In 1998, Margot Lester -- divorced and in a professional rut -- left Chapel Hill and moved to Los Angeles for a fresh start in life. She returned several months ago with a new entry on her resume: "sex writer."

Lester has been in Playboy magazine a lot over the past few years. Not that you'd notice, however -- unless you really do buy it for the articles.

She has become a specialist in those short, front-of-the-book items that Playboy readers initially flip past as they hurry toward the good stuff. One such contribution -- just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about -- was "Good Fetishes Gone Bad." Other topics have included bit-part porn actors who keep their clothes on, odd sex practices and ongoing contributions to a Playboy series called "Why Girls Say Yes."

I should mention that Lester, like most freelancers, has many specialties. She also writes about commercial real estate, technology, online dating and the food service industry, just to name a few. (In fact, I gave Lester her first real estate writing assignment more than 10 years ago, when she was freelancing and I still had ambitions of being an Important Man in the newspaper business. Since then, she has moved up to bigger publications. Meanwhile, I've moved steadily down the organizational ladder. I expect to be a file clerk by this time next year.)

Do you care about all that? Neither do I. Let's get back to the sex writing.

Like countless other young women, Lester was drawn to Los Angeles because it's a place where personal reinvention is not only possible, but acceptable. "I wanted to test my mettle," she says, but there were other reasons: to enjoy being single again in a place a little less constricted than Chapel Hill, to name just one.

After she had spent a year freelance business writing in L.A., Playboy hired Lester to draft an article on personal finance and careers. Also in that month's issue was the annual Playmate of the Year photo feature. As it turned out, Lester's piece was placed immediately behind the photos -- which meant that 100 percent of Playboy's readership saw her article as they turned the page in search of more pictures. "I was the consolation prize," Lester says.

Playboy's editors liked what they saw in Lester. (Sorry. Couldn't resist.) She got more assignments, and within a year she was in the magazine virtually every month.

In addition to a regular paycheck, there has been an unexpected benefit to this new career. Lester now gets lots of attention from people at almost any social gathering. But even that carries a downside: The men will fill her ear with tales of their own escapades, or worse, their sexual dysfunctions, while "all the women in the room will hate me," she says.

Lester has, in short, established herself as an expert in sex-related topics -- so much so that she was once asked to consider putting her name and endorsement on a line of adult toys.

Lester declined. Her other freelance gigs were booming, and she was afraid that her straighter-laced clients might be made squeamish by such a move.

Besides, Lester has another project to focus on. She has returned to Chapel Hill because she's getting married later this year.

Let's say it together now:

Lucky guy.

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