CONFRONTATION
Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.
Lord Chesterfield
Ashley Lyon and Betty Simba pulled into Luke and Jane’s drive. They were in his Mercedes. Jane met them at the door, accepting a beautifully wrapped package for her cubs.
“Thank you so much, Mrs. Simba. It is so kind of you to bring them a gift. Would you like tea or perhaps a cocktail?” asked Jane.
“I’d like a double martini,” said Betty, her voice clipped and full of agitation.
Jane beckoned to the houseboy who returned with a Scotch bottle, two glasses and a frosted martini for Betty. Jane poured Ashley and herself a Scotch neat.
“I see you drink your Scotch neat – just like my husband,” said Betty, lifting her martini glass in a mock toast. “I would like to see your children, if I may.”
Jane began to feel a sense of unease. She didn’t like the look of barely subdued malice in Betty’s eyes. She left the room and after a bit returned with a double pram containing her cubs. Betty stood to take a better look. She pushed down the coverlets that covered the sleeping babies and gave closer examination.
“I see no leopard in these two,” she snapped. “Only lion traits.”
“That happens with mixed cubs, Mrs. Simba. Sometimes they will look like one parent more than the other. I expect some leopard spots to crop up any day now.”
Ashley was sitting in the chair with his second Scotch and feeling very puzzled at the attitude Betty was copping with Jane.
“Betts, Imani looks like a full jaguar just like her grandma Janice,” explained Ashley, trying to get a bit of levity going. “And Leely looks like a full lion except for the jaguar spots on her face.”
“Don’t hand me that load of bullshit, Jane. These are my husband’s cubs. You two are having an affair just under my nose. However, you will not get by with this.”
Betty went to a small table and slammed down her glass, smashing the stem.
“Let’s go this instant, Ashley. I will not stay in this whore’s house another moment.”
The horrified Ashley tried to make some explanation to Jane but she patted his back and indicated it was okay. Betty dragged her ex-husband from the house. They drove off; Ashley’s face still reflecting his shock.
Betty confronts Jane in her home.....
Staci Simba made the mistake of visiting her stepmother at the mansion. Betty had just arrived from Jane’s home and was pacing the floor in the library, drink in hand. Staci greeted Betty warmly but when she tried to give her a hug, Betty pushed her away.
“Did you know about your father’s bastard cubs with Jane Leoparde?” she asked the hapless young female.
“What are you talking about, Betty?”
“I saw Jane’s cubs today. They look like your father – they are lions. There were no signs of leopard in them. You tell me right this minute what you know about them,” shrieked Betty, grabbing Staci by the shoulders and digging her long nails in them.
“Betty, let me go. Your nails are sinking in.”
“You little bitch; I know you must know everything. You are so close to Shane.”
Staci backed off in horror, running for the elevator. She walked out of the mansion and went to her father’s office at the State House. Shane was working behind his desk when his daughter entered. It took only an instant to see that Staci was badly shaken.
“What’s wrong, honeybunch?” he asked, getting up and coming around his desk.
Staci, a tenderhearted young female, burst into tears. Shane finally got the story of her confrontation with Betty – bit by bit. Staci was reluctant to cause her dad further grievances against his wife. When he had calmed Staci, and she had left for her evening work with Juma Mnyama, he phoned Jane.
“She was here with Ashley Lyon and was very upset. She must have gotten some idea about us, Shane. She stated that she believed Andrew and Catherine to be yours. She brought the babies a gift,” reported Jane, who also didn’t want to be the cause of further disruption.
“What was it?”
“I haven’t opened it yet. I was a bit taken aback by the afternoon and didn’t think to open it.”
“Go ahead and open it,” he instructed his lover.
Jane cut the fancy ribbon, tearing into the package. A box lay within. When she opened it there was absolutely nothing there. She picked up the phone.
“It’s an empty box, Shane.”
“Damn her!”
His eyes were filled with cold fury as he walked the mansion’s hall to Betty’s office where she typed away on her computer. He opened the door and slammed it hard behind him. She jerked around and stood up quickly. He grabbed her by the throat, his green eyes fierce with uncontrolled rage.
“I should sink my teeth in this ropy neck of yours and have done with you but it wouldn’t be worth what it would do to Kenya’s image. If you think you can call my daughter a bitch, you think twice. How dare you threaten her?”
“You whoremonger,” she shrieked. “Having cubs by that ugly, plain faced lioness. I thought you didn’t like your own kind.”
“She’s better than you cloned fifty times over and yes; those are my cubs and notice that she didn’t suffocate them with bad habits like you did our last son.”
“I’m having sex with Montecore again,” she screamed, apropos of nothing.
“Please do, but just don’t disgrace my office or our country while you’re at it.”
“I will expose you, Shane Simba, you rotten bastard.”
Once more he grabbed her throat, his breath hot on her face and the scent of his Dolce & Gabana cologne, causing her great pain since she could never still her desire for him.
“If you do that, Betty, I will tell the world what a rotten mother you are and how you killed little Sam before he even drew the first breath of life. I will then divorce you and you will have to leave Kenya in disgrace.”
She said nothing but her dark eyes were filled with defiance. He kept one paw around her throat and taking the other, smeared her bright red lipstick across her face. Then he released her and left the room, slamming the door once again. She fell on the floor weeping so hard that Babs came and helped her to her bed.
The confrontation between Betty and Shane....
The music rang out harsh and tinny in the Watering Hole Pub. It was a Friday night. Restless and horny animals, revved by the vibes, milled about. Among those were Sloane Simba and his brother Simon. Sloane had engaged in another, very typical, fight with his lady love, Caroline Cheetah and was winging it for the evening. The females were swarming around the two great looking male lions. Sloane, with his incredibly thick mane, and Simon, with his almost twin resemblance to Roy Lee, were the main attractions that evening. Jockeying for position were Cameron Caracal, Linda Cougar, Landa Jaguar and Cate Ocelot.
The popular Simba brothers, Sloane (left) and Simon.(right)..
In another part of the Mara, music was blasting away at Montecore’s disco. This was predominantly a gay establishment run by the bi-sexual white tiger. Montecore was on his usual sofa, holding court among the pleasure seekers and admirers when a hush fell across the main room. He looked to see what had transpired and saw Betty Simba coming his way. He stood up, towering over his ex-wife.
“Betts, you should have entered through the back door. I would have met you upstairs. This is too risky for you, the President’s wife, to be seen here,” he cautioned.
“I am also my own persona,” she laughed, revealing the fact that she was already on her way to inebriation.
The evening ended with Betty being driven by Montecore’s driver to the state mansion. She sang loudly as they drove along. Betty Horn Lyon Simba Simba was as drunk as a road lizard.
Betty woke up seeing the full sun through her bedroom window. She looked at her watch in distress. It read 1:00 pm. She moaned and rang for Babs. Her throat was parched; her were eyes bleary, her head ached and she felt the full results of last night’s drunken binge. Babs brought her coffee on a silver tray. Betty lit a cigarette, sipped her coffee and tried to recall any moments that might have been embarrassing during last night’s activities at Montecore’s. She tried to plan her day. She had finished her book about the Masai mother with HIV. It was already on the desk of her editor in New York City. Her bedside phone rang.
“Betty, this is a great manuscript. We think it will be a hit. It is so tightly written. Can you come to Manhattan for a few days?” asked her editor.
“Yes, I will be glad to,” she almost shouted, so great was her need to put some space between herself and her messed up marriage.
At the airport in Nairobi where Betty was about to board a Kenya Airways commercial jet, she was suddenly surrounded by reporters. She adjusted her dark glasses, though it was night, so they wouldn’t see the condition of her blood shot eyes, a result of last night’s debauchery.
“Mrs. Simba,” shouted one reporter. “What is the nature of your trip?”
“I am seeing my editor in New York concerning my new book that will benefit the Masai.”
“Is it true that you and President Simba occupy separate residences?” called another.
In the nick of time, a crew member came and escorted Betty into a divided first class section of the 747 Boeing. As the plane banked north toward the first stop in London, Betty remembered that she had danced madly on the floor at Montecore’s. She groaned and ordered a double martini. She was mercifully airborne and had missed the front page of the Kenya Post which showed her gyrating to the music in Montecore’s with a leopard male. The Masai Mara Daily, under Jane’s direction, placed the photo on an inside page.
Betty shops in Manhattan
That same week, Staci Simba had her first dinner date with Dr. Juma Mnyama. It was in OKAPI’S and was duly recorded by a gossip columnist for the Kenya Post and sent on to Glinda Gorilla at the Masai Mara Daily. Staci Simba, maturing and very beautiful, was of interest to the citizen’s of Kenya so Glinda wrote some flattering copy and put it in her column, “About the Mara with Glinda”.
Luke Leoparde, on an air safari in Tanzania, saw the item and groaned. His wife’s love life was going splendidly, now here was Staci seen out on the town with that damn lion doctor. Luke felt that his own needed new direction.
Ashley Lyon’s distress at being caught in the cross currents between Jane and Betty that day in the bush, was directed at his wife, Leah.
“Leely, what can I do? I think your uncle is seeing Jane and those may be his kids,” he groaned.
“Ash, sweetie, just chill out; you were an innocent bystander. We can’t be responsible for everything my oversexed uncle does,” she giggled, kissing his face in that way he loved. “All the Simba males are horny, even my dad.”
“But Janie is my best friend’s wife, Leely. It’s Luke I worry about.”
She sat on his lap, stroking his mane. “I’ll bet Luke Leoparde knows more about this situation than he tells you.”
“Do you think so?”
“Yeah, Luke is no dummy.”
Leah Simba Lyon