Even Cowgirls Win It Nude

"Burlington is always bragging about being the catfish capital of the world. Well, it's high time we got a beautiful woman to take over from the catfish."
-- Rosemary Williams, Burlington resident and "former virgin" from Virgil, Kansas

On a Wednesday night in August, Jeannie Bates slipped into a tuxedo jacket and a leather thong with three strands of rhinestones. She finished the outfit with a black bow tie and stepped into a pair of black 5-inch heels. Her husband, Lee, hauled a 6-foot-square mirror from the bedroom dresser and propped it against a chair beside the wall. Together, they rolled up the area rug from the basement floor and stowed it beneath the pool table.

Lee turned on the radio, and as Santana's "Smooth" filled the basement -- Man, it's a hot one, like seven inches from the midday sun -- Jeannie danced seductively around the room. Lee cranked the stereo and settled back into a chair. I hear you whisper and the words melt ever-y-one, but you stay so cool. Jeannie moved closer to Lee, then back, trying not to glance at herself in the mirror too often.

Less is more, they decided, when it comes to dancing provocatively. Jeannie danced for an hour to whatever played on the radio, occasionally tossing off a piece of clothing, letting it drop between the pool table and the wall, where there were two poster-size pictures of her Uncle Fred with his 4-H calf and Fred's horse, Flip.

At 6 feet tall and 43 years old, Jeannie Bates has long been a source of controversy in Burlington, Kansas -- population 2,800 -- a town that doesn't even stretch 3 miles, one end to the other. The city values she learned growing up in Wichita, combined with her outspoken ways, have gained Jeannie a reputation for eccentricity.

Jeannie married her first husband, Michael, when she was 19. Fifteen years ago, Michael, Jeannie, and their two children -- Shenandoah, their 4-year-old daughter, and Shiloh, their 2-year-old son -- moved to Burlington for Michael's new job at the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant. A few years later, though, Jeannie met Lee, and within months, they left their spouses to be together.

"We both decided we'd married the wrong people," says Jeannie, who adds that her and Lee's divorce notices came out on the same day in the Coffey County Republican, Burlington's twice-weekly newspaper. Lee and Jeannie settled with her two children into the house that Lee designed, set on 16 acres just outside of town.

Jeannie owned a successful graphic-design business in town. But that didn't stop the ladies who gathered at a table at Johnson's Pharmacy each afternoon from clucking about her as she walked by. She worked out in spandex and grew her hair longer than any respectable woman her age. Though Jeannie and Lee had been married for 11 years, they still acted like newlyweds.

On Jeannie's 40th birthday, she and Lee took a trip to Topeka. There Jeannie fulfilled a longtime fantasy: She danced on stage with 40 other women at Babydolls, a gentlemen's club. But if Jeannie had any fantasies about keeping her birthday outing a secret, they didn't last long. She ran into a member of the school board and her daughter's basketball coach that night, and soon a rumor circulated that Jeannie was dancing there part time. She just laughed.

"A friend of mine had a Babydolls jacket," Jeannie says. "I told him, 'Get me one too, and I'll wear it when I ride through town.'" Although that rumor eventually died out, Jeannie's and Lee's imaginations remained as active as ever.

While they were flipping through a Penthouse magazine seven years ago, Jeannie and Lee came across a photo layout of a woman wearing cutoffs and a straw hat, posed as if she were stranded with car trouble. "I wasn't very impressed," Jeannie says. "I told Lee, 'I can do better than that.'" So the couple drove her Mustang convertible down the highway out of town until they found a deserted stretch. Their adventure is commemorated in a special photo album.

"Here I am saying, 'Oh, I think my car is dead,'" Jeannie says as she carefully turns the pages of the "Car Trouble" series. "And here I am fixing the car." She slides her fingers over a picture of herself leaning under the hood wearing only a thong and high heels.

As Lee and Jeannie explored their photographic fantasies, they grew more daring. One afternoon, they drove out to the country and came across an abandoned bulldozer in the middle of a pasture. The two exchanged a knowing glance. As a herd of cows looked on, the photo shoot began: Jeannie driving the bulldozer naked. Jeannie bent over, "fixing" the engine. Jeannie nude on the grass, with sunlight glinting off the shiny blade behind.

On a winter night, Jeannie and Lee sneaked into the local fire station. As Lee snapped away, Jeannie indulged herself with the abundance of available props. There's Jeannie wearing only a fireman's coat, boots, and a yellow fire hat. Jeannie posing naked beside a statue of a Dalmatian. Jeannie sitting naked on the side of a fire truck playing with a fire hose. "Isn't that what every fireman's dream is -- for a woman to play with his hose?" she asks.