My First Extraterrestrial Love 121Basking happily in the caressing motions of her hands,
I asked," Are all the girls in your world as lovely as you?"
"What do you think?" she answered noncommittally.
"Rama, you're answering my question with another
question. Don't you want to answer?"
"In my world, people are equal. We are as beautiful as
you can see. But we don't try to compete for beauty
because it's evenly distributed among everyone."
I decided to change the subject. I wanted to find out if
she would still hold me to our appointment in the pool
this evening.
"Are you going to take me swimming?"
"Do you want to?" she asked, again answering a
question with another question.
"Well," I said, unsure, "I know what is supposed to
happen down there. I'm a little edgy about it. I don't
know about this astral projection bit, taking your spirit
out of your body .... "
"What's your question?" she demanded.
"My question is, is it safe? Shouldn't there be some
kind of preparat ion?"
"Yes, there is a prepara tion period in order to com
pletely master this whole operation. But only in your
world. Because people here don't understand the work
ings of ananas and anionites. Even those who perform
miracles."
"Are you talking about the Houdinis, who perform
acts of magic? The modern prophets? The people who
hold seances, the spiritists?"
"Yes, they use the third force energy without really
understanding it. They do their magic act; they've
learned to condition their bodies so they can do their
number, but I doubt they even suspect this force we are
calling ananas and anionites."
"I had my palm read by a woman one day at the Santa
Monica Pier in California. She was about 85 percent