A guest planning from home often asks what the first ten minutes look like, and with her the answer is unhurried: a greeting, a word about the room, her limits in plain terms. Body to body is the format guests name her for in advance bookings, since it needs no preparation from the hotel. She lives in De Pijp, south of the canals, a tram ride from much of the centre. Twenty-seven, dark-haired, and fluent in Romanian and English. Once a date is agreed with her weeks out, she treats it as fixed, and so should the guest.

Blair 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.