Body to body massage in Amsterdam for a nervous guest

Where the nerves usually come from

Asked directly, guests give three answers. The first is about their own body and how it will be received, which the rest of this site is largely about. The second is about not knowing the shape of the thing: what happens when, what is expected of them, whether there is some etiquette everybody else already knows. The third is about the transaction itself, whether it will feel awkward, whether money will be discussed at an uncomfortable moment. The second and third are the ones that can be dismantled entirely with information, which is what the rest of this page is. The first gets smaller on its own once the other two are gone.

The message you have not sent yet

It needs four things and it does not need to be well written. Where you are, meaning hotel or apartment and which part of the centre. When, and for how long. Which format, or a straightforward admission that you have not decided and would like it kept simple. And anything about your body or the room that the hour should be arranged around. A fifth line is allowed and it is the one worth adding: I have not done this before and I am nervous. That sentence is read exactly as it is meant and it changes the pace of everything that follows.

What comes back, and what does not

The reply is short and practical. Whether the woman you named has room at the hour you asked for, the figure that applies, anything the room needs, and how the deposit is settled if one is being asked for. If she is not free at that hour you are told that plainly and the message stops there. Nobody else is proposed in her place, because that is not a choice for anyone but you to make. There is no persuasion in the thread, no pressure to take a longer booking, and no reason at all why a question asked at that point cannot simply be answered.

The wait, which is the worst part

Between the hour being agreed and the knock there is a gap of forty to sixty minutes if you are in the centre, and that gap is where nerves do most of their work. The practical advice is dull and it functions: put the room in order rather than sitting still. Move the suitcase, clear the space on both sides of the bed, put the overhead light off and a lamp on, turn the heating up, put a glass of water somewhere. Have a shower. None of this is required of you and all of it gives the last half hour something to be about, which is most of the point.

The knock, and the first two minutes

She arrives in ordinary street clothes carrying a small bag, and the two minutes at the door are deliberately unremarkable: a greeting, the coat, a look at the room, whichever language is easier for you both. Nothing starts immediately. Guests brace for a switch being thrown at the threshold and there is no switch. If a document is asked for it is looked at once and handed straight back, because everyone involved has to be twenty-one or over and that is the whole purpose of the glance. Then the towels come out of the bag and the room is set, and by the time that is done a few minutes have passed with nothing happening at all, which is exactly what they are for.

What she says before anything begins

At the start of the visit she says, in her own words, what her session includes and where her own limits are. That statement holds for the whole of the time she is there. Guests who are nervous often say this is the part of the arrangement that settles them, because it removes the guessing: nothing has to be worked out by trial, nothing has to be asked awkwardly, and there is no ambiguity left to be anxious about. Her limits are hers to set and she can decline or end a visit at any point without owing a reason. Knowing the edges of something is generally what makes it possible to relax inside it.

The first ten minutes of the work

It begins face down, along the back and down the length of the legs, long and even, with the pressure set early and then left alone. That opening is the same whichever oiled format you booked and it exists partly because it works and partly because it is the easiest place for a nervous body to start: nothing to look at, nothing to do, nothing required. Most people notice their breathing change somewhere in the first quarter of an hour, and that is the point at which the earlier part of the evening stops being relevant. Nothing is hurried towards. The hour is the length you booked and there is no hidden schedule inside it.

Anything you can change while it is happening

Almost all of it, and saying so out loud is entirely ordinary. Too much pressure, not enough, too warm, too cold, that area hurts, can the light go off, can we stay here longer, can we slow down. None of that spoils anything and none of it is a complaint. A session where the guest says three practical things in the first twenty minutes goes better than one where he says nothing and endures a pressure he does not like. If you want to stop, the session stops. Ending early keeps the fee for the time that was reserved, for the plain reason that those hours were held and the journey was made, and there is nothing further added beyond it.

Money, so that it is not a moment

This is worth reading before you book precisely so it never becomes an awkward pause. It is simple enough to carry into the room without notes: one hourly rate, charged in proportion however long you stay, and at that same rate for every hour past the third. Adding a therapist, or someone beside you sharing her, doubles it; giving that someone a therapist too doubles it once more; the overnight comes as one piece, below eight hours paid one by one. The exact figures wait on each woman's profile, so the number is known before the conversation opens. Nearly every booking, a first one very much included, is confirmed with half of that figure before she leaves, and the only booking that carries nothing in advance is a returning guest's same-day hour or two at a city address. The remainder is settled on arrival, before the room is set, so it is done with early rather than hovering over the end of the hour. Call it off more than a day ahead and the deposit returns whole; inside the final day but before she leaves, half of it is kept; once she is travelling, it is kept in full unless the hour is taken by someone else, in which case it is repaid entirely, or unless the loss was smaller than the share retained. With no deposit, nothing is owed until she sets out, and after that only the journey share. Damages are never sought. One date change is free given more than a day's notice and a new date within a fortnight. She reaches a central address in forty to sixty minutes from the moment the hour is agreed, and Schiphol is settled separately with the travel time agreed first.