The therapists who keep daytime hours in Amsterdam

The grid above is the roster in full, not a shortlist for this afternoon. Twenty-three is the number on the books. The number free at any particular hour is smaller, and it moves through the day rather than sitting still.

That is the one thing worth understanding before you write. Nobody here is put on a shift by anyone. Each woman keeps her own hours, so the names available at half past one are not the names available at eight, and neither list is short.

Asking for an hour, or asking for a woman

Those are two separate questions and an afternoon goes faster when they are kept apart. An hour at three is straightforward to arrange. One particular woman at three may or may not be, and finding out slowly costs you the part of the day you were trying to use. A message that gives the hour, the length and says whether the name is fixed usually settles in one exchange. If she is not free, the reply says who is, and the choice stays with you.

Languages, on a day already spent in a second one

Thirteen languages sit across the roster. English is on all twenty-three profiles. Russian follows on four, Italian on three, then French, Greek, Spanish and Ukrainian on two each, with single speakers of Czech, Dutch, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish and Romanian. Eighteen women carry a second language and three carry a third. It matters more than it sounds by the middle of a working day conducted in a language that is not your own, when the energy for a third one has usually gone.

Where an afternoon journey starts

There are no premises, so nobody sets out from an office. Every journey begins where she happens to live, and four districts hold the roster between them: Oud-Zuid with eight, the Jordaan with six, the centre with six and De Pijp with three. In a city this compact that usually puts somebody near your address whatever the hour.

The window does not move for the time of day. Forty to sixty minutes from an agreed booking to a knock, the same figure in every central district, and the same figure at two in the afternoon as at two in the morning. Daylight traffic is heavier and daylight streets are fuller, which is exactly why the window is quoted wide rather than narrow. Schiphol and the airport hotels sit outside it and are arranged on their own, with the journey time agreed before anything is fixed.

What a profile holds

Her age, the languages she speaks, the district her journey starts from, the techniques on her file, and photographs that are all of her and published with her agreement. The rates repeat on every profile because the tariff does not change from one woman to the next: one guest with one therapist is 180 euros for an hour, 270 for ninety minutes, 360 for two hours, 540 for three, and 1,250 for the eight hour block. Two people in the room, or a second pair of hands, read off the neighbouring columns. There is no afternoon rate and nothing is added for crossing the centre.

She decides which bookings she takes and may decline any of them without giving a reason. She decides what a session includes, says where her limits are before it begins, and may end a visit at any point. Everyone on this page is twenty-one or over, as is everyone who books one.

Booking one of them

Name her in the first line, with the address, the hour and the length underneath. The reply says whether she is free, and if she is not, it says who is. Nothing is decided for you. If you saw someone on an earlier trip and remember the name, that is enough to work from. The booking page shows which message comes first and what follows, and the questions page answers the ones that come up before the first one is sent.