THE BATHHOUSE ON ULITSA PETROVKA WAS A FAVORITE recreational spot for gangsters, government officials, and those for whom the distinction was negligible, and Yuri Vostov came there two and often three times a week to relax in the hot tub or sauna, always at noon on the dot, and never without at least two women on his arms.

Vostov considered his visits to be therapeutic as well as sources of profound physical pleasure—and pleasure was something he would not let himself take for granted. This was because of a scare he’d had some years back, when he was approaching his fiftieth birthday. Right around that time, he had found his sexual vigor to be on the wane, and even begun to fear he was becoming impotent after several horrid and ignoble embarrassments between the sheets. Though he had a large roster of young, beautiful women available as bedroom partners, and though each was talented and imaginative in her own way, nothing they did seemed to stimulate him. His encounters with these lovers continued in a rather lackluster, almost perfunctory fashion until one night, under advice from a friend in government, he engaged in a menage à trois—something he’d inexplicably never done before—with a pair of sisters known for their willingness to perform as a team, and gained salvation between their sweating bodies.

He supposed the secret had been in admitting that he was a man who valued quantity above quality. As with food, drink, and possessions, the key to his greatest fulfillment turned out to be getting what he liked all at once.

Today his companions in the sauna were Nadia and Svieta, not the sisters who had originally shown him the path to middle-aged carnal enlightenment—not relatives at all, to his knowledge—but a willing and enthusiastic pair in their own right. An auburn brunette, Nadia was wearing a pair of gold hoop earrings and nothing else. Svieta, a cinnamon redhead, had chosen to accent her nudity with a gold anklet. Both were on their knees in front of Vostov, who had also shed his towel, and was seated on a wooden bench watching their heads bob up and down below his ample stomach, their breasts swimming freely in a pearlescent haze of steam.

That was when a rap on the door suddenly tore Vostov and his companions from their rapture. Nadia’s gold hoop stopped banging against his inner thigh, Svieta’s spread of red hair rose off his lap, and both looked up at him with somewhat baffled expressions on their faces, as if unsure how to proceed.

He frowned, thinking foul thoughts about whoever had ruined the moment.

“What is it?” he barked.

“Prasteeyeh, Mr. Vostov,” the attendant said from the hallway. “There’s a call on your cellular phone—”

“A call? I told you we weren’t to be disturbed!”

“I know, sir, but it’s been beeping constantly and—”