The small bars of the Jordaan fill early and empty late, and Bonnie has learned the rhythm of a guest who writes from one of them. She speaks Ukrainian, Russian and English, and any of the three will do for a reply that says only when and where. Nuru and tantra are what she usually takes out, formats that want a warm room and a guest who put his glass down some time ago. She is twenty-five, and she likes a guest who says plainly when he expects to be back. Nuru with her is planned at ninety minutes, because laying out the protective sheet and the rinse at the end take time a single hour cannot spare. Turning the heating right up before leaving the bar matters, since the gel cools quickly on skin in a cold room. If the evening changes course, a message more than a day before the booked start brings the whole deposit back, and one sent inside the final day while she is still at home returns half of it.

Bonnie 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.