The bartender is a tall, thin blonde, apparently pregnant.

The smell of cigarette smoke lingers in the air, even though she tells me they’ve been smoke-free since March.

She asks if I want a drink and I ask if there’s an ATM.

She points to her left, my right.

“It gives you coupons and a receipt, then you give it to me and I’ll give you cash,” she says.

“We don’t leave money around.”

I order a pint and take my first glance toward the stage.

A thin, middle-aged blonde is standing, impressively, on her left foot in what looks to be a three-inch heel — at least.

Her right foot is above her head, parallel to one of the two brass poles on the black-and-white checkered stage.

A group of three older men cheer and gawk at the dancer — slightly their junior — as she does her thing, seeming to enjoy their attention.

Then the song ends.

She puts on a robe and exits, walking by a big-screen TV showing CNN’s coverage of the U.S. financial bailout.

The crowd gathered here seems less-than-interested in international politics.

I grab a seat at a table about eight feet from the stage, near a corner.

Three men pull up chairs between me and the stage as I begin writing on my BlackBerry.

We make eye contact and I smile nervously. I’ve never been to a strip bar by myself before.

One of the men stands and begins to walk in my direction. He stops next to me and looks in the air.

He reaches up and adjusts a light on the ceiling, making it shine directly at the brass pole in front of the chairs he’s taken up with his buddies.

The reflection of the light off the pole is especially bright in the dimly lit bar.

Dancer No. 2 emerges as a waitress asks if I’d like another drink.

“Yes, please,” I tell her as I watch the stripper scout out her stage.

I see her looking in my direction, but the glare of the recently adjusted light off the pole makes it hard to tell just where she’s looking.

“OK,” she says.

“We need to do something about that light.”

She gets off the stage and approaches me.

I wonder if it had been rude of me to type away throughout her brief performance.

She places her red lace bra on the table next to my beer and grabs a stool.

“Excuse me,” she says, far more politely than I would have expected.

“Not at all,” I reply.

Then she stands on the stool, re-adjusts the light and walks toward the dressing room.

“I’m just going to move it again,” the guy who adjusted it in the first place yells out as she heads back past the face of Wolf Blitzer and away from the stage.

“I’m a seasonal electrician.”

This is it.

The final frontier. The last strip club in Kamloops.

This is Outbacks.

When Mounties and B.C. liquor inspectors pulled the liquor licence of The Rendezvous last Monday, Outbacks on the North Shore became the only show in town.

I ask the waitress if she’s noticed an increase in business since the ‘Vous was shut down.

“It’s been busier, yeah,” she says.

“A lot busier?” I ask.

“Quite a bit,” she replies, explaining they also picked up a few dancers who would have otherwise been at the downtown bar.

There was an impressive number of patrons in Outbacks on a Thursday afternoon — 25-or-so.

The next dancer came on stage. She was the most attractive of the bunch, perhaps one of girls who was supposed to be at the ‘Vous.

She began her routine.

The men gawked and tried awkwardly to make conversation, which she deflected with ease.

This was more like the stereotypical strip club atmosphere many expect.

Then the song began to skip, playing the same two beats over and over for what seemed like a full minute.

“Just put it on the radio or whatever!” the dancer yelled out.

A few minutes later, she would leave the stage, walk under the once-adjusted light that had now been turned off, past the big-screen — now showing sports highlights and not CNN — and back to the dressing room, only to be back out on stage an hour later.

The Last Dance