt so that my bare ass is exposed. He warms my body up by rubbing me slowly with his hands. Then he grabs a paddle. BAM. There’s the first strike. Anywhere between four to five strikes follow the first. Then he grabs the next toy, which feels like a riding crop, and delivers the next few strikes. He switches up the rhythm of the way he spanks me. Ouch! I yell. Are those his hands? I wonder. Yes, they are. Funny enough, his large hands hurt more than any tool he uses, including the flogger. I start to squirm when he traces the feather against my bruised ass. It feels almost like a needle because my ass is so raw.

9:30 p.m. After our intense session, the only thing I want to do is rest on the bed. The only thing he wants to do is eat one of the microwavable tikka masala meals he got. I guess all that arm work can create quite an appetite.

DAY FIVE 

8 a.m. I wake up to him whispering “happy birthday” in my ear.

9 a.m. We take some NSFW pictures in one of the sexy rooms. I put on my tight black minidress, and he wears his black pants and remains shirtless. In one of the pictures, he sits me down on the sex swing and hands me one of the floggers to hold it in between my legs and look seductively at the camera.

10 a.m. We shower, and the water splashes against the bruises on my ass. It really hurts, but at the same time, it’s gratifying.

Noon We take the train back to London.

4 p.m. We check into our basic hotel room. It’s obviously not as interesting as the kinky Airbnbs, but it’ll do.

4:30 p.m. I turn on the TV and notice that The Real Housewives of Dubai is on, so I make him watch it with me. It’s my birthday, so we do what I want.

7 p.m. We go to a former church turned food market and meet a friend of mine, S, who lives in London. I know her from the kink community; we first met on Instagram. She brings out a card game called The Kink Game. It’s not really a game, more like a series of conversation starters. There are prompt cards labeled with sex acts like “spanking” and “anal penetration,” then you answer with a “yes” or “no” response card. Then we take turns explaining why we responded the way we did. D and I automatically know each other’s answers to everything.

9:30 p.m. We take the tube back to the hotel and end the night cuddling naked and flipping through the channels on the TV until we stumble upon an interesting German comedy show. My German skills aren’t good enough to keep up with it, but the show has SNL vibes, so I don’t mind it.

11 p.m. We’re sleepy but horny enough to at least have a nice, slow make-out session until we fall asleep. I enjoy the intimacy.

DAY SIX 

6 a.m. D wakes up early, as he usually does. There’s no way in hell I’m getting out of bed this early, though.

9 a.m. I have breakfast in the hotel lobby while D checks work emails, showers, and gets dressed.

Noon We do some touristy things. London Eye, Big Ben, the British Museum, Chinatown. Also some sex shops in Soho.

4 p.m. We meet up again with S, my friend from yesterday, to chill at Soho House and bond over our kinky interests. We also talk about the upcoming cruise I’ll be working on as a sexpert, which prompts D to give a compliment about my magnetic energy and positive impact on the other couples on the cruise. Nice to hear.

5:30 p.m. D goes outside to smoke a cigarette, and S smirks at me and says, “I can tell how much he likes you from the way he compliments you.” I blush. I like him too. A lot.

9:30 p.m. I’m tipsy and ready to go back to the hotel with my dom.

10:30 p.m. We shower and end the night naked in bed, running our fingers through each other’s hair. It sucks that he’s leaving a day before me, but he has to be back in Berlin. And I’m flying out to visit my sister in Hanover.

DAY SEVEN 

5 a.m. I wake up to the sound of D’s alarm. My heart sinks. It’s time for him to leave. He kisses me and says to text him as soon as I’m back in Germany tomorrow.

9:30 a.m. I wake up drenched in sweat from a nightmare. In my dream, D disappeared off the face of the earth, without warning, and was never to be heard from again. I calm myself down by reaching for my phone to text him, only to see a text from him already, letting me know he arrived in Berlin safely. That’s reassuring.

10 a.m. I have breakfast in the hotel lobby, thinking about the nightmare. This feels like a classic “subdrop,” i.e., the crash in emotions that happens after something so heightened and intoxicating. Maybe this is my delayed way of experiencing it.

11 a.m. I’m back in the hotel room. I’m still in a bad mood from the nightmare, so I don’t have the energy to plan a full day. I’ll just walk around aimlessly and see what sites stick out to me enough to hang.

3 p.m. I walk past some place called the George Inn. I Google the name and find out that this particular area was once London’s medieval “pleasure district.” Funny that even when I don’t specifically plan to find erotically charged places, those places find me. I go in …

5 p.m. I’m just sitting here at the inn’s bar, watching strangers interact with each other and reflecting on my time with D this week.

8:30 p.m. Back in the hotel room, packing. The silence feels heavy without D, but not in a way that scares me. It’s more like the echo of something meaningful settling into place.

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