Coffee With 'A Lady of the Evening'

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?"

I nodded obediently.

THE double bed in the master bedroom was mammoth. It was covered with a neat, pleated hot-pink spread. Quickly and efficiently, Angela took a clean sheet from the closet and spread it over the bed, all the while chatting easily.

"Did your friend discuss the financial arrangements with you?" she finally asked.

"No, he didn't mention anything."

"Gee, that's too bad." she said thoughtfully, "Well . . ." Long beckoning pause. She eyes me quietly, seductively.

She doesn't move her eyes, but business is business, after all. Slowly but firmly: "I charge a minimum of $25, usually more."

It was tough to resist. But I had promises to keep-a CRIMSON feature and a Spartan $15 expense account that I'd long since overspent.

"I'm sorry, but I've got only $20."

"Actually, I'm writing a novel," I lied. Newspaper publicity she could do without. "I need psychological material for my book. All you have to do is talk to me for a while-no sex at all-and I'll pay you for your time. I'm not trying to incriminate you in any way, because I'm not a cop, and whatever you tell me will be confidential. I only want to know how you think-about yourself, your work, and the men you sleep with."

She agreed almost instantly, though not without suspicion, and we went back into the living room to talk.

"You can pay me now," she said.

"I'll tell you what. I'll pay you ten now and the other ten later, if you talk to me honestly for an hour."

"A lady of the evening is always paid in advance, for whatever the service-whether it's for talk, or sex, or just going out to dinner," she said adamantly.

I had no choice, and paid.

Angela's "been in the life" for six years, since she was about twenty-two. I asked her how it all began.

"I began doing it for financial reasons," she said predictably. "Oh, when I was younger, I thought this was just the lowest, most immoral thing in the whole world. I wouldn't have considered doing it for anything, and the thought just never occurred to me.

"After I was divorced from my husband. I was having a pretty hard go of it. I had two jobs at the time, and was spending all of my money just supporting the two kids. I knew a girl who was doing this thing. She knew that I knew about it, but we never discussed it. I liked her in spite of her profession.

"One day, she asked if I'd like to sleep with a man for some money. He was looking for someone like me-I was a size 7 then, a lot thinner, and it would be an easy way to pick up some easy extra cash. She knew I could use it.

"I was shocked at first, but soon began thinking seriously about the idea. 'Why I don't even know if I'd be able to sleep with a man I haven't met before,' I said. 'Sure you can, honey,' she told me, 'It's easy. All you have to do is put on a good show, and it'll be over in no time at all. Besides, you'll have money enough to do all the things you'd like to now, but can't afford.'

"I told her I'd meet the man, and try. It worked all right, and pretty soon, I realized that I could make more money in a night than I'd been making from my two jobs before in a week. I guess that's when I started."

Her break with straight life could not have been an easy one. She'd been married, middle-class, and the mother of two children.

"MOST other prostitutes have a pretty rough time in their personal sex lives during their careers," she told me. "though I don't think they have that problem before beginning. I'm actually the exception among girls of my calling," said Angela. "Most of them are lesbians at some time or another. When they get tired of men, and sex becomes boring, it provides another outlet for them. I've gone to stags and things with them, but I've never dug sleeping with an other girl."

I tried asking more personal questions. She claimed she was quite normal. No hangups. It was not until much later in the conversation that she told me. "I was married to my husband for four years-I'd had two children-and I'd never once had an orgasm. I was laying down first and getting up last."

"Do you get any satisfaction from sleeping with your customers?"

"No, but I'm a very good actress. I can't trust white men, so how can I relax enough to come?

"A friend of mine likes white men. We've discussed the whole thing at great lengths for hours at a time. She says she's had some bad experiences, and that black men have abused her. She told me, 'Some whites are more soulful than others.' Huhh! I don't believe it.

"I'm really very prejudiced. I could never get involved with a white man, and all my customers are white. If I had black customers, I might become involved, so deliberately, I don't have them as customers."

" Do you have any boyfriends? "

"Oh, sure, but they're all black."

" What kinds of relations do you have with them? "

"Very normal ones. I have sex with them because I want to, and for no other reason." She pointed to a painting on the wall. It was a ghetto scene, quite well done. Shades of blue had created a strange, uneasy effect, in sharp contrast to the comfort of the room.

"One of my boyfriends painted that. He's a struggling young artist. When you said you had a friend in the Navy, I thought you might have meant him, but I knew he wouldn't have given you my number."

" No, I don't think it was him," I said. Long pause. "

"I have no hangups now, because I haven't gotten so involved in this thing. I can't afford to become emotionally involved, or I'd end up in Mattapan [Boston State Hospital]. I think my children have helped to keep me fairly stable.

"Besides, I don't associate socially with other girls in the business. Most of my friends are 'squares.' They're

not 'in the life' as we say. They lead conventional 9 to 5 lives.

"I'll probably give this life up in about a year," she told me. "I'm interested in real estate, and intend to start studying business administration at Northeastern the first of the year."

I asked Angela if she'd been able to save any of her earnings, since she said she was grossing over $1000 a week.

"I care too much about myself to do the things that I have to do in my work, and then end up with nothing, so I save," she said. "And besides, I have the children to worry about."

She spoke of a customer, a psychiatrist, who she said had been imprisoned in a German concentration camp during the war. He would ask her to dress him up in a bra, garters, panties, and high heels, and then insisted upon being whipped into unconsciousness. He always brought smelling salts for her to revive him with.

Angela talked also of a wealthy North Shore businessman who would pay her $200 every Thursday afternoon for the privilege of cleaning her apartment. She said it was "like babysitting." He would be semi-nude-clad only in a short apron-and she was expected to order him around, occasionally beat him, and "generally just play the dominant role."

I asked her how she liked her work.

"I don't imagine a surgeon enjoys cutting someone open, but it's needed. My job's needed, too, and I have to do it," she answered. "It's the world's oldest profession, you know. Three-fourths of my clients are married men," she told me. "Most of them haven't slept with their wives in years, though. Maybe they share the same room, but then they have separate beds. Or else, their wives are just cold, and won't do the things for them that I will. The only reason my men continue to live at home is for their kids' sake. But they need an outlet, and I provide it. You know, I think that we [prostitutes] are responsible for keeping a lot of married couples together."

The radio disc jockey announced the second hour. It was like an alarm clock. Back to real life-the show's over. I almost expected a commercial.

"Listen, you'll have to excuse me, but I have to get to the bank before it closes, and then go out shopping before my children come home. We can't live on TV dinners and frozen asparagus," she said, as if on cue.

I rose to go. One last question. I smiled, and tried to ask as nicely as I could, if she ever felt personally degraded in her work.

"No, it's not what you do, but how you do it." she answered. "All women are really prostitutes. They do it because it's part of their duty. If they want a new hat, they'll butter up their husbands that day, be especially nice to them, and particularly good in bed. If they don't want anything, then they won't.

"And, all I do is get paid for it," she concluded.