Petite: seven names and the small rooms they choose
SEVEN ON THIS CARD, THE TAPE RUNNING FROM 158 CM UPWARD. Petite is filed from frame and bearing rather than from the measurement alone, which is why the tallest name here sits a little above the rest without looking out of place. What the seven have in common is a neat build and an unusually exact sense of what a room asks you to wear into it.
That matters more in this parish than in most. Soho is built of small rooms, and nearly every address these seven choose has a counter instead of a dining room, fewer than forty covers, or a door with nothing written on it. The size of the room changes nothing on the board: £250 an hour, £400 for ninety minutes, £500 for two.
Petite, tonight
Everyone listed under petite, taken from her file rather than a guess. Open a card for rates and a message with her name.
Jasmin
Lea
Lucy
Rosa
Sonya
Tiffany
Tina
A door with nothing written on it
Jasmin, 160 cm and chestnut haired, lives in the parish and starts after nine, which is a luxury only a resident can afford. Her opening move is the unmarked entrance on Gerrard Street in Chinatown, a serious bar in a low light. Fragrance is her subject, to the point of identifying what you are wearing before you have sat down, and salsa takes her Sundays.
Four stools on a pavement
Lucy, 163 cm with long dark curls, wants the outdoor seat at the all hours coffee bar on Frith Street: a ristretto, the neon behind her head and the entire street as the floor show. She runs by the river at dawn and keeps a patient interest in whatever is visible above the rooftops. Ninety minutes at £400 is her usual shape, in daylight or midweek.
Racks, bread and a long afternoon
Rosa, 160 cm with chestnut curls, spends hers in the record shop on Berwick Street, pulling out a sleeve and explaining precisely why it matters. She bakes her own bread and quietly assesses everybody else's. Sunday to Thursday, starting in the afternoon and running on into dinner, is how she is best booked, which the four hour dinner date at £900 covers comfortably.
The early table on Dean Street
Sonya, 162 cm and hazel eyed, takes bookings between five and ten and prefers the stained glass dining room while the room is still calm and the service unhurried. Ballet shaped how she moves and meditation shaped the rest; she is entirely comfortable with a silence and in no rush to fill one. Three hours at £700 covers dinner and a restful walk back.
A courtyard off Piccadilly
Tiffany, 169 cm, is the other resident on this card. Two glasses of grower champagne in the tree lined courtyard a minute from Piccadilly Circus, a photographer's patience for the right light, and a memory for the details of your day that tends to surface again an hour later. Midweek evenings are her most open.
A staircase up to a grand bar
Tina, 158 cm and athletic, comes in from Covent Garden for something stirred in the art deco room above Regent Street, and will talk tailoring and turntables past closing. Lea, 161 cm with auburn waves, is the pre theatre name here: a drink somewhere beautifully decorated, a half seven curtain, supper afterwards and a verdict on the set design delivered at the interval.
Two names, one arrival
Jasmin and Tiffany both live inside the parish, which makes them the easiest pair in the house to bring to one address at one time, with no train to miss between them. The two on the guest list page sets out how that booking is written, what the door needs in advance and how the deposit works when two evenings are being held rather than one.
Also filed under
Two of the seven reappear on toned and athletic, one on curvaceous and one on slim and slender, so build and frame are worth reading across rather than down. All but one belong to the brunettes card, the exception being one of only three on auburn and red. For names at the far end of the tape, open statuesque.
Petite on the list
Choose a name above or ask the host who is free tonight.