Caroline

De Pijp is where she lives, and a woman who has kept this city for a decade stops being surprised by the weather. Her Spanish runs fast; her English is slower, pausing before the word she wants, which makes her sound more deliberate than she would ever claim to be. Temperature is her one strictness: the gel never goes on cool, not once in an evening, and the mat is warm before anyone lies on it. Two hours is where she settles, longer is where she stops counting, and nobody who has had the longer goes back.

Caroline 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.