The Russian woman with velvet hands

My name is Marc, I'm 38 years old, and I'm a consultant visiting Geneva.
The first time I saw Ana was on a rainy Tuesday at the XoXo salon.
I had come without any particular plan, just needing to forget a week that had been too long.
She welcomed me with a simple glance—icy blue, intense, almost intimidating.

"You look tired," she said in a low voice, with that Russian accent that rolls gently over the words.

She led me into a room bathed in golden light, where the scent of jasmine and warm wax lingered.
While I undressed, she prepared the oils, methodical and focused, like an artist before her canvas.

The first contact was deliberately slow.
Her hands, large and precise, glided over my skin with the mastery of a dancer.
Each movement seemed to tell a story—that of a woman who knows bodies as well as she knows silence.

"You think too much," she whispered. "Let me do it."

I didn't answer.
Under his touch, my thoughts faded away one by one.
The world shrunk to that warm breath on my neck, to the pressure of his fingers sliding down my back.

She leaned close to my ear:

— In Russia, they say that a good massage erases regrets. Would you like to try it?

When the massage was over, she wrapped me in a warm towel, brought her face close to mine, and whispered:

— There you go... now you can start breathing again.

I sat up, still elsewhere.
Her eyes held me for a moment, as if to remind me that all of this had indeed happened—here, within these walls, under this light.

Before leaving, she smiled: