Celeste

Celeste keeps to a few streets and a few hours of the night, which tells you most of what there is to know. Low voice, even pace, first minute to last.

Her Portuguese is quick and her English is slow, and clients get the slow one, deliberately. The middle of an hour is what she protects: long, unadjusted, with nothing introduced to keep it interesting. Keeping it interesting is not her job. Her own breathing drops below the room's inside a few minutes, and the room has always followed it down. Around her the shops shut by six and the bridges empty by ten, and she has come to work at the tempo her own street does, which means evenings that run past midnight without anyone checking.

Celeste 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.