“They were like the Greek hetaera or the Japanese geishas,” she continued, “experts in the arts of pleasing men. They were oppressed because they could only survive by maintaining the pleasure of their male patrons. They could hold power only as long as their sexual appeal lasted, though some of them were able to make it last well into old age thanks to their beauty tricks.”

The Thais of that play is the most favourable delineation of the Athenian 'Hetaera' in ancient literature.

Ultimately, he finds redemption through fleshly enslavement to Catherine, an amoral part-time model and fulltime hetaera who makes him feel love, jealousy and suicidal impulses.

The model hovers, slips off the jacket and hands it to the assistant, who accepts it in silence, impersonal and invisible as an attendant on some ancient hetaera.

The concubine has the status of a hetaera; she travels with the man, keeps his accounts, etc.