The long booking: several evenings, or a weekend written against your dates

Tell the desk the whole shape at the start: the nights you want, the hours, and which of them have something fixed in them already. Romilly holds all of them against one name rather than asking the same question three times, and you get one set of confirmations instead of a running negotiation.

It also means she knows what the week looks like. A woman who understands that Wednesday is a client dinner and Friday is nothing at all will dress differently for each and will not have to ask.

A weekend is quoted rather than printed, in writing, against the dates and the hours you describe. Say how many of the hours are genuinely yours, where you are staying, and whether there is anything in it that requires dressing for. The answer comes back as one total in whole pounds with everything named, and nothing is added to it afterwards.

If a journey out of Zone 2 is involved, the fare is named in both directions in the same message. That is the only figure on this site that is not on the rates page, and it is agreed before anything is held.

Milena says an hour is a greeting and three hours is an evening, and she books accordingly. Sonya is a long dinner and a real conversation and is at her best when nothing has to end at nine. Patricia is precise about time in a way that suits a run of days: nothing wasted, nothing missing, for exactly as long as booked.

Danielle is the most patient company here and never once asks a question about money, which over several evenings turns out to matter. Violetta is formal on arrival and extremely dry by the second hour, and the second hour is where a long booking begins.

Marylebone is a village that takes its last orders early and is the easiest place in the zone to stay for a week without being noticed. The High Street is eleven minutes end to end, two of the women here live inside it and walk to their bookings, and the hotels around Portman Square are six minutes from most of the good tables.

Piccadilly is a corridor rather than a destination, eight minutes end to end, and it puts you within a short walk of three other districts at once. For a stay with meetings scattered across the zone, it is the most practical address on this site.

The dates, the hours, the hotel, and one name or one sentence about what you want the evenings to be. Send it earlier than you would for a single booking: a diary has to be cleared across several days rather than slotted into one, and the women who take these bookings are careful about not overcommitting.

Standing an evening down inside the run is the ordinary arrangement. Three hours of warning and there is nothing to settle; under two, half the figure holds. Her fee for each evening is handed to her in person when she arrives. Rates has the ladder, booking has the exchange, and On The Books has the whole list.