Beatrice

In her own hours

Heavy doors, wide streets, a hush that settles in around nine: Oud-Zuid suits Beatrice, and she is rarely more than five minutes from a door there.

A room gets read on the way in - the curtains, the lamps, whether the television stays on - and adjusted before anyone has to ask. Two languages, the first of them learned at a table where dinner went on until midnight, and she moves between them without visible effort. Anywhere inside the ring is an hour at the very outside once a booking is confirmed, however late the night has run. She prefers the later evening, once the restaurants have emptied, and settles into a long booking without ceremony.

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.