Escort Date: The Hour Before

The confirmation arrives in the early afternoon, terse, in the language the agency and I have developed between us: name of the hotel, time, framework, one sentence about the man. Nothing more is needed, and I do not want to know more anyway. From that moment on, the evening no longer belongs to me. It belongs to an idea — his of me, mine of him — and the hour before is the time in which I cross over from my day into that idea.

It starts banally. I cook something light, because I never know whether dinner will involve actual food or just conversation with place settings. I put the phone face down. Then the shower, longer than necessary, because warm water is the only transition this profession knows: you come from a life in which you bought groceries and answered emails, and you step into one in which, for a few hours, you will be the most attentive woman in the room. That does not happen at the push of a button. It happens under water, drying off slowly, applying lotion with a care nobody will see and everybody will notice.

The outfit is its own decision, every time. I know the occasion, the house, the season — I lay three options on the bed and then take the first one anyway. Black, because black is never wrong in any lobby in the world. Underneath, what only he will see if the evening goes the way he hopes and I dare to allow: lace I chose for myself, not for him. That difference matters to me. Everything about this evening will be shared, but the hour before belongs to me, and in that hour I dress for the woman I am about to be — not for an assignment.

Perfume last, two sprays, never more. I have learned that a scent is the first thing that remains when a door closes, and the last thing you can control.

In the hour before, I am nobody's companion. I am only me, on my way to someone.

The drive is the quiet part. I drive myself or let myself be driven, depending on the district, and watch a city preparing for the evening: light in the shop windows, couples in front of restaurants, someone arguing at the kerb. In these minutes I think astonishingly little about him. I think about small things — whether I will feel the insole in my shoe, whether I have drunk enough water, whether my bag holds everything a discreet evening needs. And then, inevitably, the one question that arrives somewhere between two traffic lights on every drive: Who will open the door? Not what he looks like — that is the beginner's question, and I shed it years ago. But: how will he open the door. Hastily, with a glance over his shoulder, or calmly, as if he had the whole evening. You get to know people at doors, not at profiles.

In the lobby I slow down. I have learned that a woman striding purposefully towards the lift is more conspicuous than one who pauses, regards the bar, lets the house have its effect on her. I look like someone waiting for somebody here — which is exactly what I am. I just shorten the waiting for myself. Nobody looks. That is the first thing you learn in this profession: the world is far too busy with itself to notice an evening like this one.

In the lift, a last glance in the mirror, and it is not vanity, it is a check like a pilot's before take-off: posture, face, breath. I take one deep breath. In front of the room door I pause briefly — always, in every house, at every number — and in that one second I am completely alone with what I do. It is not fear. It is more like a sensing: out there was my day, behind this is the evening, and I myself am the door between the two.

Then I knock. Twice, not too loud. What happens inside me in the seconds until it opens cannot be explained, only repeated: a bright, almost cheerful tension, as if I stood at the beginning of a path only I can walk. And when the door moves, the hour before is over — and with it this diary entry, because what comes after belongs to two people. I will tell that another time.