’ She hesitated as he looked at her, still smiling, and seemed to be enjoying her discomfiture. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, finally, pushing a smi...e onto her face. ‘Nice to see you . . .er . . .sir?’ She realized immediately what she said and how she was simply lapsing into the old way. She tired to shake it off but he spoke up then, not giving her a chance. ‘Very lovely, Nessa, very pretty, exotic even, with the gorgeous bald head and the looped earrings. Nessa, you are beauty itself.’ ‘Thank you,. Chief when he wanted them to take separate sessions. She was also mindful that it might be better to have her ameliorating influence present to counteract Igwanda's occasional acerbity in the face of what he considered to be stupid questions.In the early stages that was immaterial. Priority was accorded to the so-called "mainstream" media, who provided softball questions and in general focused on the "gee whiz" factor of humanity's first encounter with a sentient alien species.Meiersdottir. ? The following tale is fictional butsprinkled with a few truths.Rosie was an ugly girl with no becoming features. Even her hair wasunattractively short and barely covering her ears. The only thing Ienvied her for were her skirts and dresses that she wore. Oh and the factthat she was a girl and I wasn't.We lived in the same house but we were not related in any way. This was achildren's home where many boys and girls came and went depending ontheir circumstances. Some of us were lifers. By that. Someone pushed the rest of me inside the cage. I tried to run around in thesmall space just as the door was closed, locking me inside. I now was a cagedanimal!Heart pounding, I scampered on hands and knees to the far end of thecage, but there was no opening there. I felt and tug near my hip and lookedback. A hand-I could not tell if it was male or female-reached in and waspulling at my chemise. There was just enough room to reverse my directioninside of the cage, but not before I felt the thin.