The grid above is the whole roster, not a shortlist for tonight. Forty-five is the number on the books; the number awake at any given moment is smaller than that, and it moves as the night does.
Which is the one thing worth knowing before you write. Nobody here is put on a shift. Each woman keeps the hours she picked for herself, so the list that answers at half past one is not the list that answers at nine in the evening, and neither of them is short.
Asking about an hour, or asking about a woman
These are two different questions and the thread goes faster when they are kept apart. An hour at three in the morning is straightforward to arrange. One particular woman at three in the morning may or may not be, and waiting to find out costs you the part of the night you were trying to use. A message that gives the hour, the length, and says whether you are fixed on the name settles in one exchange instead of four.
Languages, when the night is late enough
Twenty-four nationalities are on the books, and eighteen languages between them. English sits on all forty-five profiles, which is worth knowing at an hour when a guest has no energy left for a second one. French appears next, on seven profiles, then Russian and Spanish on six each, and Ukrainian on four. Ten women carry a third language as well.
Where an arrival actually starts
There are no premises for anyone to set out from, so every journey begins wherever she happens to live. Four districts hold the roster between them: the centre with thirteen, the Jordaan with eleven, Oud-Zuid with eleven, De Pijp with ten. Across a city of this size that usually puts somebody near your address, whatever the clock says.
It is also the reason the window never moves. Forty to sixty minutes from a confirmed booking to a knock, the same figure in every central district, and the same figure at four in the morning as at four in the afternoon. Empty streets do not shorten it, because the count starts when she is ready to travel rather than when the traffic clears. Schiphol and the airport hotels sit outside that window and are arranged separately, with the travel time settled up front.
What a profile holds
Her age, her languages, the district she starts from, the techniques on her file and her photographs, each of them of her and published with her agreement. The rates table repeats on every profile, because the tariff does not change from one woman to the next: one guest with one therapist is 180 euros for an hour, 270 for ninety minutes, 360 for two hours, 540 for three, and 1,250 for the eight hour night. A couple, or a second pair of hands, reads off the other columns of the same table. There is no night rate and no charge for crossing the centre.
She decides which bookings she takes and may decline any of them. She sets the limits of what a session includes, says what they are before it begins, and may end a visit at any point. Every name here is twenty-one or over, as is every guest who books one.
Booking one of them
Name her in the first line, with the address, the hour and the length under it. The reply says whether she is free, and if she is not, it comes back with who is rather than with a wait. If you saw someone on a previous visit and remember the name, that is enough to work from; if you remember the night but not the name, say that instead and it can usually be found.
