Standing at the corner of Madison Avenue and 27th Street, the petite brunette in the Michael Kors pantsuit discreetly checks whether she has enough bills to pay for “lunch” in cash.
Her paramour arrives, and they dart into MAve, a chic boutique hotel that, together with the trendy Flatiron, Verite and Tribeca Blu, is fast becoming the go-to spot for clandestine sex in Manhattan.
“It’s stylish, cute and clean,” says Lauren, the married pantsuit wearer, who asked The Post to use her “alias dating name” (so we don’t blow her cover). “There’s no paper trail, and it’s affordable.”
The 33-year-old advertising account executive, a member of cheaters’ introduction agency Ashley Madison who has had two short-term affairs since joining nine months ago, booked the room for some afternoon delight through the controversial online reservations site, dayuse-hotels.com.
Launched in the US last fall, it’s officially promoted as a convenient service for red-eye passengers, weary shoppers and, according to Yannis Moati, its regional manager, business-people who “need to relax between meetings.”
Yeah, right! Only your maiden aunt wouldn’t get that it’s a more upscale (and much more profitable) version of that seedy rent-by-the-hour no-tell-motel near the West Side Highway.
DayUse has negotiated discounts on daytime-only rooms, mostly available between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., at more than a dozen Manhattan hotels with three or more stars. Customers pay between 30 and 70 percent of the regular overnight rate to have the place at their disposal.
For instance, you can rent a double at the MAve from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for just $99, compared to the usual overnight rate of $269 when check-in is after 3 p.m. and check-out is before noon. There’s complimentary Wi-Fi, H2O Aquatics toiletries and his-’n’-hers velour bathrobes in the closets.
But you need to get in quick. Citing “bad publicity,” the MAve’s director of sales, Jim Mohan, told The Post that parent company Trust Hospitality is pulling the plug on its contract with DayUse at the end of February.
Other hotels, however, are sticking with the program. A 5 1/2 hour, ahem, “layover” at the Tribeca Blu — in a deluxe room with a flatscreen TV and an iPod dock — will set you back $139 instead of $299.
Such wallet-friendly deals are clearly designed to appeal to people like Lauren — the DayUse Web site purrs that they are “for work, rest and rendezvous” and “inject an element of fun to seduce and excite without the restriction of the overnight hotel stay.”
As Benjamin Kaller, director of revenue at the Flatiron Hotel, says: “The difference between DayUse and hourly rate is that the DayUse client who comes in is usually a higher-end client who is willing to pay a nice amount for a few hours.”
No surprise then that DayUse, based in (where else?) Paris, recently met with Ashley Madison about a possible partnership.
“Their whole challenge is lining up these hotels under some kind of politically correct paradigm, but this is all about fulfilling afternoon delights for people,” says Noel Biderman, CEO of Ashley Madison.
“There might be the atypical individual who just needs a shower and a shave, but there is no industry there. The economics sit squarely in extramarital rendezvous.”
The key attraction for philanderers is that, unlike mainstream bookings sites such as Priceline.com and Hotels.com, the online reservations — “discretion is core to the [our] values,” says another DayUse blurb — do not require credit card details. Clients book via e-mail, obviously a private one to which their spouse or employer has no access, and pay cash at check-in. No questions asked.
“You give them [the front desk] a pin number, which is sent via text message,” explains Lauren.
“There’s no fuss, no raised eyebrows, and you just hand over the money.”
She tells how her recent tryst stemmed from an in-joke between her and her latest hook-up, a 28-year-old financier whom she calls Matt.
“He was telling me about DayUse, and I thought it was hilarious that you could go somewhere like that for a couple hours,” recalls Lauren, who admits to having a “flexible” work schedule in that old-fashioned Madison Avenue “ ‘Mad Men’ kind of way.”
“I was teasing him about it,” she says.
The pair had previously patronized the Hyatt chain (Lauren is tight-lipped about which branch), where they’d forked out $350 to do the deed and bolt.
“Matt always paid for those rooms in the past, so I decided to surprise him this time around by booking through DayUse,” continues Lauren.
“I told him to meet me at the corner of the block [near the MAve] and we popped inside.
“Let’s just say we enjoyed each other’s company.”
Father of one, Bob, 43, another satisfied DayUse customer, who also spoke anonymously, often meets his girlfriend, Kelly, 37, a single mother of a young daughter, for hanky panky at the Flatiron Hotel.
“We both have shared custody of our girls so we have no access to peace and quiet,” says the French-born divorcee, who works in finance and paid $150 for the venue for their get-together.
“I found it [DayUse] on Google and thought it was phenomenal idea.
“The first time, I booked on the spur of the moment, and it turned into a lot of fun. You leave early from work, you take a room, it’s like being teenagers again.”
Indeed, as Bob enthusiastically points out, you don’t have to be an adulterer or a player to benefit from DayUse-hotels.com, whose competitors in New York include Dayguest.com and between9and5.com.
Respected sexperts, including Ronald Katz, a New York-based couples therapist, are giving the concept a thumbs-up.
“Renting a hotel room does not have to [be related to] cheating,” he insists. “Sometimes married couples will rent one for a day or a few hours to put zest back into their relationship.
“They tell me this is very helpful in [spicing up] their marriage.”
Single man about town, Antonio Gabriel, a 41-year-old photographer from Manhattan who books DayUse hotels as “a place to go between appointments” to “lay down, take a shower, refresh and have something to eat,” has spotted the potential for more hedonistic activities.
“I’ve thought about using it for romantic reasons,” he says.
“It’s a brilliant idea if you have a date a little earlier in the day, go for lunch and have some time to kill.”
Not only that, as Gabriel declares: “It’s cheap, and you’re not thinking about spending two or three hundred dollars.
But therein lies a problem. What kind of girl wants a cut-price date?
Lauren, who earns a six-figure salary in her advertising job, admits to having mixed feelings about booking through DayUse. It might be OK as a one-off or as a joke, but it’s a bit like your dinner companion calling for the check and handing over a coupon.
“I was a little taken aback when Matt first suggested the idea because it’s like, you know, a ‘discount affair,’ ” says Lauren, who, for her own self-respect, now insists they pay top dollar at the Hyatt.
“As a woman, you really want the guy to go all out.”
jridley@nypost.com