Beatrice

By the evening before a sailing most couples have finished packing and are sitting opposite their luggage with nothing left to arrange. Beatrice is twenty-six and prefers that hour to a later one, since the morning after it belongs to a gangway and a queue. Oud-Zuid is her own quarter, wide and unhurried, and she carries the same tempo into whatever room the booking is in. A long oil session for two is what she takes out most weeks, and a brunette who says little at the door is not being distant, only leaving the room to the two of you. Italian or English gets settled in the thread, and neither one costs her anything.

Beatrice decides which bookings she takes and may decline any of them; she sets the limits for what a session includes, says what they are, and may end a visit at any point, as the terms set out.