Ten companions in their early twenties, and the opinions each one will defend

Luna books her own seats at the Theatre Royal Haymarket and rarely loses the argument about the second act. Lea prefers new writing in a small house and wants your forecast for the second half at the interval. Angelika quarrels with the captions at the Royal Academy and keeps live jazz as her indulgence. Stacy sits through open-mic nights to pick the comedians who will be filling theatres in a few years. Tiffany photographs Shepherd Market at dusk and remembers every hotel lobby she has ever liked.

Bianka reads a wine list with a notebook open and cooks Italian slowly on Sundays. Jasmin can explain why a classic cocktail is built as it is, briefly, and then goes dancing if the band has earned it. Molly buys house music on vinyl in Soho and will stop on the pavement for a vintage roadster.

Roxi trains at a boxing gym before seven on three mornings a week and surfs whenever a coast is within reach. Lucy runs beside the Thames before the city wakes and can name the brighter planets above Green Park.

Five of the ten live within walking distance of it. Angelika and Luna are Mayfair residents; Jasmin, Molly and Tiffany live in Soho, ten minutes from Piccadilly. Bianka comes from Knightsbridge, Lea from Belgravia, Lucy and Roxi from Pimlico and Stacy from Chelsea. A late invitation rarely troubles any of them.

Octavia reads a message for the evening, the venue and the hour. A request more interested in a number than in the company receives a brief reply and no introduction. Every standard on the other pages applies here unchanged: confirmation in writing, and time and companionship only.

By colour the ten divide into six brunettes, two in raven black and two with red hair. By figure, four are petite and four curvaceous. The decade that follows has its own page, late twenties.

The hour is £600, the same on every page. Angelika, Luna and Tiffany are among the names Octavia proposes first for the hotel introduction, and the longer formats are itemised on rates. Octavia takes requests through booking: a name and an hour will do, or give her the outline of the night and she will pick.