Clementine

Clementine works out of Oud-Zuid, where the avenues run wide and the buildings keep their distance from one another, and something of that spacing stays in how she moves through an hour. At twenty-eight she has stopped judging a booking by the wording of its first message and started judging it by the state of the person who opens the door. A clear head counts for more with her than good manners on paper, and she will say gently that an evening has gone past the point of being useful. French and English are both there, and the second of them is the one she reaches for when a guest is tired.

Clementine 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.