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that, what else have I missed? I can wax rapturous about what makes a woman take off her clothes for money, or break down the rudimentary political ramifications of topless dancing. But beyond my own defensive analysis, I really don't have any idea how it works. There are gaps in my consciousness you could drive a truck through. If I expect to get any smarter about this business, then I'd better get out there. Now it seems less a pipe dream than a mandatory assignment.
    Is it even remotely possible to figure out the personal and professional complexities of stripping, while at the same time being back in the game to see how they play out in different areas of the country? And can this be accomplished in the course of a single year?
    What will it take, I wonder, to lay this matter to rest, once and for all?
    Somewhere in the atlas lies the answer.

THREE

Pure Talent
    The real scandal in my working as a stripper is that I can't dance. It's just not a talent I've ever possessed. When I was in grade school, I took an afternoon course that offered instruction in all the dance steps from the movie Grease, and I struggled in vain to learn a basic cha-cha. As an adult, I made a point of avoiding aerobics classes after grapevining the wrong direction into an entire row of classmates one too many times. But lacking terpsichorean skill never hurt me that much. The first time I auditioned at a bona fide strip club—not a go-go bar or a peep show where you stand and shimmy, but a place where you have a stage to yourself and are expected to use it with style and sex appeal—I was nervous to the point of nausea, memories of childhood stumbles and aerobics class carnage in my head. I sat on the staircase backstage at San Francisco's notorious Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater with six other auditioning hopefuls and tried to steady my knees. The manager came back to where we were hiding behind the curtains, propped one foot on the lowest step, and rested his elbow on his knee so he could lean down to talk us. I'll never forget his shoes, cobra-skin moccasins with the heads still attached. "Got 'em for twelve dollars American in Thailand last year," he said, flexing his toes to make the snakes' heads weave back and forth. "They make them while you wait." But more incredible than his shoes was what he told us about our impending audition: "Don't worry about how you move out there. Ninety percent of the women who work here can't dance." That wasn't exactly true—in fact, his assessment was as rudely unjust to the veteran dancers as it was meant to be reassuring to us wannabes—but I felt a little more at ease. When my turn came in the amateur contest lineup, I got up on shaky legs, loped around the stage for the length of Aerosmith's "Love in an Elevator," and took first place by an audience-applause vote. I won a little trophy and twenty-five bucks. And a job. Which is pretty good winnings from a dance contest for somebody who can't dance.
    But now, several years and a career coda later, I'm no longer comfortable with being barely competent. If I'm to return to dancing, I want to be as good as I can—or at least better than I was. So what does a woman do when she wants to improve and expand herself in an area of study? She goes to school. Stripper school.
    The Pure Talent School of Dance in Clearwater, Florida, is the nation's only academy for professional exotic dance. There are plenty of personal enrichment courses that will teach you how to strip for your lover—Learning Annex-type evening classes where for two hours you can practice twirling a silk scarf and rolling your hips in a conference room with the table and armchairs pushed to the walls. But a real stripper can't properly practice footwork on industrial-grade carpet. She needs ample solid flooring, a floor-to-ceiling mirror, poles, and, if she has any pride at all, a light source other than a bank of fluorescents glowering overhead, exaggerating every pore, lump, and ripple.