“The buggers are all over my yard,” laughed Alexandra Delamere, describing the havoc created by her wedding ring photo on the trip to Dubai. 

“We can make it so and piss on them all,” replied Shane on the phone in his office. 

“Whoa, dear chap, you’re going far too speedily for me to ride,” she giggled in her infectious husky way. 

“I suppose if I were one of your horses, you wouldn’t mind the speed.  At least that’s not one of your insulting turn downs.  It leaves me room for a bit of expectancy.”

“I daresay I am improving, aren’t I?”

“You are indeed.  I want you to think on the matter in only the most positive ways, Alex.”

“I shall do that, sir, as requested.”

             Betty was reassured by me that Shane had not married secretly.  She was at our home with Lachlan plying her with soothing drinks. 

“Betty, I think you should be prepared for the fact of his upcoming marriage.  I am sure Shane will marry this woman if he has half a chance,” stated Lachlan, bringing forth a freshet of tears in the distraught Betty. 

“Oh what will I do, Lachlan?” she sobbed. 

“Marry Jack Tarzan, Betty.  He is perfect for you,” said Lachlan in a very firm and serious voice.

“What?” she asked. 

“You heard me.”

 Johanna lay sobbing in the bed she shared with Shane Simba in the mansion. 

“Jo, I won’t marry until you have your baby, does that sound fair to you?” asked Shane. 

“Hell no, you son-of-a-bitch – that doesn’t freaking suit me.  I will sue you for all you’re worth if you marry that bitch,” raged Johanna. “And it is OUR baby – not just mine.”

Johanna sees the handwriting on the wall...

             Kenya was enthralled by the romance between Alexandra Delamere and Shane Simba.  The media was everywhere.  They followed the two relentlessly.  Alexandra kept her good humor and disposition, giving them no comments but ever ready with one of her charming smiles.  Shane went about the business of Kenya and having Clint Cougar design a home on the savanna many miles out where he had bought land owned by Lewis Lyon to build a hideaway.  With the advent of Alexandra, he added more stables for her horses.  Staci Simba Mnyama already stabled her horse at the barn on the property Shane had given to Betty.  Until which time it was sold, Betty allowed her former stepdaughter to continue keeping her mare, Elizabeth, there.  Lewis Lyon promised to speed things up for Shane’s new very isolated home. 

            In the interim the new couple became more intrinsically linked.  Yet, Alexandra wouldn’t give in and consent to marry Shane.  She had not even declared her love to him although she had been aware of it for quite a while. 

In a market place in Nairobi, the couple spend some time....

            Alexandra wasn’t the only one catching flack from friends and relatives.  Shane was getting his share as well.

“Shane, what can you be thinking?  You have one girl pregnant and you’re all over the next one.  Turn this thing down a notch.  The Pope is even raising hell about this.”

“Like it’s a bit of his business,” was Shane’s quick retort. 

“Just cool your jets, Bro.”

“I have never been in love in my life as I am with Alexandra.  And I know your response is going to be that I’ve had a few too many females.  Only with Cathy did I feel this way.”

“Shane can’t you get some of that stuff they dish out in boy’s schools – salt peter or something like that?  It’s supposed to keep the libido under control.”

“Don’t worry about it, Sef.  I know what I’m doing.”

“Mom says she will never see you again.”

“So what else is new?  Mom and I are not exactly cozy anyway.”

             Betty spent many hours in tears with Wilda Wildebeest trying to calm her down.  She asked Shane to let the twins come to her home and live for a bit.  She had barely gotten to know them and they were growing up as all lions cubs do – far too swiftly.  Shane was most pleasant about it and sent the two nannies with young Tarek and Jalil.  Shane would greet her pleasantly if she called him in his office or at home.  He seemed glad to hear from her.

“Go to New York, Betts,” counseled Wilda.  “You have enough room for the cubs in that massive flat of yours.  You can enroll Solly in school there.”

“No, Willie, I have got to live in Africa.  It’s my real home.  I’ve got to move past the fact that I seem to have lost Shane for good.”

“You most certainly do,” was Wilda’s unrelenting take on the situation. 

             Betty was a bit icy with me one evening when she came to see us, with her drink and pack of Kools.  When I asked the reason for the chill, I got a blast of resentment. 

“Maurice, you're the one that advised me to divorce Shane again and look at the devastating results,” she fumed.

Lachlan walked in at this time.

 “Betty, Maurice is in no way responsible for your divorcing Shane Simba.  He didn’t take a brick and threaten to smash your hand if you failed to sign.  Your marriage to Shane was a calamity waiting for an opportunity to land.  You two were the worst road show in town while you lasted.  Get a grip and a life, Betty ----let Shane go his own way.  He was NEVER yours.  You had a very temporary lease on him.  You grabbed him too soon after his wife died and didn’t give him a chance to breathe and grieve.  Now you’ve paid the price.  You are too great a female to stumble and fall over this thing.  Shit happens!”

I, who always love to pour soothing, syrupy balm on a situation, was a little taken aback at Lachlan’s strong wordage but then he is accustomed to setting disturbed creatures on the correct path.  It’s his job as a shrink. 

             Alexandra Delamere had never been caught up in a situation quite like this one.  Although a gutsy and fearless young woman, she was quailing a bit at the media response to her love affair with the lion president of Kenya.  She knew she was in love with a very problematical male who wanted her to marry him.  She decided to take a temporary powder.  She gave instructions to her plantation overseers as to the care of her homes, crops, livestock and new Arabian horses.  She decided to visit her brother in the English countryside.  She boarded British Airways under her first name which was Tanya.  Alexandra was the daughter of a Delamere grandson who happened to be infatuated with Russian literature, bringing his fantasies of the Steppes with him to Kenya when he finished his university studies.  He had married a Great Rift Valley neighbor’s visitor from Russia, producing Alexandra’s superb cheekbones and facial structure.  She had the ice blue eyes of her Russian mother as well. His Russian wife had died before him from a brain tumor which proved to be malignant and inoperable.  He never remarried, remaining in Kenya, absorbing himself in his library of tortuous Slavic literature and managing the great wealth of plantations left to him by his father.  He died in late middle age, a lonely man except for his three children. 

Alexandra flashing her winning smile at reporters and paparazzi.....

             Alexandra, loving Shane Simba and not wanting to be too hurtful as she once was, wrote a letter, mailing it at the airport. 

I was in his office when he opened and read it.  He was not a happy camper, I can assure you. 

             Leah Simba wondered what was going on with Jack Tarzan.  She decided to visit his bush home one bright Friday afternoon.  She found him writing in his upstairs study.  He was leaving after an hour for Mombasa. 

“Would you like to go to Mombasa with me, Leah?” he invited. 

“I have to tell you that I’m still deeply involved with Trevor Tau.”

“I invited you to the beach, not a wedding, Leah.  I have to tell you that I’m deeply involved in writing another book,” he chuckled in a parody of her.

“Let’s go then,” she giggled.  “Sorry, Jack, I can get a bit heavy these days.  I have to get my sea legs as a single.”

“No matter, I have a new windsurfer we can try out.”

“We can pick up mine at my dad and mom’s beach house.”

            They windsurfed all day on Saturday and went on a night fishing expedition.  They caught a great many fish and came back to Jack’s house to grill them past midnight.  After much beer and deliciously grilled fish, they made love in Jack’s bed bought from Lachlan.  Another confused female emerged from that weekend.  Leah was not at all sure she wasn’t crazy about Jack too.  Jack, on the other hand, was not confused at all.  He knew he wanted to write another book.  He wondered how he had lived a life without the flow of words he transcribed to the computer keyboard as they came from the rich embroidery of his mind

Jack and Leah on the beach in Mombasa....

                        Chris Simba, the unlucky in love member of that pride, ran into his ex-fiancé of long ago.  Chloe Cougar, who as a very young cat eschewed Chris as being too dull, was not in great demand herself these days in spite of being a major film and stage figure with brand new tits.  She hooked up with Chris in the Watering Hole Pub on a frenetic Friday which saw the swinging bistro packed as usual. 

“You deemed me too dull, Chloe, remember?” reminded Chris as Chloe ran a lacquered clawed paw across his shirt front. 

“I might just take a second look, Chris,” she purred.

She was dressed in one of the new frocks she had ordered which enhanced her new boob job.

“Go for it.  See what you can do with this terribly disillusioned lion.”

“I think I will.”

Chris and Chloe in the Watering Hole Pub.....

             Alexandra rode to the hounds and enjoyed the horsy set that comprised her brother’s hunt club in the rolling hill country of Wiltshire on the river Avon.  In the baronial fireplaces of her brother’s large manor house a fire was lit each evening to keep the chill of an English night at bay.  Ian Delamere invited many guests he thought would be of interest to his sister.  He was certainly in tune with the fact that she had been engaging in a very turbulent and well documented romance with the lion president of Kenya.  However, being endowed with more English reticence than Slavic curiosity, he had declined to draw Alexandra into a discussion of Shane Simba.   

Wiltshire and Alexandra's brother's estate....

            It was during the nights in her bedroom, which overlooked the rose garden; that she tossed and tumbled with dreams of Shane Simba.  She would feel his weight on her, dream of tangling her fingers in his thick mane.  Alexandra would wake with a start.  She would go to the window and smoke a cigarette gazing at the moon lit landscape below.  Sometimes she wouldn’t get some bona fide sleep until almost dawn.  Since the household awakened early and briskly got about their day, there was little shut eye to be had during those hours.

            Shane went about his days and nights with a dull ache.  He made an effort to entertain Johanna but she saw through his charade.  She was angry at his distraction and refused to be lulled into a false sense of security.  She, unfortunately as these things do go, wept a great deal and pouted relentlessly.  She only worsened her lot and bored the male lion to desperation.  He made love to Johanna only when he couldn’t avoid doing so.  His nights were filled with thoughts and dreams  of Alexandra.  He also took his miseries to the balcony outside his mansion bedroom and smoked incessantly.  He wondered what he was doing in this predicament.  He was divorced now and free to do as he pleased.  Johanna had refused an abortion.  He resented his decision to stick by her when he could have paid all the bills and taken financial responsibility for the baby.  She could be living in her own home in Mombasa or someplace he would rent for her.  This is when it came to him that he owned one of the two penthouses that topped Lyon Towers.  He had rented it to Simone Serval.  At the office, he asked his secretary to check on the lease time left on the agreement for the luxurious dwelling.  She announced that Simone was due to renegotiate very shortly.  He placed a call to the actress whom he had dated briefly before marrying Catherine.