Brooklyn

The terminal on the IJ is near enough to the old centre that a couple can leave a lobby and see the water at the end of the street. Brooklyn is twenty-four and knows that stretch of quay the way you know a road you cross every week. She works in English and asks for nothing else, which suits a room where two people are already translating for one another. Bookings for two are most of her week, and she will say what she is doing at the start and then stop narrating it. Brunette, unhurried at the door, and entirely unbothered by luggage stacked against the wardrobe.

Brooklyn 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.