ANGELA is a call-girl. She is not a $9 streetwalker hustling fifteen to twenty tricks a night on Columbus Ave., nor a $15-a-shot whore working the "combat zone" bars-Izzy Ort's Golden Nugget, the Novelty Bar, the Normandy Lounge, and the other establishments-that line lower Washington St.

Angela is instead a high-priced courtesan-a professional-who entertains clients with unusual sexual tastes in her suburban apartment near Chestnut Hill. She is well-paid for her services, and lives accordingly. She wines, dines, and occasionally travels with her customers throughout the country. She'll drink only Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry or imported Mumm's champagne, wears expensive clothes from Bonwit's and Best and Co. where she maintains charge accounts, and from Truc-a place that fascinates her. She drives a new Cougar convertible, visits the Jazz Workshop when it features top musicians, reads a lot- "Harold Robbins novels, nothing very heavy" -and spends most of her free time playing with her two children whom she says she adores.

She calls herself "a lady of the evening," though her working hours are usually from 9 a. m. til 2 in the afternoon-while the kids are away at school. "And anyways," she says, "it's easier for men to sneak out during the day than to make excuses to their wives about late nights at the office." Angela hosts her fifteen steady clients-who include, she says, wealthy Boston businessmen, a Harvard professor, and a New York psychiatrist-in her apartment once or twice each week, or entertains their friends and associates to whom she's been referred. "And occasionally, when the phone's not ringing, I'll try the motels out on 128, or perhaps Paul's Mall in Boston."

ANGELA was expecting me when I knocked, for I'd called earlier that day to verify our appointment. I saw instantly that she was beautiful-tall, black, well-built, soft brown eyes and features, and light brown hair in bouffant style. She had none of the sleaziness of the cheap, hard-looking women who could only be prostitutes.

"Come on in, honey," she said, as she took off my coat and beckoned me toward the couch.

She sat down beside me on the couch, and explained her initial caution over the telephone. I'd called up cold and asked to see her, saying I'd been given her number by a Navy friend of mine. Luckily, I'd been equipped with enough information to verify a half-believable story.

She said she had asked her friends not to give out her number without calling her first themselves. I apologized. "I don't usually go out with fellas I don't know, that's all," she replied.

We chatted casually for ten or fifteen minutes, smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee. I would never have guessed from her casual, fresh appearance that she'd had another customer only minutes before, had I not called at noon, and been told to wait twenty minutes before coming up.

I told her I went to Harvard. She knew a professor there. Really, who was that? No names please. Why not? Well, she didn't exactly know him in a social capacity; it was a business relationship. Ohh.

We talked politics for awhile. She asked if I was an SDS member. I said no, but I sympathized with some of their demands. So did she.

"Actually, I'm a strong Black Panther supporter," she said, "but being the mother of two children, it'd be hard for me to participate in their demonstrations and rallies."

Angela then spoke of her children. She said she was trying to enroll them in the nearby Newton schools, but there was a long waiting list. She told me of the PTA meeting she'd attended the night before, and of the inadequacy of her daughter's school. They didn't even have a gym, and the learning process seemed awfully slow to her.

We heard children's voices outside, and she jumped up with alarm and ran to the window, peering out for a long minute. "I thought maybe school got out early today," she said, resuming her place beside me.

I soon noticed that she'd begun rubbing her thighs, ever so subtly, yet intended obviously to prepare me. Not once had we even broached the subject of money or sex, the evident reason for my being there. She could have almost been a Wellesley girl on a first date, were it not for the implicit understanding we both shared, and a few tiny innuendoes.

Angela finished her third cigarette, looked up, and said, "Well, shall we retire to the biddy?"