He blinked at her. "You're kidding! You didn't even laid the cherry brandy in your 
old woman's kitchen cupboard?"
    With a long-fingered, long-nailed hand, she brushed tack her tawny hair and shook her 
head seriously.
    "My mother is not an old woman. She is really quite young. And she has never, ever, 
had alcohol in the house."
    "1 see," said Gene, embarrassed. "1 didn't mean to imply-"
    "No, no," she said. "Don't worry. I know what yon meant"
    For a while, Gene stood there with his empty glass in his hand, giving the girl 
little smiles and saying "well" and "uh-huh," but not daring to leave her in case any of 
the other unattached men In the room horned in. There was something about her that 
frightened him but at the same time was mesrrierically fascinating-apart from the fact 
that she had the biggest pair of tits he had ever seen.
    He finally said, "I haven't introduced myself. That's pretty dumb, for a politician! 
My name's Gene Keiller."
    They shook hands. He waited expectantly for the girl to introduce herself, but she 
said nothing, simply smiled faintly, and kept on looking around the room. "Aren't you... 
going to..." She turned back and smiled at him. "Gene Keiller," she said. "I've heard of 
you."
    "Oh, really?" he grinned. "I haven't had too much publicity lately. These days I'm a 
working politician, not a campaigning one. Promises are one thing, you know, but carrying 
those promises out is a whole different ballgame."
    She nodded. "I thought you were a politician. You talk in such old cliches."
    He stared at her. He wasn't sure if he'd heard her correctly, because Senator Hasbaum 
had just laughed loudly next to his left ear.
    "I'm sorry?"
    'That's all right," she said, graciously. "All politicians do it. It must be an 
occupational disease."
    He rubbed the back of his neck, which he always did when he was irritated. "Now, wait 
a minute," he said, in a half-jokey, half-steamed-up kind of voice. "It's all very well 
for people like you to say that politicians are riddled with cliches, but what you have 
to remember is that most political situations are-"
    "There are none," she said, in that rich voice of hers.
    He was about to carry on, but then he looked at her, puzzled. "What?"
    "There are no people like me," she said simply.
    He frowned, and examined his empty glass again.
    "Well," he said, "what kind of people are you?"
    She stared at him as if she were trying to decide whether he was worthy of such a 
valuable piece of knowledge. Finally, she said, "I am half-Egyptian and half-French. I am 
one of those people that are known as Ubasti."
    "And is it too much to tell me your name? Or is that a cliche question too?"
    She shook her head. "You mustn't let my shyness put you off," she said. "When I am 
shy, people always seem to think that I'am frightening. I can see it in their eyes. Fear 
and aggressiveness are very similar emotions, don't you think?"
    "You still haven't told me your name." She tilted her head to one side. "Why do you 
want to know? Do you want to seduce me?"
    He looked at her, questioningly. "Do you want to be seduced?"
    "I don't know. No, I don't think so." He said bluntly, "You're a very beautiful girl. 
You know that, don't you?"
    She lowered her eyes for the first time since they had started talking. "Beauty is a 
matter of opinion. I think my breasts are too big."
    "I don't think the consensus of American male opinion would agree with you. If you 
want to know, I think they're stunning."
    A hint of color touched her dark-tanned cheeks. She said softly: "I think you are 
probably saying that to flatter me."
    He snorted, "You don't need flattery. You're too good-looking for that. And apart 
from that, you've got something that every other woman in this whole goddamn room would 
like to have but never will.. . not in a thousand years."
    She looked up. Her green eyes were lambent and fascinating. One moment the pupils 
seemed to be tight shut, and the next moment they opened out wide like dark flowers.
    "You've got mystique," Gene told her. "The moment I laid eyes on you I said to 
myself, Gene, that girl has mystique. Look at you now-we've been talking all this time 
and I still don't know your name."
    She laughed. The cocktail-party guests standing close by noticed her laughing and 
Senator Hasbaum whispered to one of his friends, "That Gene Keiller's done it again! By 
God, I wish I was twenty years younger! I'd show that broad what a Tennessee boy can do!"
    The girl said, "Why is my name so important to you?"
    Gene shrugged. "What can I call you if I don't know what it is? Supposing I want to 
ask you to come to dinner with me after the party? How do I say it? 'Excuse me, Ms. X, or 
Ms. Y, or whatever you call yourself, will you come to dinner with me after the party?'"
    She shook her head. "You don't have to say that."
    "Then what do I say?"
    "Don't say anything, because I can't come."
    Gene took her hand, and held it in both his hands.
    "Of course you can come. You're not married, are you?"
    "No."
    "I didn't think you were. You don't have that haunted look that all Washington wives 
get sooner or later."
    "Haunted look?" asked the girl.
    "Sure," said Gene. "They're always worrying about which girls their husbands are 
sleeping with, and whether it's any of the girls that the men they're sleeping with have 
slept with, in which case their husbands may find out they've been sleeping around."
    "It sounds complicated."
    "You get used to it. It's all part of running a great democracy."
    The girl almost unconsciously touched her animal-tooth earring. She said, as if she 
was thinking of something else, "It doesn't sound... very moral."
    Gene looked at her cautiously. "Moral" was a word lie hadn't heard in a long time, 
not since he'd made his reputation four years ago down south by exposing a swamp-draining 
scheme for the money-grubbing scandal it was. On this girl's lips it sounded curious, out 
of place. Here she was, at a Washington cocktail party, dressed in skin-tight, 
flesh-colored silk, with the most eye-stopping figure since Dolly Parton, and she was 
talking about morality.
    "Listen," he said gently. "This life is full of stresses and strains. For many 
people, many politicians, fooling around is the only recreation they get."
    "I'm sorry," said the girl. "Fooling around is not my recreation."
    Gene spread his hands wide in apology. "Okay. I didn't mean to suggest anything. I 
think you're a beautiful girl, and I'd be some kind of monk if I didn't find you sexy. 
Now, wouldn't I?"
    She blinked at him in bewilderment "You . . . find me... sexy?"
    Gene almost laughed. "Well, of course I damn well do! What the hell were you thinking