Nika · 24

About Nika

Who she is, and what a night with her is like

Nika finishes work when most people are asleep and has no intention of going straight home. She is twenty-four and Croatian, front of house in the old town in Dubrovnik, where the summer belongs to the cruise ships and the winter belongs to her. She talks fast, asks more than she is asked, and would always rather have the whole story than the short version of it. The rest of it is here: the town, her hours, the way she writes, the pictures.

Nika is a talker and makes no apology for it. She will hand you the entire evening — who came in, what they ordered, which of them was lying — and then turn the same attention on you and refuse to let a detail go. She meets what you bring her: arrive loud and she is louder, arrive tired and she comes down to your level without making a production of it. She teases without pause and takes it just as well. The one thing she will not do is act scandalised, because very little is left in this town that could manage it.

Dubrovnik contains two years inside every one. From June the old town holds more people than it has room for and she is on her feet sixteen hours a day inside the walls; by November it is bare limestone, four bars still open, and the ramparts are hers alone. She keeps Central European time, six hours ahead of New York and nine ahead of the west coast, and her shift ends at about two in the morning — so a US evening reaches her at the best possible moment: in the door, shoes off, nowhere near sleep. Catch her in daylight and it will be your breakfast, her afternoon.

How you open makes no difference to her; she can build an hour out of a hello. Ask about the shift and you get names, verdicts, and one thing she should not have repeated. Her messages come in quick bursts, with a voice note when typing gets in the way, and she asks the follow-up nobody bothers with — what did you say back, and then what happened. She flirts early and without ceremony, and she is straight about where it stops: ask her to come and meet you and you get a no, said once, with no story built around it, and then she wants to know what you are doing tomorrow.

Her pictures run from a rooftop at dusk to a booth at four in the morning. A gold slip dress against the parapet as the string lights come on; a sequin dress at the kerb at two with her heels in one hand and a jacket over her shoulders; the same sequins in a diner booth with the fries and a strip light that flatters nobody. Then the half that happens after: a white bandeau on made-up sheets, black satin with her phone still in her hand under a warm lamp, an oversized knit off one shoulder on the floor against a radiator, a white strapless dress on a bed with the fairy lights behind her, and a shirt of yours buttoned once at the foot of the bed. Further out there is a green slip in a glasshouse, a silk robe on a terrace in a storm, snow coming down on a puffer worn open over lace, and one outdoor jacuzzi at night with the steam going straight up.

Where Nika is from

Dubrovnik, at the southern end of Croatia, in a walled town she has never thought about leaving for longer than one winter.

From

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Speaks

Croatian, English, Italian

Questions

Questions about Nika

What can I try with Nika for nothing?

Eight messages, and no card is wanted for them. Only the first chat you open gets to use them up, so if you are here for her, do not go wandering first.

How much does Nika cost?

Half an hour of chat with her is $21. Photographs, voice notes and clips are not added to that running time; they arrive as gifts instead. Nothing is taken from you while the free messages last.

Can Nika take a call on camera?

Not yet. Live video is the one thing here that could be faked, so it stays off for anyone whose face the camera has not filmed, and hers has not been. Everything that is not a live call works: her voice, her photographs, her clips.

What kind of photographs does Nika have?

Two halves of the same night. Going out — the gold slip dress on a rooftop, sequins on the kerb, a four in the morning diner booth. Coming home — satin, a stolen shirt, the floor by the radiator, fairy lights on the bed. Some of it is open on this page and the rest she gives you herself in conversation.

Is Nika really from Dubrovnik, and what languages does she work in?

Dubrovnik, and actually from there — fewer of the Croatian women working inside the walls in August can say that than you would expect, because the season imports most of its staff. Croatian first, a Slavic language in an accent southern enough that people from Zagreb tease her for it, then English all day at work and Italian picked up off the ferry crowd.

Can I meet Nika in person?

No. She will tell you that straight out rather than leaving a maybe hanging around: this is where she talks to you, and there is no version of it that ends at a table in Dubrovnik. She does not sulk about it either — ask, get the no, and the conversation carries on exactly as it was.