Cassandra

On marathon Sunday in October the wide avenues of Oud-Zuid fill with barriers, water tables and families holding hand-painted signs. Cassandra keeps that morning to herself and opens her calendar from the late afternoon, when legs are heavy and the roads are clear again. She speaks Greek and English and is equally unhurried in either. A tantra session or a long sensual one sits well with a body that has just covered forty-two kilometres, and she lets a runner tell her how much pressure his legs can take. At twenty-six she is clear about her limits at the start and does not come back to the subject.

Cassandra 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.