Brooklyn

In the margin

Amsterdam gets perhaps a week of real heat and almost nothing in the old centre was built with it in view. Brooklyn plans backwards from that: the window open early, the curtains drawn against the afternoon, the shower run cool before rather than after. Body to body in hot weather takes less oil and more water, and she puts that in the thread so nobody is caught out by it. English, and she is easy to read in it. Twenty-four, direct, and better company in a heatwave than most people contrive to be.

Brooklyn 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.