The Banya
I hung my head and sat transfixed watching the steam rise off of my thighs, misty tendrils swirling around me before vanishing into the darkness of the night. The evening was cold, it was the middle of winter, yet in defiance of the chill all around me, warm droplets of sweat covered my naked body and dripped from my hanging head. Even after stepping outside the intense heat of the sauna still clung to my body and the burning inside of me kept the cold at bay.
"As a kid, I always hated this," Lina said from the other end of the rough wooden bench. "Not actually the banya, turns out that this part is really lovely, but I hated that there was this strange activity that all the adults did and none of us kids were allowed to even be around for it."
"Yeah?" I asked, turning to face her and sliding my hand on to her slippery thigh.
"Even the name banya was weird to me," she explained. I had just learned that banya was the Russian word for a sauna. "And all of our parents wouldn't talk about it very much. But when they did, it felt like a big secret that they had together and we weren't a part of it. They all seemed to love it in a way that didn't make sense. Ugh. I hated it."
Like myself, my wife was totally nude and her body was steaming. Once I looked over at her my eyes never wanted to look elsewhere and I couldn't help but smile at what I was seeing in front of me. Under the glowing light of the full moon Lina's pale skin radiated with a phosphorescence that made her appear otherworldly, accentuated by the mess of curly hair atop her head that fell past her shoulders. Lina's generous curves stood out from the darkness as she twisted her torso and reached her long arms skyward to stretch, full breasts swaying and crashing into one another in enjoyment of being totally free and outside. The dark circles of her areolas were the only contrast to her otherwise ghostly body. The flesh of her ass and hips filled the narrow bench outside of the sauna, I got the impression that it was used to a more dainty type of woman. I had met much of her family and she was the only one built this way.
The two of us were outside of the banya that had been used by three generations of her family, specifically the adults, since they immigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union. The actual structure of the sauna itself wasn't much more than a small timber cabin with an overhang outside of it that provided some cover for the porch. The exterior was weathered and worn but had been resilient enough to withstand the sometimes brutal winters and hot summers. A stack of firewood was piled against the side of the building, some of which we had already brought inside to light the sauna stove.
"But now...," I prompted her for more info because I couldn't see anything about this situation to hate. We had this cabin for ourselves for a long weekend and planned on enjoying every moment of it.
"But now, I fucking love this. Just you and I here, with this entire place to ourselves is just incredible. I get it now. Why my family has kept it the way that they have and how they want all of us to use it," she said with a big smile, her eyes looking me over and lingering on my crotch. Which, even with the cold all around, was showing signs of life. My wife had that effect on me.
"Agreed. I mean, I never had to deal with the forbidden mystery sauna as a kid. But this is great. And it makes me feel that I, and us, are really a part of the family."
Lina and I were newlyweds, going on four months of being married. We had tied the knot in a beautiful little ceremony in early fall and were still loving everything about being married. I'm not sure that we had been apart from one another for more than a couple of hours since we were hitched. One of the perks of being married to this absolutely perfect woman was that we were finally able to use the family retreat, which they lovingly called the
dacha.
Lina's grandparents bought this land and built this place years ago. Once they both passed it went to the next generation to share; Lina's parents, aunts, and uncles.
My in-laws, and I mean all of them, not just my father and mother in-law, had an odd rule about the
dacha
. For the summer and spring it very much functioned like you would imagine; basically everyone in the family had access to it. Sometimes an uncle and aunt would reserve it for a week with their kids, or maybe there would be a big family function and everyone would be invited even though the house wasn't nearly large enough for everyone. I had attended one such weekend and we brought a tent, as did others, and it was rustic and charming and lived up to all the expectations that I had.
But in the winter and fall, when it was affectionately known as "the Winter Palace", kids weren't allowed and neither were unmarried couples. It was a family rule and no one questioned it. At least not out loud, Lina said that when she was younger her and some cousins would theorize all sorts of stories for this seasonal restriction, but no one ever brought their concerns to the heads of the family.
Even though they weren't allowed inside of it, the kids all knew about the banya. In the summer the banya felt like a haunted house according to Lina. It didn't have a lock on it, just a wooden latch to keep the door from blowing open when the wind would howl, so the cousins were able to sneak over to it and go inside, the heavy wooden door creaking open and letting in the warm light of summer.
Once inside the light did nothing to shake the dark feel of the place to a little kid. The stove, a massive metal contraption, sat in the corner like a slumbering dragon. The stovepipe, sooty and cold, rose up from the stove like a sentinel. The dark timbers of the walls seemed straight out of a fairy tale, something that lived in an enchanted forest of mystery and magic. The kids would dare each other to go inside the sauna and have the others close the door on them, leaving them alone in the darkness.
On one such occasion Lina insisted that she heard a rattle from the stove and then the feeling of something touching her body. She recalls that it wasn't cold, not some sort of ghostly touch that you would expect a child to conjure up from fear. Instead the touch was warm and the feeling quickly spread through her body. It actually felt good, she had told me when relating the story on the drive up to the cabin. But it didn't feel right and she left before she got too under its spell.
That's what she said. Its spell.
But now we were married and we were entitled to a weekend for ourselves here. At our wedding her cousin Maria, a couple years older and an elegant stunner of a woman, gave us a nice set of waffled towels to use in the banya and said that we needed to have a weekend here that was just the two of us. She really emphasized that it needed to happen soon. Her husband Dave assured me that we would have a great time.
And so we set it up with her Uncle Sergei, ever since Lina's grandmother passed away he had become the unofficial manager of rentals for the
dacha
.
So far it had been completely worth the long drive. It was wonderful to spend time with Lina, the little house was incredible, and the sauna was pretty much perfect. As an Irish American I really didn't have any reference for what it would be like but I took to the steam immediately and was looking forward to a lifetime of annual retreats here.
And for Lina it was the unraveling of a mystery that had persisted since her youth. Filling in the details of the spooky story that she had been wondering about for years. I could tell that it meant a lot to her to be here with me. In the eyes of her family she was finally a real adult and could be trusted with family tradition.
"I think I have one more round left in me," I said, the cool air was finally starting to break through my body heat and I could feel the chill creeping into my bones. I certainly couldn't stay naked in the cold much longer. It was either time to get back in the sauna or head inside the house.
"I'm totally drained," Lina replied. Even in the dim light I could see how flush her pale skin was, small blotches of pink starting to show on her flesh. Never one for modesty, her entire body was exposed in the moonlight and I took note of how her nipples stood at attention, calling out to me.
I reached over and gave one of them a gentle tug and watched as her heavy breast pulled away from her body before slipping away from me, the flesh wobbling a bit as it came to rest against her.
"You sure? Another ten minutes will feel great," I sent a lewd look her way and placed a hand back on her still steaming thigh, this time higher up than before.
She pushed me away and stood, leaning over to give me a kiss before beginning the walk back to the house. "Have fun. I'll see you inside." I watched her saunter back to the house, she never bothered to wrap her towel around her body and treated me to a show. Her ass swayed with each exaggerated step, tempting me to forfeit the last round in the sauna and follow her inside the house.