“When we are finished the little boy walks over to me and looks up at my chest. Then he reaches up and cups my breast in his hand. The mother comes over and does the same thing with my other breast. Yes I am the same I nod. Look. I pull up my shirt and unhook my bra. My breasts pop out and they both smile. I think about the Zapotec village in Mexico where I was not accepted until I was wearing their clothes and the Balinese ceremonies I would never have attended in anything but a kebaya and a sarong. I smile when I realize that if I were to live here I would walk around topless. If I weren't with three westerners I would do it right now.”

“I keep having the urge to cross my hands over my chest, to cover up my breasts, to hide. I'm suddenly aware of how pale I look in the sunshine, and how many moles I have spotting up and down my chest, and I just know he's looking at me thinking i'm wrong or deformed. But the he breathes, 'Beautiful' and when his eyes meet mine I know that he really, truly means it.”

“When I returned, I never once walked past the house where my mother, aunt, and I lved together...It was as if the past would judge me. The house would judge me. That merely looking at it would somehow cause me to calibrate my life, and in all aspects of usefulness I would come up short.”

“I move throughout the world...guided by instinct, connecting through trust, and constantly watching for serendipitous opportunities. ”

“A rustle of wings and a hawk feather drifts down to me. Snatching it from the air, I look up into the trees, but nothing’s there. So I tuck the feather into my hair.“What are you doing?”My stomach leaps into my throat, and I jump up, stumbling backward, and fall on my butt in the middle of the path. In the tree above me, a teenage boy perches on a branch. He’s dressed in traditional deerskin breeches, a talon necklace around his neck, but rather than moccasins, his feet are bare. He is shirtless, and lean muscles cord his body. His intense eyes capture my attention. They’re like golden fathomless pools. I could get lost in them.“Don’t your feet get hurt, walking barefoot on the forest floor?” I ask.“I rarely walk.” He drops down in front of me. His face is so close that I take a step back and thump into a tree. He leans toward me and sniffs. “You smell different. What are you?”“I’m a girl.” I can’t take my gaze from his.“No, humans stink. You smell…” He sniffs my hair and grins. “You smell good.”“Is there a reason that you’re invading my space? I have somewhere to be.” My voice cracks.He tugs one of my braids and winks at me. My pulse quickens, and my breath catches in my throat. His eyes study me with intensity, and he leans closer. Is he going to kiss me?”

“A human!” He grasps my hand with both of his and dances me in a circle. Then he stops and pulls out his notebook and a pen, flips it open to a blank page, and poises his pen over the page. “Do you have dreams when you sleep at night? What do you dream about? What did you eat for breakfast? How often do you eat in a day? Omnivore, herbivore, or carnivore? Let me look at your teeth.”He steps close as if he would open my mouth for me and inspect it as if I were a horse for sale. I take a step back and bump into the stall door behind me.”

“I cannot tell you what it is that guides us in this life; but for me, I fell toward the Chairman just as a stone must fall toward the earth. When I cut my lip and met Mr. Tanaka, when my mother died and I was cruelly sold, it was all like a stream that falls over rocky cliffs before it can reach the ocean. Even now that he is gone I have him still, in the richness of my memories.”