I was interviewed yesterday by a small local magazine about the missing-child part of my story. We met at the gala Friday night in Saratoga Springs, NY to benefit the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. She and my dad (my real father) got to talking, but I was busy helping the gala chair make sure everything went smoothly, so she took my number and called me yesterday.

After I gave her the Reader’s Digest version of my story, the reporter asked what it’s like, sharing a story that’s so personal and revealing. I’ve been getting that question here about my blog, too.

Well, frankly, it’s like stripping. I remember that first time I got up on that stage at the Pink Garter. The lights were not strong like the stage lights in my high school plays, so I could see the audience as clearly as they could see me. I remember trying to simultaneously smile at them and not look at them. I was nervous as hell, and couldn’t believe I was seriously going to stand up in front of these strange men and take my clothes off down to pasties and a g-string. I glanced nervously at my friend, Gigi, by the jukebox who had talked me into this, and she nodded and smiled and clapped, encouraging the audience to give a welcoming clap, too, as the music started.

Africa. I was dancing to Africa by Toto. I picked it because that was the song that a different friend and I stripped to at the after-party among the cast and crew of Camelot, our last play before we graduated. We were a bunch of drama club high-schoolers gathered at my new apartment with that older friend of mine who took me in after I ran away from home. Yep, there was alcohol, and yep, we all got silly, and before we knew it, me and Sandy were giggling in our bras and underwear, running screeching from the room when the song ended to put our clothes back on. I had just turned 18 a couple weeks earlier.

Well, Gigi, my future maid of honor (who knew that I would be married less than a year from that night? Certainly not me!) was an exotic dancer part time, and she knew I was struggling to make money at Taco Via and pay rent while going to school, so she convinced me that if I was brave enough to strip in front of my friends, I could certainly do it at the Garter. She told me that some girls made over $1,000 a week. Back in ’83, that was a whole lotta money.

On that postage-stamp-sized stage, though, it seemed like a very bad idea. The room was dark, dingy and smokey. The audience was dressed in thrift shop clothes for the most part, although there were a couple of suits. Lots of unkempt hair and beards out there beyond the lights. Some looked like they hadn’t bathed in a while. Not the people I was used to seeing in suburbia, where I had just graduated two weeks earlier. I definitely didn’t feel safe, but that I was used to. I had long since given up looking for safety. There was no such thing.

So I stayed right on that stage, without the false courage of a Fuzzy Navel, but with the real courage that survival gives to desperate young women. My roommate didn’t take me in out of the goodness of her heart. She expected to be paid my share of the rent or she would sell my stuff and throw me out. How can an inexperienced 18-year old high school graduate make enough money to pay for rent, food, and car insurance? Taco Via and Pizza Hut were the extent of my skills, unless you count the Star Wars fan fiction I had written. Much as my friends liked it, no one offered to pay me for it. I could thread a needle, too, but everyone could do that. I couldn’t waitress because the only places that paid decent money (what I now know to be a living wage) sold alcohol, and I had to be 21 to serve it. Until then, all I had was a pretty face and a Bunny figure, plus my friends told me I was a good dancer, so how bad could this be?

Grown men liked me. They would chuck my chin and “accidently” brush a hand across my chest or bottom. They’d laugh and call me “jailbait”. I took it as a compliment. I was a powerless girl, suddenly getting a feeling of power. And now I was told my adult curves would also bring me money. My mother didn’t teach me about morals or values, but she sure taught me about men and opportunity. It didn’t matter that some of my friends and family would judge me if they found out. This was an opportunity to support myself, to become independent and maybe make enough money to get an apartment on my own, one that I could share with my sisters, freeing them from my mom’s metal cooking spoon. So what if I had to expose myself to do it? There were bouncers to make sure there would be no touching, so what’s the big deal if foolish men wanted to pay good money just to look? No skin off my nose.

So, yes, I stayed right there, dancing like I was in one of those new MTV videos, and revealing more of myself than I ever thought I would to strangers who just sat there, watching, without the laughing cheers or teasing catcalls of my friends at school. I avoided those silent, cool, assessing eyes and pretended I was surrounded by choreographers and make-up artists and an adoring audience, maybe even a talent scout, all clapping just for me.

Then I went into the dressing room and met the other dancers. One was hooked on drugs, sporting a bad bruise on her upper arm that make-up couldn’t quite hide. Another was a very petite 31-year-old woman who was supporting both a child and a sick mother, and scared to death that her height wasn’t going to make her seem young enough to keep this job for much longer. There was a former Las Vegas showgirl who had long since aged out, but she was a friend of the owner and had glamourous outfits, so she had job security. And then there was Star, who was just as cool and assessing as the men in the bar. She said she was 22, and that was the most personal information she ever gave me. Looking back, it wouldn’t surprise me if she were an undercover cop. I’ll never forget the desperation and showy bravado of that tiny back room. Just a handful of women who had each other’s backs because they all knew nobody else would.

I made fifty bucks in tips that night. I went home, gave it to my roommate, showered, crawled into bed, and cried. The world was just as bad as my mother always said it would be. My heart shrunk a size smaller that day.

It’s now 31 years later, and a reporter wants to know what it’s like to be writing and sharing my very personal story with the public. I told her it’s like stripping. Revealing way more than most people ever would, knowing I’ll be criticized for it, knowing I’ll hate myself at times for saying too much, and knowing I’ll have to wrap a tight band around my heart to get through it. But in spite of all that, there’s no question that this is an opportunity to reach other young women, somewhere out there, who think survival is up to each of them alone. They’re not alone. I never did go back to rescue my sisters, but there are many more out there still silently desperate for help. In the end, we’re all sisters. My story is not rare to happen, it’s just rare to be revealed.