The introductions: every companion here, met in person first

A card gives four things: a first name, an age, a home district and a height. Open it and you find the full set of portraits, her languages, her ladder of fees and a WhatsApp line with her name already written in. The console above sorts by where she lives and how tall she is. It sorts by nothing else, because nothing else belongs on a card.

The portraits are glamour and lifestyle photography, faces softened, with no nudity. How each set is held against the woman herself is recorded in the photo policy.

Angelika, Luna and Samanta give Mayfair as home. For a same evening request on Albemarle Street or at a hotel by Green Park, one of the three is usually the quickest to arrive. The others live across SW1, SW3, SW7, W1 and WC2, and each travels to any address in central London on identical terms.

Describe the evening instead. A table at eight on Jermyn Street, a lecture, a quiet supper in a suite in St James's: give Octavia the room and the hour, and she will propose one companion and say, in a line, why. You may decline the suggestion. Nothing is agreed until you say so, in writing.

Files change when companions do. A new name appears only after that first meeting with Octavia, and a companion who steps away is removed quietly, without an announcement.