Celeste

Portuguese is what she counts in, and the count matters: she holds a rhythm across an hour the way a swimmer holds a stroke, and the gel never cools enough to break it. Slight, she solves that with leverage instead of effort, so the pressure arrives from her hips rather than her wrists. Short streets, old houses, a church bell somewhere above the roofs, her part of town is forty minutes from most doors in the middle of the city. A second visit gets a good deal more out of her than a first, and she knows it perfectly well.

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.