in the flesh(wound)

It was cold in the Slipper Room when the Dewey Decimal Mistress, Rosie & I walked in from the freezing rahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifin outside. Renowned burlesque dancer Jo "Boobs" met us at the door and gave us the run-down of all the rules. "Use just the one bathroom with the candles in it. Feel free to have some cookies and water, just keep track of your cup, 'cause I don't have enough for seconds. If anyone comes in, tell 'em we're closed for a private event."

Not exactly what I was expecting, walking into my first burlesque class. I don't know what I should've expected, but it was certainly more romantic and sexy than that. As the other ladies in the class trickled in through the front door, my cohorts and I shed our many layers and changed into dancing shoes to prepare for the shakefest that lay ahead.

Soon after Jo Boobs' intern showed up (I know, we were thinking the same thing, "just how does one become a burlesque intern?"), we moved to the stage area to begin the class. Jo took her position onstage, with us standing in the mosh area, anxiously awaiting instruction and the unexpected. She had us all choose from her collection of boas, long gloves and fringe to pin around our waists, then began walking us through a routine. First we learned the boa-drop, then the glove peel, the bump-n-grind and the shimmy, along with classic stances and the value of a quality bounce.

Before we could go on in the routine, it was bra time. Jo had several in one of her bags o' tricks, in case anyone wasn't in one of her own fancy numbers. Since I'd just gotten a sparkly new one the day before, I didn't have to dip into the communal bag. And in case stripping to bras in a roomful of strange women wasn't enough of a step for some of us, it was time to pick our pasties. Tassel-up. Jo and her intern had made these babies just for our class.

I can assure you that the procedure for applying pasties is not a sexy one -- even when applied by a burlesque intern. It was terrifying, actually. "Am I doing this wrong?" "What if it unsticks at the worst possible moment?" "Shouldn't my nipple be much less inverted at this particular moment and temperature?" But once everything was applied, the music resumed, along with the instruction. The final two moves in the routine? The bra-drop and tassel-twirling. Every possible direction and combination of directions.

After two hours, yours truly became a first-level tassel master -- like a D&D geek, but with my own real girl's boobs. I tell ya, it could be months, maybe years, maybe never, before I actually perform burlesque in public, but the boost of adrenaline I got from that class is enough to make me go back for another fix. I don't know why I hadn't done it sooner.