Grahem Masterton
The Sphinx
    
    
    
    
    
    One
    
    He could always remember the first time lie caught sight of her. Later, he used to 
joke about it and call it "love at first bite." It was at the Schirra's cocktail party 
for Henry Ness, the new Secretary of State, to celebrate Henry's inexplicable engagement 
to that very raucous and very ambitious Caldwell girl. As usual at the Schirra's, there 
was plenty to drink and nearly as much to eat, and Gene Keiller was right in the middle 
of talking to a Turkish diplomat with appalling dandruff, simultaneously sinking his 
teeth into a fresh crab vol-au-vent (he hadn't eaten all day), when the glittering 
dresses and black tuxedoes parted like the Red Sea and Lone Semple walked in.
    Gene wasn't yet blase about beautiful women. He hadn't been working for the State 
Department long enough to get sick to his stomach of all those fawning, crooning, elegant 
young ladies who cling around the perimeter of Washington society life with no panties on 
and an unquenchable thirst for any man who might have been mentioned by William F. 
Buckley, even if it •was only once. Gene's immediate boss, Walter Farlowe, had a nose for 
political groupies and called them the Prone Department. But when Gene looked up with a 
mouthful of puff pastry and a shred of crab hanging from the side of his chin, he 
couldn't have cared "Whether Lorie Semple was a camp-follower or not.
    "Hey, Gene," said Senator Hasbauro, leaning over.
    "That's one hell of a piece of ass. Take a look at that goddam frontispiece."
    Gene nodded, and almost choked. He reached for his napkin, and patted his mouth, and 
the vol-au-vent went down his throat half-chewed. All he could say was, "Arthur, for once 
you're damn right."
    She didn't seem to have anyone with her. She was tall-taller than every other girl in 
the room and most of the men. Gene guessed five-foot-eleven, and it turned out later that 
he was half an inch on the short side. Her height hadn't made her retiring or timid, 
though. She stalked into the center of the room, under the twinkling chandelier, with a 
straight, arrogant back and her chin lifted.
    "Jesus," whispered Ken Sloane. "Did you ever see a girl who looked like that before?"
    Gene said nothing at all. Even the Turkish diplomat, who had been explaining at great 
and tedious length his absolute commitment to MARV missiles on Turkish soil, couldn't 
help noticing that Gene was no longer with him and was staring at Lorie Semple like a man 
who had just seen a religious vision.
    "Mr. Keiller," he said, tugging, at Gene's sleeve. "Mr. Keiller, we must talk 
warheads!"
    Gene nodded. "You're absolutely right. That's all I can say. You're absolutely damn 
right."
    Lorie Semple had a mane of brushed-back tawny hair that fell over her bare shoulders. 
Her face was classically beautiful, with a straight nose, a wide and sensual mouth, and 
upslanted eyes. Around her neck she wore a three-strand choker of emeralds, and nobody in 
the whole room believed for one moment that they were green glass. She was dressed in a 
clinging, low backed, empire-line evening dress of flesh-colored silk, so gleaming and 
tight around the bust that when you first glimpsed her you had to look again, because she 
looked as if she was topless.
    Her breasts were enormous and she obviously wasn't Wearing a bra. Her nipples raised 
the silk into softly shadowed peaks, and when she walked the bouncing o{ each bosom was 
enough to quieten conversation and have even the few faithful Washington husbands 
glancing surreptitiously over their wives' shoulders.
    He never knew what impulse really made him do it, but as she stood there, with her 
straight back and her supercilious look, Gene Keiller stepped forward and held out his 
hand. It was unnerving, stepping up close, because this tall girl had the kind of green 
eyes that seem to stare at you heartlessly, like a cat, and Gene had already downed three 
vodkatinis and wasn't at his best
    "I don't know you," he said, with a lopsided grin.
    The girl stared at him. She was at least as tall as he was, and she was wearing some 
strong, musky perfume that seemed to fill the ah? around her like a haze.
    "I don't know you, either," she replied, in a deep voice that was heavy with some 
European accent
    "Well," said Gene, "maybe that's a good reason to introduce ourselves!"
    The girl stared at him. "Perhaps."
    "Only perhaps?"
    The girl nodded. "It we don't know each other, perhaps it is better that we remain 
that way. Strangers."
    Gene gave Ms little diplomatic laugh. "Well, I can. see your point But this is 
Washington Everybody has to know everybody around here."
    The girl still kept staring at him, almost hypnotically, and the more she stared the 
more he found himself thrown off his pitch, and shuffling his feet and staring at the 
carpet He hadn't felt like this with a girl since he left grade school, and yet here he 
was, rugged Gene Keiller, with the Florida tan and the wide white smile, the curly-haired 
Democratic champ who used to Jciss all the babies and make Jacksonville housewives swoon 
with delight, simpering and bumbling worse than Charlie Brown.
    "Why?" she said, parting those moist pink lips. "Er...excuse me? Why what?" The girl 
kept staring at him. She didn't seem to wink at all, and that disconcerted him.
    "Why does everybody have to know everybody?" Gene fingered his collar. "Well ... I 
guess it's a question of survival. You have to know who your friends are and who your 
enemies are. It's kind of like the law of the jungle."
    "The jungle?"
    He smirked. "That's what they say. It's a tough life, you know, being a politician. 
It doesn't matter how low down the gum tree you happen to be, there's always someone 
who'd like to climb higher, who'll stand on your head to do it."
    "You make it sound . . . very aggressive,"-she said. He noticed she was wearing 
earrings made of small curved animals' teeth set in gold. .He was gradually managing to 
overcome his nervousness, but all the same he was conscious that she had the upper hand 
in this conversation and that all the other guests were watching him out of the corner of 
their eye and sizing up his performance. He coughed, and waved towards the bar.
    "Would you, er...care for a drink?" She looked at him. There seemed to be long pauses 
in their conversation, and he got the impression that she was weighing him up with 
considerable care. Stalking him, almost
    "I don't drink," she said simply. "But don't let mo stop you. You seem to be enjoying 
it."
    He coughed again. "Well, I, er...like a drink just to unwind. It kind of relaxes the 
nerves, you know?"
    "No," she said, "I don't know. I've never take a drink in my life."