As the holiday season approaches, many women find themselves juggling a hectic schedule—hunting for last-minute gifts, securing that crucial Christmas Ocado delivery, and tackling a never-ending list of end-of-term tasks.

However, Gweneth Lee’s holiday experience is quite different. Her festive season is nothing short of indulgent and extravagant. Her main “tasks” involve preparing herself for a series of opulent dinners with affluent men eager to win her favor. Meanwhile, she anticipates a collection of luxurious gifts—perhaps another Celine silk dress from Philip or a shopping spree at Selfridges courtesy of Michael.

If this scenario isn’t eyebrow-raising enough, consider this: Philip, a 61-year-old commercial banker, Michael, a 57-year-old global business investor, and Adam, a 50-year-old hotelier, are all Gweneth’s current companions. Each of them is married with children.

These men may spend Christmas Day itself with their families, but it’s Gweneth, a self-described “serial mistress,” who captures their attention and resources in the lead-up to the holiday season.

As for any feelings of remorse, Gweneth is unfazed. In her view, she believes she is providing a service to their wives.

Take Philip. It is, she claims, a relief for both him and his wife that he no longer pesters her for intimacy. Apparently his wife’s libido, always lower than his, is in the doldrums thanks to perimenopause.

‘It means she gets to do the things she enjoys with him – walking their wolfhounds and playing family board games – without having to worry about rounding off the day in the role of goddess in the bedroom,’ says Gweneth. ‘I know from my friends – some of whom, jokingly, ask if I’d be willing to “service” their husbands – that it’s very rare to still want to be hanging from the chandeliers after 30 years of marriage. Particularly at Christmas – the most stressful time of the year for many mothers.’

Far from being ashamed of her long-standing role as mistress to some of London’s most affluent men – the most she has dated at the same time is ten – Gweneth believes that as she has no desire to steal them away, these arrangements benefit all concerned.

‘Successful men have incredibly high sex drives – it’s testosterone that pushes them on in business – and need to find ways to satisfy it,’ she says. ‘From what they tell me, dressing up in sexy underwear and ravishing their husbands is not a job most wives, especially those with children, want to add to their long list. Which is where I come in.

‘Spending time with me in the run-up to Christmas means they get their needs met in the bedroom, before returning home, perfectly content to play charades and watch box sets in front of a roaring fire. It’s a win-win situation for all.’

Although none of the married men (and there have been ‘dozens’) she’s dated over the years have explicitly told their wives about Gweneth, she believes many ‘would be happy for them to go elsewhere, as long as they’re discreet’. 

So what are the signs a woman might look for to gauge if her own husband is playing away? ‘There are the obvious ones, like keeping his phone face down at all times. But also, if he starts wearing better underwear and socks. Oh, and if his usually neglected nethers suddenly appear well-groomed with a shaver… that’s a classic tell.’ 

While Gweneth has never been confronted by a wronged wife, a couple of years ago one came perilously close to finding out.

‘Graham, an accountant, always used his or their children’s dates of birth as codes on his briefcase and when his wife realised it had changed, she wanted to know whose birthday it was,’ says Gweneth. ‘It was mine and while he fobbed her off, saying he’d made it up, she was very suspicious. So much so that, suspecting he had another woman, she started taking an interest in him again, after years of them barely being intimate at all.’

The rekindling of their sexual relationship led to Graham feeling guilty about cheating on his wife with Gweneth – so he ended their two-year affair.

While Gweneth missed seeing him, she says she is careful never falls in love with them. Yes, she loves and cares for them but she says she’s clear from the start that if she suspects they are developing strong feelings for her, she will end the relationship.

‘I take a French approach to affairs,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to ruin anyone’s life, I just want to have some fun and if you go from being someone’s mistress to their wife then you simply create a vacancy.’

While it’s easy to see what’s in it for these best-of-both-worlds men, what does Gweneth get out of being the other woman, abandoned at Christmas?
 
The list, as it happens, is long: Celine silk dresses (£4,650), Tiffany necklaces (£4,500), Boucheron earrings (£3,950) Loro Piana suede slippers (£1,195) and Jimmy Choo stilettos (£895) are just some of the items Gweneth has her heart set on, or has received as Christmas gifts in previous years.

Her lovers, for whom these price tags barely make a dent, choose from a digital wishlist on the gifting app, Throne. Once cash is deposited, the app manages purchases and shipping to Gweneth, removing the risk of any suspicious items arriving at their family homes.

Some might argue the transactional nature of these relationships sounds a bit like prostitution, to which Gweneth retorts that far from being hired, she enjoys the sex as much as the men she dates.

As a woman of considerable means herself – she has a townhouse in Chelsea, an apartment in California and spends a great deal of her time zig-zagging, business class, across the Atlantic – I can’t help wondering why Gweneth relies on married men for the finer things in life.

She smiles coquettishly and says: ‘Receiving gifts is always nice.’

Her late husband, Robert, who owned a computer hardware company, died from small-cell cancer 20 years ago aged 51 and she has continued to build on the fortune he left her with her own business ventures.

‘Robert’s death was absolutely devastating,’ says Gweneth. ‘He was my soulmate and best friend, and losing him so suddenly made me feel completely adrift.’

Following his death, she ran a consultancy for relocating expats, with offices in Geneva and Hong Kong, and nowadays buys small businesses, improving their turnover before selling them at a profit to venture capitalists.

Even her eight-year marriage to her late husband was ‘open’: ‘I was his fourth wife, and 20 years his junior, so under no illusions about fidelity. But Robert and I trusted each other completely, and understood that physical attraction doesn’t always follow the rules of commitment. I didn’t mind him seeing other people – nor him me – because we were secure in our relationship.’

In her 20s, Gweneth lived in the Netherlands, where she had a successful modelling career, and has recently returned to the catwalk promoting fashion brands for more mature women in California.

However, while she is very attached to her collection of gifted Gucci and Prada bags, she says it is her own powerful sex drive – and a lack of any desire to settle down again – which draws her to super-wealthy married men.

‘I’ve always had a very high sex drive,’ Gweneth admits. ‘Ordinary, routine sex just doesn’t satisfy me – I crave excitement and unpredictability, something you rarely find in long-term, monogamous relationships.

‘People assume that because I’m successful and attractive, I must have men lining up to offer me a traditional relationship, but that’s never appealed to me. I love my independence and the thrill of the chase far too much to ever settle down again.’

Even her eight-year marriage to her late husband was ‘open’. She says: ‘I was his fourth wife and 20 years his junior, so under no illusions about fidelity. But Robert and I trusted each other completely and understood that physical attraction doesn’t always follow the rules of commitment. I didn’t mind him seeing other people – nor him me – because we were secure in our relationship.’

After his death, it was during a three-year relationship with another man, who ran a computer software company, that Gweneth first signed up to Illicit Encounters in 2009, a site she continues to use to meet married men to this day.

Though not with any old Tom, Dick or Harry.

‘I was explicit about dating only affluent men,’ she says. ‘My late husband ran a global business and my partner was a renowned art collector, so I was hardly going to date a plumber.

‘We’d have so little in common we’d quickly run out of conversation, which is as important to me as sex.’

Her partner, who was in his 60s, was diagnosed with emphysema and became impotent as a side-effect. Knowing how vital sex is to Gweneth, he agreed to her joining the dating site, knowing its members are explicitly looking for extramarital connections, rather than committed relationships.

However, the reality of her returning to their Covent Garden home after meeting other men turned out to be far less palatable to him. In the end, it broke up the relationship.

Single again, she approached dating differently from then on, deciding she preferred only to see married men: ‘Single men on dating sites are looking for “the one” so tend to be talking to, and seeing, lots of women at the same time,’ says Gweneth. ‘What this means, in reality, is them sitting across restaurant tables from you, constantly checking their phones to see if anyone better has been in touch.

‘Whereas the married men I date tend to be far more respectful and only have eyes for me when we’re together.’

While ‘respectful’ may not be the first word that springs to mind for men who are cheating on their wives, Gweneth believes they have had more practice at putting the needs of others before their own.

‘They savour every moment with me and after years of marriage to a woman they love, but who is distracted, juggling busy family life and sometimes their own careers, they appreciate every minute of my attention.

‘Some do struggle to understand what I get out of it, given they have no intention of ever leaving their wives. I tell them: “Well, I like gifts.”

While she has the means to buy many of the treasures she receives for herself, Gweneth’s earning power is dwarfed by that of the men she dates, for whom a few thousand pounds on a Vivienne Westwood suit is a drop in the ocean.

Won’t the day come when she tires of the transience of these liaisons? Gweneth insists she lives only in the here and now, giving little thought to what the future might bring.

For now, though, she’s looking forward to her first of a run of festive illicit encounters. Beginning with dinner at the Aqua Shard Michelin restaurant in London with Philip, who she has dated for the past eight years.

She expects, as is his wont, that in advance he will send her a Celine silk dress and the Agent Provocateur lingerie he’d like her to wear.

Afterwards, they will head back to his pied-a-terre in Mayfair, safe in the knowledge that his wife and teenage children are 80 miles away, oblivious and enjoying Christmas plays and carol services in the Cotswolds.

Unlike Philip’s wife, who tends to feel sleepy after a couple of glasses of champagne, Gweneth finds fizz a wonderful aphrodisiac and can’t recall ever being too tired for sex.

And, far from worrying he might prefer to lavish his wealth on a more nubile lover, Gweneth is well aware of everything she, as a mature woman, brings to the table.

‘A younger model may want more than just an affair – especially if she’d like a family of her own – and therefore be more inclined to blow their cover and tell his wife, or even resort to blackmail,’ says Gweneth. ‘He’s a very educated man and I’m able to hold my own when he wants to talk about art, literature and the machinations of the financial world.

‘Also a twenty-something, in stilettos and a short skirt, while easy on the eye, would undoubtedly be harder to pass off as a business contact, should they ever be spotted together.’

For this reason, public displays of affection are rare between Gweneth and her men, although behind closed doors, where she always insists on condoms to avoid any risk of sexually transmitted infections, it’s an entirely different story.

‘Philip is a silver fox and a great lover,’ she says. ‘He has a classic British sense of humour and a man who can turn me on and make me laugh in bed is rare and a wonderful thing.

‘He knows that female entrepreneurs like me have higher levels of testosterone, and therefore libidos, which makes us very compatible.

‘The illicit nature of our encounters, even after all these years, definitely adds an extra frisson.’

Michael, based in London, is taller and more athletic than Philip, and has a penchant for fine food, meaning their rendezvous always begin at a Michelin-starred restaurant.

He travels for several weeks at a time, making it easy for Gweneth to bring him some festive cheer without his wife and teenage children, back home in rural Buckinghamshire, suspecting a thing.

‘He stays at a hotel on Park Lane where we’ll head after a bit of lingerie shopping at Selfridges,’ says Gweneth, who first hooked up with Michael three years ago.

She will also make time next week to see Adam, a father of three young children who, somewhat bizarrely, given his wife is in her 30s, has a ‘thing’ about being dominated by older women.

‘It harks back to a relationship he had with one of his mother’s friends in his late teens,’ says Gweneth. ‘I see a side to him that his wife, still at the breastfeeding and nappy-changing stage, never sees and it enables him to be a more attentive and relaxed husband and father when he’s back home in Berkshire.’

So, while her lovers are hunkering down with their families this Christmas, Gweneth will fly to California to spend time with her mother, brother, nieces and nephews.

Philip has gifted her a spa trip with her mum, who has long since come to terms with her daughter’s affairs.

Her lifestyle is, however, a world away from her parents’, who were happily married for almost 50 years until her father’s death.

‘When I wear something nice, Mum will say, “I assume someone gifted you that,”’ laughs Gweneth. ‘She doesn’t mind what I do, as long as I’m safe and happy. She’s always known I’m not the settling down sort.’

While Gweneth toyed with the idea of getting pregnant or adopting before her husband became ill, she recognises that children would not have been compatible with her life.

But what of the wives, dishing up pigs in blankets and stuffing this Christmas having spent the year playing unwitting roles in what many would consider their husbands’ tawdry double lives?

Gweneth draws on something she once heard relationship therapist Esther Perel say on a podcast to support her part in all this.

‘Paraphrasing, she said that women don’t stop having sex in a marriage because they don’t want sex, they just don’t want sex with their spouse,’ says Gweneth. ‘So for all I, or their husbands, know, they may be having affairs themselves.

‘Looked at another way, me stepping in and keeping their husbands happy for another year could be considered the icing on their Christmas cake.’

Some names and identifying details have been changed