The Sphinx (15 page)

“How can
they-be normal? Six breasts? That’s totally abnormal!”

Gene flicked
the Xerox copy of Sir Keith Fordyce’s book. “They might be totally abnormal for
someone who had a human father and a human mother. But this book says the
Ubasti were the descendants of ‘... a carnal conjunction of women and lions.’ A
girl who had the blood of lions flowing in her veins might have a few more
lion-like characteristics, like rows of nipples to suckle her young, and
excessive hair. And do you remember her eyes? Green, flecked with yellow. Like
a lioness.”

“Gene,” said
Maggie desperately, “you have to be making this up.”

He lit a
cigarette. “Do you think I’d be sitting in the. office on the day after my
wedding if I was?”

She dumbly
shook her head.

“Maggie, I
appreciate everything you’ve done. I mean that. But I want to face up to this
thing, and find out what it’s really all about. Whatever Lorie’s like, I
married her, and I have a responsibility toward her.”

“Have you ever
thought she might be dangerous?”

“Dangerous?
What do you mean?”

“Lions are
dangerous, aren’t they?”

“Yes, but...”

Maggie lowered
her eyes. “I was thinking about what that French diplomat said.”

“Which French
diplomat?”

“The one who
told you to ‘beware of the dance.”

“Well?”

“Well, I
suddenly thought that he might have been speaking in French. You know how these
diplomats slip into two or three different languages without even thinking
about it. Perhaps he was telling you to beware of les dents.”

“
Les dents
.”

“That’s right.
Beware of the teeth.”

He found Peter
Graves in the bar of the Arlington Golf Club. It was a dark, traditional place,
with leather paneling and engraved pub mirrors, and there was a subdued babble
of well-educated conversation, mingled with the occasional yelp of laughter. He
ordered a straight Jack Daniels and scooped up a handful of cheese straws. It
was lunchtime now and he hadn’t eaten.

They shook
hands. Gene was feeling tired and disinclined to talk to anyone, but he knew
that he was going to have to make the effort before he went back to the Semple
estate that night. He lit a cigarette. “Nice place you have here. All medical
men?”

Peter shook his
head. “Unh-hunh. Mostly military. A strategic bomb dropped on this place at
lunchtime would wipe out most of the top brass at the Pentagon in a couple
seconds.”‘

“I’ll remember
that, next tune I need to make a few bucks by selling secrets.”

Peter was
drinking whiskey sour. He dipped his cherry up and down in the froth, “How are
you feeling?”

“Confused,
mainly. Why?”

“You sounded
pretty bad on the phone. I wondered for a moment if you were suffering from
nervous hysteria.”

‘“Hysteria?
Me?”

Peter Graves
finally put his cherry out of its misery and ate it. But he twiddled the stalk
across to the ashtray and started poking the ash of Gene’s cigarette With it.

“Hysteria
happens even to the best-regulated minds. In fact, the best-regulated minds are
more prone to it than those of Us who are usually accused of Woolly thinking.”
There are five or six men in this bar alone–all top military men–who have
suffered from acute hysteria. I’ve treated two of them myself.”

“Successfully,
I hope. I’m not sure I’m looking forward to World War Three.”

“’Who can say?”
said Peter. “The kind of hysteria I’m talking about can affect a man at a
moment’s notice.”

“Well, that’s
very likely. But the truth is that I, personally, am not hysterical.”

“You think
you’re married to a girl who’s a cross between a human and a lion.” Peter
commented.

“I don’t think,
Peter, I know.”

“How do you
know? What proof do you have?”

“Jesus Christ,
Peter, she has six breasts! I’ve seen them!”

Peter frowned.
“I shouldn’t shout things like that in here, Gene. They have a very
conventional image of the world in here, and you might disturb their mental
equilibrium.”

“And what about
you? It seems to me that you have a very conventional image of the world, too.

You don’t
believe me, do you? You think I’m an interesting case, but right now you’re
trying to figure out what kind of syndrome can possibly induce a man to
hallucinate extra breasts on his wife during their wedding night.”

Peter sipped
his drink. It left him with a white mustache.

“There are
plenty of authenticated cases of supplementary breasts. I looked some up this
morning. A woman in Baden-Baden had...”

“Peter, these
are not supplementary breasts. She said herself that they ran hi the family. They’re
an hereditary physical characteristic.”

“You mean her
mother has them as well?”

“I presume so,
yes. That was the impression she gave me.”

“We-e-ell,”
said Peter. “I must say that’s pretty unusual.”

Gene’s drink
arrived, and he took a hefty swallow.

The liquor
burned down his throat and made him realize just how empty his stomach was.

“It’s not
unusual if you look at it the same way Lorie obviously does. She believes that
her breasts are quite normal. Now, either she’s suffering from some kind of
psychological compensation for looking so odd, or else she’s justifiably
convinced that she’s a real Ubasti woman and she’s descended from these
lion-people.”

“Justifiably?”
queried Peter. “You mean you believe they actually existed?”

“What else am I
supposed to believe?”

Peter laced his
fingers together and stared thoughtfully at the table. He was trying to do what
all professional men are forced to do when someone confronts them with a
completely unprecedented situation–fit it into a well-tried slot Gene didn’t
think any the less of him for attempting to rationalize it, because he’d tried
hard enough and long enough to rationalize it himself. But he knew that Lorie
Semple Keiller, his bride of almost a day, had no rationale at all.

Peter
absent-mindedly stroked his own bald head With his hand. “Do you love her?” he
asked.

“Of course I
love her. What makes you ask that?”

“Well,” said
Peter, “if you’re going to help her, that’s very important. If you don’t love
her, or if you’re Dot sure that you do, then I suggest that you get yourself
out of her Me as quickly as you can. But if you do, and you really want to help
her relate to the normal world, then you’re going to have to buckle down to a
couple of really tough decisions.”

“You’re going
to suggest that I try and get used to them? The–the supplementary breasts? And
the hair?”

Peter nodded.
“You remember what I said at Walter Farlowe’s party? If you’re going to
understand what it is with this girl, you’re going to have to allow yourself to
be carried along by what she thinks is her unavoidable destiny. From what
you’ve told me, she has a fear that some event–some terrible and predestined
happening–is going to come into both of your lives. What you have to do is play
along with it all, and when it’s plain to her that this awful event isn’t going
to happen, at that moment, you have your best chance to rehabilitate her.”

Gene had a
fleeting mental picture of Smith’s gazelle. “And supposing it does happen?” he
said.

“Supposing,
after all this, that she’s right?”

Peter finished
his drink. “Gene,” he said blandly, “I want you to know one thing. I do not
believe in the existence of lion-people. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.
It is genetically impossible for a lion to impregnate a woman, and even if it
were possible, what would their descendants be doing in a nice house outside of
Merriam, marrying nice young Democrats like you?”

Gene sighed.
“All right, Peter. I know you find it hard to swallow. But I’m going back
there, so whatever happens we’ll probably find out the truth. I just hope that
you’re right and I’m wrong.”

“As long as you
love her, Gene, you’ve got a good chance of working it out.”

Gene finished
his Jack Daniels. “Just pray for me,” he said quietly. “I think I’m going to
need it.”

She was waiting
for him in the musty hallway, wearing a simple but very low-cut evening gown.

Her hair was
set in a cascade of shining curls, and she wore sparkling earrings and golden
chains around her neck. Her décolletage was so deep that the pale pink areolas
of her nipples showed, but as he hung up his raincoat on the hallstand and
walked across the marble floor 125 towards her, he made a conscious effort not
to look. They were, after all, not the only nipples.

“Lorie,” he
said very softly, and then he leaned forward and kissed her. She closed her
eyes, and he felt the tip of her tongue slip out from between her lips and into
his mouth. It licked erotically at his teeth, and at his palate, but she still
kept her mouth so closely sealed that he was unable to slide his own tongue
back, and explore her teeth. Beware of les dents, said a cold voice at the back
of his mind.

He stood back,
and held both her wrists in his. She Was smiling. A little unsurely, but plainly
glad that he was here. “Gene, I missed you,” and her eyes were glittering with
tears.

At that moment,
a deeper voice called, “Is that my errant son-in-law?” and Mrs. Semple, in an
evening gown that was almost as revealing as Lorie’s, came sweeping magnificently
down the stairs. Her silver hair Was freshly set and dyed, and she wore a
necklace of pearls and silver.

“Mrs. Semple,”
said Gene, taking her hand. “I don’t, know what to say.”

“You don’t have
to say anything, you wayward young man,” said Mrs. Semple. “Lorie told me all
about it, and I quite understand. Of course it was a shock! It was silly of
Lorie not to warn you.

But such things
are so natural to us, to Lorie and me, that it didn’t even enter her mind. Come
on, dinner’s ready in a few minutes, and I expect you’ll want to change. You do
look as if you’ve spent the day on a park bench.”

A quarter of an
hour later, they were seated in the dining room, while Mathieu, silent and
formal in a badly fitting tuxedo, served them with bowls of hot clear consomm6.
This was one of the finest rooms in the house, with stained oak paneling
imported from Europe, and a long polished Chippendale dining table that
reflected the dipping and flickering light from the candles and the pale sunken
moons of their own faces.

Lorie looked
radiant as she sipped her wine, and she smiled across the table at him with
such love that he found himself drawn back to her irresistibly. Whatever she
was, whatever her origins were, she was unquestionably the most beautiful girl
he had ever met, and perhaps that was all that mattered.

“Well, Gene,”
said Mrs. Semple, as she finished her soup. “Is there anything you want to talk
about?”

“About today?”

“Of course.”

“Isn’t it kind
of...”

Mrs. Semple
raised her elegant hand, with its long curving fingernail. “In this family,
Gene, we discuss everything, openly and freely. It is something that my dear
late husband used to insist upon. He said there were enough secrets between
enemies, without friends having secrets from each other, too.”

“Well,” said
Gene uncomfortably, wiping his mouth, “it’s a little difficult for me to
explain. It was just that, well, physically, I wasn’t prepared for Lorie at
all. I mean, she isn’t quite the same as most of the girls I’ve known.”

“I see,”
replied Mrs. Semple, quite warmly and understandingly. “So you went away for a
day to–how shall I put it?–reorient yourself?”

“In a manner of
speaking.”

“And are you
now reoriented? Or are you still undecided?”

“I talked to
that psychologist we met. You know, the one at Walter Farlowe’s party? He said
that if I truly loved you, Lorie, then I’d be able to accept you physically as
you are. Well, he’s a good man, and I guess I trust him. And I know, right
above everything else, that I love you.”

“Oh, Gene,”
whispered Lorie.

Mrs. Semple
tinkled her bell for the next course.

“I’m very glad
to hear you say that, Gene,” she said, with a beam of satisfaction. “Now do try
this fresh. Canadian salmon. It’s delicious.”

He woke up
during the night with a strange feeling that someone was muttering in his ear.
He opened his eyes, and turned around, and he saw that Lorie was fast asleep,
her tawny hair spread on the pillow, but that she was mumbling under her
breath. He bent over to try and hear what she was saying, but it didn’t seem to
be words at all. Her breath was going in and out hi a low, rumbling noise, as
if she had some kind of congestion.

He checked his
watch. It was two o’clock, and still impenetrably dark. He strained his eyes to
look around the bedroom, but he couldn’t see much. He lay back down again.

All of sudden,
Lorie started to twitch, and shudder. Her breathing rasped in and out, and she
tossed and flailed at the bedcovers, as if she were trying to fight something
off. She snarled and snapped like a fierce animal, but at the same time she
seem to be struggling with herself.

Gene switched
on the bedside lamp. She still had her eyes tight shut and she was wrestling
all over the bed, tugging at her long nightdress and clawing at the sheets. She
was screaming and roaring in a harsh, low voice.

“Lorie!” he
shouted. “Lorie–for Christ’s sake!”

He tried to
hold her arm, but she swung around with .her other hand and clawed at his cheek
with her nails..

He felt his
skin scratched, and when he dabbed at his face with his sheet, it came away
marked with blood. “You’ve scratched me!” he yelled.

Furious,
frightened, he slapped her face so hard that he bruised his own hand. Lorie
shuddered once more, and then lay still, her cheek inflamed from his slap,
breathing in and out like someone running.