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Still, if Conger really is making the best of a bad situation, at least she knows how to enjoy herself. A German cameraman came up to her. “You have many fans in Germany,” he said. “Can we get a shot of you reading Playboy?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, as she proceeded to thumb through her photo spread and appraise her favorite shot, a full-length, rear view on page 141. “You can see my triceps,” she gloats. “I’ve always been a nut about working out. I StairMaster and lift.”

‘I’m Not a Bedroom Bunny’

Whether or not you find Conger attractive, her photos have that Playboy perfection that makes you wonder whether an imaginative photo editor was airbrushing her unmentionables.

But Conger insists that it’s really her on page 143, sunning her nipples on a parched desert, wearing nothing but an ankle bracelet.

“I’ve never even had boyfriends take pictures like this,” she said. “But it’s amazing how comfortable I felt, maybe because everything was so professional and it was a natural environment. I didn’t want any bedroom innuendo. I’m not a voluptuous bedroom bunny. I’m an outdoor person.”

There’s nothing unnatural or undignified about posing nude, Conger says. “It feels like plunging into icy water,” she said. “Once you get in, you’re fine.

Conger finished the day at Manhattan’s Planet Hollywood, donating the wedding dress she wore on the magazine cover. “I don’t need it anymore,” she says. “It’s a lot nicer than the one I wore on TV. I’m glad they’re putting it on display.

“I spend a couple more days in New York,” she says. “Then it’s Chicago, Las Vegas and L.A. Then it is a new page in my life.”

Conger says she’s looking forward to the day when she won’t have to relive the experience of being a bride chosen from among 50 contestants at a Las Vegas event that made TV history. She’s not saying if she’s been involved with anyone since her two-month, unconsummated marriage, which has now been annulled. But she says she wants the same things out of life that a lot of people do.