Celeste

Somewhere in every session Celeste starts humming, half under her breath, and guests call it the moment the hour turned. Twenty-three, of the Jordaan.

Celeste has a sweetness with a little sorrow folded through it, and she carries it even when she is laughing, which is often. Her sessions run to rhythm more than technique, long strokes that repeat like a chorus, pressure that swells and recedes, the occasional bar of melody escaping her as she works, and the total effect is closer to being played than being treated. She is small, uses angle and bodyweight where force would fail her, and lives up three flights in the Jordaan, whose evening bells she claims to conduct. Book her for the sensual hour and let her set the tempo; she was always going to anyway.

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.