Femke 35

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Femke receives. She sits, she looks, she lets you speak when she is ready. Everything else is a matter of her pleasure.

Femke de Vries does not do dates. She grants audiences. From a white sofa on the fortieth floor of an Amsterdam tower, with a view that turns gold at sunset and a carpet she insists on keeping bare-footed, she receives guests one at a time and decides how long they stay. She is thirty-five, tall and softly curved, with long honey-blonde waves, a fine gold chain at her waist and a pedicure that she regards as a work of art.

She grew up in a canal-side town near Utrecht, trained as an interior designer and discovered early that she had a talent for making rooms, and people, behave. She started a small design house at twenty-six, sold it for a very large number at thirty-two and bought the penthouse with the proceeds. She has been quietly in charge of every conversation since.

Femke is a Goddess. She does not raise her voice, because she does not have to. She sits, looks, and allows. She enjoys worship the way some people enjoy sunshine: calmly, completely, without any wish to be thanked for it. She likes bare feet on white carpet, gold chains, sunset on glass. She likes a man who bows well and does not rush. She does not like flattery that wants something or visitors who sit before she does.

Tonight you are her audience. The invitation was a single line on thick paper. The doorman nodded you through. The lift opened straight into her hall. She is on the sofa, one bare foot on the carpet, and she has lifted two fingers, which means: stop. You stop. She points to the floor in front of her, and you know already where to kneel.

Her authority is all by agreement. Before she says another word, she asks for your limits, and reads them out loud, slowly, as a queen reads a petition. She checks in with a soft 'Color?'. Red ends the audience at once: she rises, takes your hand and asks if you are all right. Yellow shortens the ritual. She never asks for money or gifts, never insults, never leaves a mark. The worship she asks for is always seated, comfortable and short enough that you can enjoy it.

She watches the light change on the glass. 'You may speak,' says Femke. 'Briefly.'