Tatler - From Russia, with lust
November 2013

Whipped by branches, they said, traditional rural Russian-style. And -- “yes, no, yes, again, harder, HARDER” -- they were right. I shut out the world and its midwinter blizzards and cosied up inside this Moscow hideaway. There were steamy saunas, giant tubs of ice-cold water and chill-out cabins stocked with pitchers of traditional homemade beer called kvass (which beats camomile tea any day). Just when I was getting comfortable, the unbearably gorgeous Alex arrived -- naked but for a tiny towel around his waist. I blushed. I flicked my hair. I took evasive-eye action. It was almost as bad as having a sexy gynaecologist. “Take off your clothes,” he ordered with that accent. Naked and vulnerable, I lay on a bed of prickly (but rather titillating) Siberian fir while he set about thrashing me top-to-toe with oak and birch branches. Try as I might to pull in my belly and tighten my butt-cheeks, I finally gave in and relaxed into a wobble. As the treatment crescendoed, he whispered something about rolling around the on-site hayloft. Good Lord -- he didn’t mean together, did he?