Nadia lives in the Jordaan, close to the canals many guests follow on the way back from dinner. She speaks Russian and English. Tantra and sensual sessions are what she offers, slow and on her terms. At twenty-seven she has a simple rule for evenings out: the drinks belong to the evening, and the room belongs to the session. She says her limits once and keeps them. Two hours is where many of her tantra guests settle, long enough for the breathing rhythm to take hold and for the stillness afterwards to need no clock. A session of three hours or more sends half its fee ahead on any date, even for a guest she has visited before. She knocks forty to sixty minutes after the booking is confirmed, so a guest still walking along the canals has time to reach his room and set the lamp before she does.

Nadia 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.