I always thought smell was the most important thing. Hot stone, oak whisk, kvassed bread for steam, and honey. And underneath it all, the scent of clean wood, warmed by human bodies. "Margarita's Bathhouse" was an expensive place, private, where people didn't just come to wash. They came to remove the crust from themselves, the one that accumulates from money, negotiations, and the eternal rush. And I, Marina, twenty-two years old, was part of this ritual. His name was Artyom. This was his third visit, and always only to me. Not the kind of brute who jumps in with his hands, no. Silent, with dark eyes that looked not at his body but right through it, as if searching for some kind of flaw within. Today he was especially exhausted. His shoulders were like boulders, his neck tense. I worked silently, the classic way. First, warming up, lightly tapping with a birch broom soaked in a basin of fragrant infusion. The steam room hummed like a living beast, the heat envelopin... continue reading

The stuffiness in the car gave way to a sharp December chill as I stepped out into the bumpy parking lot of the Taiga bathhouse. Steam billowed from the exhaust, as if the car itself had breathed a sigh of relief. I had come alone—on purpose. After three months in the smoke-filled office, after his calls begging me to come back, I needed a shake-up. Or oblivion. A bathhouse, I decided. Alone. The old log cabin had turned black with age. Inside, it smelled of smoke, damp wood, and something deeply earthy. The owner, a woman with a tired face and nimble hands, handed me a sheet and a broom. "Are you taking the whole hour?" she asked again. "It's free until eight. Just... It's a wood-burning stove, so you have to heat it yourself. Can you handle it?" I nodded. Drowning is even better. It'll keep my hands and mind occupied. The dressing room was quiet and empty. I slowly undressed, looking at my reflection in the fogged window. The thinness he'd called &#... continue reading

The rain pounded the tin roof of the bathhouse, creating a cozy, detached noise. I sat on the oak shelf, all steamed up, listening to the coals crackling in the stove, and enjoying the peace. My father had gone to town on some urgent business, promising to return only tomorrow evening. We were left at the dacha alone with Irina. My stepmother. She was young. Too young to be a father. She was barely forty, and looked thirty. Slender, fit, with a look that made my twenty-year-old self get a hard-on. I always tried not to show it, looked away when she walked past in her tight shorts or bathing suit. It was torture. The door to the steam room creaked. I turned around and was stunned. Irina was standing on the threshold. Wrapped in a small white towel that covered the most important things, but hugged her curves so tightly that it took my breath away. Her damp chestnut hair was gathered into a messy bun, her cheeks were flushed, and drops of water were running down her collarbones. “Is t... continue reading

Well, I'll tell you how I fucked my mother-in-law in the bathhouse. Yes, you heard right. The same one, Natalya Petrovna, who usually looked at me like I was shit on a shoe. And this is how it happened. My wife and I went to her dacha in the village, she had just left on an urgent business trip, and I had a lot of work to do on the property. My mother-in-law, of course, lived there all summer. In the evening after work we were sitting, finishing up the shashlik. And of course we drank. Not to the point of being completely drunk, but good enough, relaxed. My mother-in-law poured me some drinks, and she looked at me in such a way... Not in a motherly way. And she was a woman, mature, of course, over fifty, but her figure... Such wide hips, a butt the size of half a trough, boobs - you could carry her in your arms. That day she was wearing a tight T-shirt, so I kept glancing at those curves out of the corner of my eye. And then she says: “Oh, the bathhouse is all heated up. Is it f... continue reading