Cora

On a good night hers is the last booking of the evening and the longest. Genuinely strong through the forearms and the back, she holds a pressure for a full hour that surprises people who assumed otherwise, and she uses gel early, warm and plentifully, the way people do who have done this for years. The stairs she climbs smell of whatever the kitchen below is cooking, and the market two streets over has long been packed away by the time she arrives. Her English is fluent and a little blunt; she is easy about time, easy about silence, and very difficult indeed to embarrass.

Cora 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.