Maurice & Friends

Betty Simba, in her pain and hurt, did all the wrong things, pushing all the incorrect buttons. She only wanted her husband to deny his attraction for Dina Myers. However, that failed to materialize. Shane Simba’s thoughts were poles apart from his injured wife. He vowed to never be honest with any female that was obsessed with him again. He had, due to his great looks and charisma, known no other kind. He was puzzled and harbored his own brand of hurt at the distance his formerly loving wife was giving him emotionally. Betty was absolutely wretched, adoring him beyond distraction and knowing that she was playing contradictory to her true feelings. She wanted to hold him tightly to her but every time she felt ready to act on that inclination, a vision of Shane with his arm across Dina’s shoulders the night of the party would cross her vision. The two with their heads close in conversation almost the entire party would haunt her. Betty and Shane were at an impasse of chilly behavior etched with ersatz politeness. The nightly love making sessions ceased to be, replaced with a couple of perfunctory acts each week. Betty stifled sobs in her pillow each night as she watched her brilliant marriage go down the tubes.

Every weekend, Shane would go to the sporting club, engage in a couple of tennis sets with Lewis Lyon or his daughter and wait for the inevitable arrival of Dina Myers. The two would then play heated and passionate sets rife with sexual undertones. So far, they had made no actual sexual contact with each other. Fleeting touches and heated expressions would prevail but as of yet, there was no affair. Nevertheless, the temperature was building as was the tension between the two. Betty’s wounded rejection of her husband was leading to a fall – taking its toll...

It was at this point that Bertram Baboon and I invited Betty for drinks at his home. I had sensed her stress and Lachlan had told me something of her predicament. I spoke to Bertram of these things and he felt a need to give solace. Lachlan declined the invitation, feeling that as her shrink, it wouldn’t be prudent to attend a pity party. The evening was rain free and lovely as she pulled in Bertram’s drive with her chauffeur and guards. Bertram’s houseboy lit a small fire in the grate and we sat around it with our drinks. Betty played it cool for the first fifteen minutes or so and then the situation went south.

“Do you remember, Bertram, when you thought I should mimic Jackie Kennedy as a first lady? Now that is exactly what I’m doing - but not style wise. I’m merely playing Jackie to Shane’s philandering Jack,” she laughed and then broke on a sob.

“Is he having an affair, Betts?” asked the frequently frank baboon.

“Not yet but I know he wants to.”

“Not yet is a big thing, Betty. If he hasn’t had one yet, why all the angst?”

“Because he told me he fancied her, Bertram. With Shane Simba that is tantamount to having her.”

“Betty, I think the fact that he was upfront with you speaks volumes. Did he say he was going to sleep with her?”

“No, he said the opposite.”

“Betts, don’t shoot yourself in the foot. You won him by being totally understanding and genuine with him. Don’t lose that touch at this point in time,” advised Bertram, most wisely.

Sometimes good friends can make more difference than anything. Bertram has gravitas in what he says. Betty took note of his advice. I could see it in her face.

She returned to the mansion to find Shane watching television with his children. He looked up when she entered the room and greeted her politely. She made a drink and sat next to him on the sofa.

“Darling, I love you so much. Let’s go on the yacht this weekend. We need to kick back,” she said, stroking his thigh with her polished nails.

He seemed surprised but pleased. “Great idea, Fifi.”

He hadn’t called her his pet name in ages. It sounded wonderful to her ears.

They boarded Simba One at the port in Mombasa. The children weren’t with them. Delilah Dik Dik was having a house party this weekend which was a ‘no miss’ affair for Staci Simba. Sean was spending an exciting weekend on safari with his cousins, Adam and Sim Lyon and their parents, Ashley and Leah. Except for the crew, Betty and Shane had the glamour boat to themselves. They cruised along in the Indian Ocean and anchored far enough off shore to ditch the paparazzi. They took the smaller boats, stashed on board, to secluded beaches where they swam naked and lunched on lobster. The weather favored their cruise. They made love long hours into the night and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

“Fifi, don’t ice me anymore,” said Shane, one evening over drinks on the main deck. “You just don’t know how that affects me.”

“I hated doing it but I would get these visions…….”, she said, her voice drifting off.

“Care to elaborate?” he asked lighting both their cigarettes.

“No, I don’t think I do,” she demurred.

“Mom used to do that to me. Sam was her darling good cub and I was her bad boy. She used to lick and kiss all over him and make a point of ignoring me. I guess you can say I have issues with being frozen out. Just remember that frosting my cajónes is not a swell policy to use in bringing me to the table.”

“I’m so sorry, Shane……I didn’t know.”

Her voice quivered and she appeared to be on the brink of tears. He took her hand.

“Fifi, I am all yours and will remain that way. Try to remember this.”

She put her face to the paw that held her hand.

“I do love you so, Shane.”

“I love you too, Betty. You are my life – my whole world.”

On their make up cruise.....

The icing on the cake came from Lachlan during her next session.

“Betty, don’t go messing up your marriage because you can’t see the forest for the trees. Shane has told you that he is all yours and will be from now on. He is your forest. If a branch or limb, tree or shrub is missing by way of misadventure, you still have the forest generally intact. This is the thing you have to remember in dealing with a complicated male like your husband who has, I believe, a troubled history from the git go. I frankly think you two could engage in less mind bending sex and undertake more dialogue. I think if you drew him out in regard to his formative years, you’d find some clues there. They would be helpful in understanding what makes him tick.”

She took that thought with her from his office. She went back to the State House and planned another trip to the AIDS riddled areas of Kenya. She walked to the mansion with Shane, arm-in-arm, that evening. When they had settled in the den with their drinks, he pulled her onto his lap.

“Fifi, I’m going with you and Mildred to your next AIDS villages,” he announced, nuzzling her ear.

“Oh, Shane, that is so wonderful, darling. Why are you doing this?”

“I need to see first hand. I’m a dense sort who has to witness the scenario to get the vibes. We can take Simba Two so you and the ladies can get some breathing space. ”

“Oh, Shane, I can’t believe this. As far as your being the dense sort, you’re nothing of the kind.”

“Betty, I am now the head of this country. I need to partake of the tragedy as well as the glory.”

Three days later Simba Two stood on the tarmac at the government landing strip. It was a predawn flight. Shane, Betty, Lisa Leo, Mildred Lyon and Linda Cougar boarded along with crew and guards. The sun was just sending rays over the hills beyond. The plane’s engines roared. It took off and ascended east toward the blood red rim of the infant sun.

When they landed in one of the villages on the schedule, the people swarmed them, hailing their new president, amazed that he had joined the group. In the hold of the aircraft were tents which were set up for the group each night. Shane went among the villagers, as did Betty, Mildred, Lisa and Linda. He comforted AIDS mothers with young children. He sat by their beds as did the rest of his party and UNESCO workers. He was greatly moved by their plight and promised more financial help for drug prevention for the virulent HIV virus. He and Betty made love on their double cot in the tent and held each other close in the night. They were between four villages in five days. Shane helped carry water to the sick. After their allotted time, they returned to the Mara. Shane immediately pulled money from the Simba Corporation and other contributing philanthropic agencies in Kenya and ordered additional preventative drugs to be sent to the infected. Betty accompanied him to Nairobi where he made a plea to parliament to place the AIDS crisis on the front burner.

Sloane Simba lay in a semi-stupor on the floor in his library. His daughter, Georgy, lay nestled in the crook of his arm, napping. Close by, Caroline Cheetah lay reclining with her son, Shane Simba, Jr. It was a sunny day with bird song filling the yard and terraces. Caroline stretched and lit a cigarette. Mozart invaded all of the Bose speakers in the state-of-the-art structure which was Sloane’s new home in the bush country.

“Sloane, do you really like Mozart or is it just a matter of pretension with you?” needled Caroline.

“He’s soothing, Caroline.”

“The savage breast and all?”

“Something like that.”

Caroline was in one of her usual caustic and vituperative moods. She continued on her course.

“Sloane, Georgy doesn’t look as if she has an ounce of lion in her. Are you sure Caitlin didn’t bang some cougar in the Rockies and blame it on you? After all she is pregnant by your brother now.”

“By the same token, your son doesn’t look as if he has an ounce of cheetah.”

“The identity of the mother is seldom in question, Sloane,” she laughed.

“I don’t like your casting aspersions on my daughter’s heritage. I know this about her mother; she would never have another guy’s cub while married to me.”

Sloane rose and picked his daughter from the floor, put her in the crib in her room and proceeded to the bar area for another drink. Caroline followed. She handed him her glass to fill.

“You know, Caroline, you have some redeeming characteristics but then they get lost in a mindless bog of cynicism and end up in a nasty verbalized cluster fuck.”

“Why, Sloane, you do flatter me.”

“Go home, Caroline. I’ve had my fill of you for the week.”

“You’ll never get your fill of me, Sloane,” she said, reaching to give him a kiss. "Call me later.”

She left without further adieu. He went to the door and stood looking after her retreating car.

Sloane Simba watches Caroline leave his home in the bush.....

Dina Myers, new lawyer at Simba Brothers and point of contention....

The object of Betty Simba’s intense hatred and her husband’s fancy, Dina Myers, was a study in her own right. She had been born to a wealthy Afrikaaner farmer’s overseer in Pretoria, South Africa. Her family had lived off of whatever largesse the planter chose to give. Dina’s father was a functioning lush that saved his nights, after hard field labor, to drink himself into a stupor. Her mother was a beat down hausfrau who had birthed seven children in quick succession. Dina had worked hard in school to get herself out of the circumstances in which she was born. She had come to the attention of the headmaster who had shown her the way to multiple scholarships. Dina had kept her nose to the grindstone, disregarding the easy passage her good looks might have offered, in lieu of a drop dead education in law and post graduate studies. She was rigid, eschewed relationships and was intense about her career. When she had seen the advertisement for an attorney’s post at the powerful and well known Simba Brothers law firm in Kenya, she had grabbed at the chance. She was easily hired and commenced to make a very good start there. Not until the night when she had met Shane Simba at Roy Lee’s party, had she had any interest in a male. Her only knowledge of lions before joining the Simba firm was those that would assail the farm’s livestock in South Africa. She had only seen lions three times in her life before coming to Kenya. She had never anticipated the sophisticated sort that populated Kenya and the Mara, in particular. When she met Shane Simba and looked into his strange green eyes, she had felt something akin to the proverbial ‘earth move’ that was glorified in various romantic epistles. She recognized the fact that she was falling in love and didn’t really know how to approach the matter. Dina Myers was that rarity in today’s world – a bona fide virgin.

Chloe Cougar began rehearsals, with her leopard friends, for her first theater performance. The play was fun and risqué, the perfect vehicle for the threesome. Christine Cheetah Mbube was delighted at the prospect. The invitations went out for the play with first night dinner.

At Baboon-Simba Studios across town, the filming of Fanny had wrapped. Stella Simba Lyon was free to spend more time with her husband’s pride and, particularly, him. She was looking forward to this experience.