SO FRESH AND SO CLEAN.

Between a Tandoori Palace and an old-school barbershop on Fulton Street, there is a sunken stoop with a mosaic sign above it that reads, “Spa 8″. An ambiguous ground floor establishment, it has non-descript brown brick apartments stacked on top of it, and street vendors pitching wares out front. A restaurant-style menu beside the door outlines the spa’s services: massages, facials, steam room specialties. Perhaps some manicure and pedicure action, all moderately priced. Another spa in the sea of spas that speckle the New York City landscape, right?

Not quite. 

 

When my friend Miss M suggested that we go to the “Russian Baths,” I wasn’t sure what to expect. Not having been to Russia or a real bathhouse before, the only images that came to mind were of Viggo Mortensen’s Eastern Promises bathhouse throw down, where his man parts distractingly fluttered in and out of view.

 

I told her to sign me up.       

    

Much to my surprise, the bathhouse branded “Spa 8” (actually Spa 88, but the second 8 had fallen off) was, at first glance, much more low-key Burke Williams than sterile Russian underbelly. Warm peach and beige tiles lined the stairs to the reception area, and tropical foliage sprouted from pebble-bottomed pots in the foyer. A blonde Russian bombshell with an enviable tan greeted us and locked our valuables away. As she and Miss M chatted in their native tongue, I felt as if I had stumbled into a day-trip to another land, complete with terry cloth robes and free bottles of water. Little did I know that this day trip would end with me being flogged by a brute wearing a pointy felt cap. Little did I know that I’d like it.

 

After a brief steep in the hot rock sauna, Miss M and I took a moment to cool off near the showers. Much to my chagrin, there wasn’t a single naked Viggo in sight. Instead, a herd of burly men in their 60’s poured out of another room, discarded their towels, adjusted their swim trunks, and filled the room with boisterous Russian banter. One of them, the most robust of the group, donned a cream-colored felt cap with a point on top, which, Miss M explained, was meant to keep his hair from getting too hot in the sauna. The Big Man reached for something I had not seen before— a large bundle of oak leaves on the floor beside me, its base bound by an ominous tourniquet of DucTape. “What is that?” I asked Miss M, marveling at the feather duster au natural.

 

“That is for the steam room,” she said, her brown eyes sparkling. “They beat you with it.”

 

Now, I must note that I was not forced to try this. Miss M, my ever-gracious guide, even told me to watch him perform the treatment on her first, then decide whether or not I wanted to do it. Despite the tiny gasps I heard her expel under the hand of the steam room swat sergeant, I still wanted to go through with it. Go big or go home, I thought. If you want an American massage, go to Bliss Spa and sip some overpriced lemon water while they tickle your back with their knuckles. Now is not the time to be a baby. You said you wanted Russian, now you’re getting Russian. Sack up and get swatted. So I did.

 

But when the Big Man first pressed my face into the hot cedar planks of the steam room ledge, I thought that maybe it wasn’t such a great idea after all. “RELAX!!!” he shouted, digging his fingers into the back of my neck and shaking me like a rag doll.

 

“Just breathe into it and let go,” Miss M coached from the sidelines, her voice a soothing oasis in a desert of probable pain. She got through it, I will, too, I told myself, hopeful. The Big Man started swatting. Oh crap.

 

He moved the oak branches vigorously along the back of my body, stopping every so often to let the heated friction of their movement linger on my face and lower back. Although I was resistant at first (Hot! Hot! Mother F-ing Hot!), there was something nice about the flicking of the leaves against my skin— a thousand little electric shocks, waking up my senses and jump-starting my circulation. I was just relaxing into it when— 

 

“COLD!!!” The Big Man called out, a second too late. My very hot body was covered in very cold water. My head strained upward in shock, and I suddenly felt like Wesley on the Princess Bride torture wrack, but with no Princess Buttercup at the finish line. The Big Man proceeded to knead course salt scrub into my skin as if it where Play Doh, and hit me some more with the steaming oak leaves. He grabbed my arm and wrestled me up to sitting position. My eyes blurred with the sweat/water/salt/trauma of the past few minutes.

 

“POOL!!!” he yelled, and gestured for Miss M to help me to the anteroom dipping pool. After having just been doused with Antarctic H20, I reasoned, this couldn’t be too bad.

 

Wrong. “JUMP!!!” he bellowed, and I tentatively descended the ladder to the icy depths below. Yep. Colder than a polar bear’s toenails.

 

“HEAD!!!” he screamed. I dunked my head in, too weary to protest.

 

“UP!!!” He and Miss M hauled me back into the steam room, where I figured I could maybe relax for a few minutes before—

 

“FRONT!!!” He prodded me onto my back and shoved my head to one side so he could start the procedure on the front of my body. By this point, I was so exhausted that I had no choice but to relax. A bit like Suzuki, I thought in a haze, but for my dermal and thermal sensibilities. It isn’t so bad, once you just lend yourself over to it. I could do this again, for sure. Maybe–

 

“SHOWER!!!”

The Big Man and Miss M gathered me up like a wet rug and took me to the rain shower.

“COLD!!!” he boomed again, as if I couldn’t guess. The water poured down on me like an avalanche, and, after a moment, I could finally breathe. My entire body throbbed with the simultaneous arousal and numbness of back-to-back hot/cold stimuli. I was tired, but somehow also very awake.

 

“FEEL GOOD?!!” he asked, slapping my back as if I’d just completed a race. In some way, I felt like I had. But then again, I’m not too athletic, so anything that gets my heart rate up seems like a workout.

 

“Yes,” I said. “I feel good.” I think. 

 

It took a moment for it to settle in that his manhandling was actually very therapeutic (but maybe that’s just a footnote to my personal life). Either way, as Miss M and I lounged in the open quad later, sipping fresh pressed grapefruit juice and glowing from our recent treatments, I really did feel good. I felt like a new woman. A new, freshly flogged woman. 

 

I even have the bruises to prove it.