A depressed and saddened Alexandra Simba returned to her children and plantation.  She realized that Shane Simba had made the most profound commitment to her and their marriage that he had ever made to anything or anyone in his life.   They had discussed this during her brief return to the mansion.  She had made a terrific error in running off over an unimportant matter regarding his son and his machinations when Kenya was already in grave condition.  She would have to work hard to make amends to her husband.  She left the twins in the care of her plantation head and their nannies and made her way to Nairobi to offer her services to the many refugees who were pouring in from Eldoret and other stricken regions.  Alexandra was not medically trained but these were trying times and help was needed for the wounded Kenyans who sought medical help in Nairobi and the Masai Mara.  She assisted her former family physician in soothing patients as they arrived.  She was taught some skills in first aid and set to work. 

Stanley and old friend, Alexandra, back in Nairobi....

            Alexandra Delamere Simba loved her lion husband intensely and was determined to prove herself to him and their country.  She stayed in her former home in Nairobi which Lee Simba and Staci Simba had occupied while in school.  Her old friend, Stanley Morrison, would come for a chat and sundowner after a tiring day.  

            The evening was warm, seeming completely out of the conflict that raged in the mountainous areas of Kenya where the Luo and Kikuyu persisted in their attempts at ethnic cleansing.  Betty stepped inside OKAPI’S to find Dickey Simba already there.  The hostess led them to a corner table, taking their drink orders. 

“You look especially lovely tonight,” he told her.   

“I can so easily say the same of you…..males can look lovely also,” she said with a smile. 

            Their entrée was ordered, more drinks set before the couple eliciting further easy and charming banter.  Several times he took her hand and caressed it.  There was easiness in the ebb and flow of their conversation that neither had ever experienced with another.  With Shane, Betty had always been a bit tense due to the intense adulation she felt when with him.  With Dickey, conversation was not only very interesting but laid back as well.  Another round of drinks arrived, easing Betty’s inhibitions a bit. 

“Dickey, are we just to be friends?”

Oh shit, she thought to herself - what a dorky thing to ask him.  She wanted to bite her tongue, punishing it for wagging ahead of her thoughts. 

“I think we are and becoming better ones each time we meet,” he said, flicking his lighter to her cigarette tip. 

Betty seemed a bit dazed, quickly regaining her composure and Dickey took swift note. 

“Betty, are you trying to ask me if we will have sex?” he probed. 

“I am such a fool, Dickey.  I am so sorry to have stepped into that territory.  I had no right to even go there.  I am so pleased to be your friend.  Please forgive me, will you?”

His intense tawny eyes took in her fluster before he reached, once again, for her slender hand, enveloping it in his. 

“Let’s get out of here, Betty,” he suggested, beckoning the waiter for the chit.

                        Shane visits the scene of events tearing Kenya apart........

            President Shane Simba, after a traumatic day of comforting wounded women, children and old people, had finally gone to his retreat in Eldoret where the reporters were also staying in camping areas.  Only his Masai guards stayed in the house with Shane.  He was sitting in the living room of the small bungalow when a Masai guard allowed a female reporter to enter.  Jane Leoparde stood before him, camera bag over her shoulder and recorder in hand. 

“President Simba, I know you’re very tired but you promised the Masai Mara Daily an interview this evening.  Can we still have that dialogue?”

Jane, the lioness reporter’s heart was beating so wildly she felt sure her it was visible to her former lover through her shirt. 

“Sit, down, Janie.  If I fall asleep in the middle of the deal, you will just have to return again.”

She took a chair across from his.  Shane asked the Masai guard to bring a Scotch for the reporter.  The drink came and Shane began describing the conflict and his thoughts on the matter.  Jane knew that this young lion whom she had loved, and still did, had finally been forged and shaped within the raging struggles of his country into a leader such as few realms are privileged to have.  She listened spellbound; sometimes scribbling notes but mostly letting the recorder do its thing so she could concentrate on Shane.  At last, she had to ask the question on most reporters’ minds these days. 

“It seems that the first lady is not at your side, President Simba…….” said, Jane, feeling rather ashamed to have brought this very personal point into play.

“Alexandra and I are separated for the time being, Janie.”

“I am sorry….Sir.”

He stood up and swayed in his extreme fatigue.  She stood also and made a motion to steady him.  He took the hand that had steadied and put it to his lips. 

“Stay with me tonight, Janie. . . I need you,” he asked, his voice hoarse.  

“Oh, Shane, of course I will….” she said, beginning to weep. 

Then they were in each other’s arms, holding tightly to one another. 

Betty and Dickey in his apartment....

            Dickey Simba turned on the sound system in his apartment.  He went about turning on lamps that threw the glamorous living area into soft, sensual light. 

“Do you like Chris Botti?  He’s a jazz musician of the sort I prefer,” he asked his guest. 

“I am not familiar with him, Dickey.  I’d like to hear him though,” said Betty who was shivering in her nervousness. 

Dickey retracted his bong and packed it with hashish.

“Are you a hash smoker, Betty?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Betty, I don’t think I am at all your type.  I have a shit load of bad habits.  I should take you home.”

“Dickey, you are my type…..I’ve just never smoked anything but straight tobacco and can’t afford to now because of my university job.  Please don’t take me home.”

“Betty, I have females I fuck - and then there is you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I tend to compartmentalize things in my life is what I am saying and failing miserably -- trying to scramble for a description of my screwed up psyche,” he said, with a slightly bitter chuckle. 

“I think I understand, Dickey.  I realize that I am probably not your cup of tea physically.  I completely understand,” she said but it stuck on something akin to a sob. 

A moaning, saxophone-drenched version of The Very Thought Of You enveloped the room – Chris Botti’s version.  Suddenly Dickey put down his bong and took her in his arms.  Betty had never, not even with Shane Simba, received a kiss of such magnitude.  All of the things that occur such as toes curling, heat emanating to various body parts all paled in comparison to what Betty experienced with Dickey’s kiss.  When he finally released her, she was sure she would fall to the floor in a dead heap and was relieved when she didn’t.  

“My God!” was all she could utter. 

“Let that tell you how sexually attractive I find you,” was all he said. 

He came and wrapped her velvet jacket about her shoulders holding his arms around her for a while.  Then he took her hand and led her from his apartment, driving her back to OKAPI’S where her car was parked.  He gave her a brief peck on the cheek as he helped her to her car.

“I’ll be talking to you, Betty.  Ciao.”

She watched his tall figure return to his car.

“Fuck, I needed this,” she howled to herself, maneuvering her automobile from the lot and heading homeward.  “Back to the books and career – no more abysmal attempts at love.”

            Shane had his small aircraft touch down at Alexandra’s highland plantation.  He missed his children, Sacha and Tanya, and wanted to see them.  He found Alexandra missing, having gone to Nairobi where an employee described her mission as “Memsahib Simba has gone to Nairobi to work at the hospital where the people come from the killings.”  The houseboy gave Shane a drink while he visited with his twins. 

             On a day when Chris Simba was inordinately busy plowing through documents to continue the aid for conflict victims in Kenya, his lover Caitlin Cougar experienced labor pains.  Caitlin had given birth to two cubs very easily and this one seemed no exception.  She timed her contractions.  Before they intensified too much, she drove herself to the Tigeres-Lyon Clinic, made her way through corridors cluttered with wounded refugees and was taken to the maternity area.  There she donned a hospital gown.  A nurse did an ultrasound and found one strapping female cub in her womb.  

“Do we need to call anyone special?” cooed the nurse.

“No, my boyfriend is very busy,” replied Caitlin.  “I’ll call afterward.”

Two hours later, Caitlin gave birth to her daughter.  She was allowed to use her cell phone and dialed Chris at his office in the Nathan Leoparde Memorial Organization’s headquarters.

“We have a very cute little daughter,” she told him as she looked down at the tiny spotted cub lying on her stomach. 

“We do?” asked the amazed Chris who had never, as a father of eight, witnessed such a blasé birthing performance as this from his wives.  “Where are you, Cate?”

“In the clinic on the fourth floor,” she answered nuzzling her cub. 

“Who drove you there?”

“I drove myself here, silly,” she giggled.  “This little cub is just precious.”

Chris left the office, bought a beautiful bouquet and headed for the hospital.  

            Jane Leoparde put her face to the window in the press plane returning the reporters to the Mara.  Her mind was filled with Shane Simba and his acute exhaustion.  They had gone, just last night, to his bed in Eldoret – one they had shared so many times in passion.  This time, he was asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.  The next morning, in sheepish fashion, he rose, fully dressed from the bed.  She woke also in the same state of full dress.  They went to the kitchen for coffee.

“Sorry about last night, Janie,” he said, lighting a morning cigarette and accepting a cup of coffee from the guard. 

“Please do not apologize.  We can go back to our mates with a clear conscious,” she chuckled. 

The guard handed Jane a steaming cup. 

“Thank you for staying with me, Janie - it meant more than I can tell you.”

Jane Leoparde, the lioness reporter.....

            Shane sent a plane to collect his children and wife from the suburbs of Nairobi and the plantation. These are the areas that unruly mobs of murderous thugs have chosen as their killing grounds.  Alexandra, Sacha, Tanya and the nannies boarded at noon and were back in the mansion in the Mara by late afternoon.  However, the first lady and her children were without the company of husband and father.  Shane was in Uganda, where he encouraged Kenyan refugees to return to the stricken Kenya.  Fortunately, there has been a lessoning of the violence.  Shane has called out the Kenyan armed forces to patrol the troubled areas and protect the populace.