I AM BETRAYED
Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. .....
Anais Nin
Redemption comes, at times, in strange places and forms. This particular saving effect came about like this:
Betty Chimpo had never had a daughter but now she had a daughter-in-law. The first night Arlon and Lee (Simba) Lyon arrived from their honeymoon; Betty asked them to dinner at her Leoparde Drive home. Arlon had to go to a business dinner with his uncle, Lewis Lyon so Lee came alone. Well, not quite alone – she had her mother, Chloe Cougar with her. Now Betty is no stranger to the Cougar family and certainly not to Chloe’s ex-hubby, Roy Lee Simba. Although Chloe was quite inebriated when she arrived, she got more so as the evening progressed. Quite drunk and noticing Lee’s severe disapproval, Chloe began to weep. Betty, having been a neighbor of Sylvia and Bernard Cougar for years, remembered the adorable cub, Chloe, when she was a mere tot. Betty led Chloe from the table and asked Babs to make a pot of coffee.
“My dad is bitching at me all the time, Betts,” moaned Chloe. “I’ve got to get my act together.”
“You are such a wonderful actress, Chloe. I came to all of your plays and saw your films. You have a very real talent,” said, Betty, patting Chloe’s arm.
“I can’t get any more roles…,” she said between hiccups. “Roy Lee won’t take a chance on me at the studio and the arts center won’t deal with me either.”
“Mom loves to do musicals, Betty,” added Lee.
“If you had your dream come true role, what would it be, Chloe?” asked Betty with genuine interest.
“I’ve always wanted to do Evita….the music is so wonderful and soaring,” said the actress with pain in her voice.
“Chloe, if I called the Mental Health Center, would you go and get some rehab?”
“Yes, Betty….I would. And thank you….you are so wonderful,” sobbed Chloe.
“Not really, Chloe but you are such a major talent, I hate to see you waste that,” soothed Betty.
Chloe began to sob loudly.
“I screwed your husband Ashley Lyon and Shane Simba too,” wailed Chloe in drunken confession.
“Don’t worry about it, Chloe….you and dozens of others have had carnal knowledge of those two,” giggled Betty.
Chloe, with much coffee, was in shape to take the limousine from the rehab section of the mental health center when it pulled into Betty’s drive. That night sealed Betty’s relationship with her new daughter-in-law, Lee Simba Lyon. From that moment on Betty was tight as a tick with Lee.
Chloe Cougar is driven to rehab...
Goosey Simba seemed to enjoy the immense room she had to act out in after having lived in a trailer on the Simba pride territory for years. Sarah Lee Simba’s mansion was large and spacious and afforded Goosey space to pitch her frequent tantrums. Bubba Simba was frankly glad to get rid of the troublesome lioness from the pride territory where he lived with his five lionesses in a house built for him with Roy Lee’s money. Being police chief, however, Bubba could not ignore the many calls from neighbors complaining about the noise coming from the Simba mansion on Leoparde Drive. Calls to Shane’s presidential office would be deflected back to Bubba who was forced to respond. He took Roy Lee with him one night when the squalls and growls became so pronounced that Bertram Baboon had called twice. They entered the home to find their aunt Leander Simba in a state of inebriation and sitting on her usual place on the velvet couch. Goosey was raging and tossing beer cans at the fireplace. The room was beginning to smell of food left in take out containers. The Kikuyu maid cowered but not before reporting that Goosey had her go five or six times a day to Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds to bring food. The stench was the result of these piled on various tables in the living room. Empty beer cans were littering the floor while Leander sat primly with her pitcher of martinis in her lap. When Goosey caught sight of her nephews, she immediately lit into them, knocking Roy Lee to the floor.
“Goosey, my goodness….you do get so upset,” whimpered Leander.
“Get the fuck out of here, you two useless males….who needs you?” snarled Goosey.
“Call Shane, Bubba,” suggested a panicked Roy Lee. “This is his damn doing. We could have sold this house. Aunt Leander could have moved back to her house on the pride land….Shane is the one that paid me out of it.”
“Shane ain’t gonna come, Roy Lee…he’s too busy being Mr. President – too big for his britches if you ask me.”
Shane was called and instructed his brethren to ‘call that damn Dickey – Goosey is his mother and he lives in the neighborhood’.
That came to no avail as Dickey refused to join the group. Roy Lee and Bubba left as Goosey was passed out, no longer screaming expletives and tossing beer cans at her favorite target.
Goosey Simba, the deadly aunt and mum....
“Betty, I feel that you hate the mansion. You will only join me at the bush house,” carped Shane Simba who had a rough day dealing with Mayor Maude Hyena who complained once more about lions and big cats being in ascendancy in the Masai Mara.
“Harold and I were not invited to Arlon Lyon’s wedding, President Simba,” Maude had complained.
“I didn’t issue those invitations, Maude. Arlon Lyon is not my son and Lee Simba is not my daughter – the invitation list was out of my hands.”
Therefore, Shane was low on patience when he noted this grievance to Betty.
“Shane, quite frankly, I have too many negative memories from our time here when we were – well – at each other’s throats,” she confessed.
“I never liked this house, Fifi. I preferred your place on Leoparde Drive but I can’t make it secure as this place is,” he admitted.
“The President must have an official home on the grounds of the State House. I know this, darling. I know you never liked the mansion very much either.”
“I have a great idea, Fifi. There is acreage available next to the State House grounds. If I purchase that and build a new home – at my own personal expense, of course – I can annex it to these grounds while I am still in office.”
“That sounds exciting, Shane. I’m sure it would meet with approval as long as the expense came out of your pocket.”
“That’s what we’ll do, Fifi….yes, I’ll talk to Lewis Lyon tomorrow,” he mused, excited at the idea.
“We, darling?”
“Yes, Betty, it will be our home. We’ve never lived in a house that we planned and built ourselves. It was always either the state house or your place on Leoparde Drive.”
“You are really sure we’ll marry again, aren’t you?” she giggled, accepting his hug and kiss.
Betty and Shane in her Gombe lake house.....
Solly Simba took the call from his dad in his room in the English university in London.
“Solly, I have to come to England soon. If I can get your mother to travel with me, we’ll come to your campus for a get together,” suggested Shane.
After a loud sigh, Solly said, “Dad, you and Mom are chased by the paparazzi everywhere you go. I have school mates who will be disrupted by this mess.”
“I can’t help that, Solly. Your mom and I happen to be famous,” laughed Shane.
“Mom’s boob showed up in the English Daily Mail. It was really embarrassing. Shit.”
“Are you telling me you don’t want us to come, Solly?” asked Shane, hurt at his favorite son’s non-welcoming attitude.
“I guess you can come here if you don’t have all those freaks with their cameras flashing. It’s really trashy, Dad – like Britney Spears.”
“Solly, you can be such a hard ass at times,” noted Shane.
“You can too, Dad.”
Dickey Simba, after work, began to make a brief appearance at home and then run next door to Alexandra’s rented residence. Cutty was back at work and staying late to help Bernice Bear in their new capacity as social directors for the State House government events. This had involved large pay raises which both could use. Shane designated new space and expanded an office down stairs to encompass Cutty and Bernice. Marla Meerkat was glad to have Dickey Simba all to herself again – at least in his office. Cutty was glad to be given an assignment other than her indifferent hubby’s press secretary. Bernice and Cutty worked well together. The kind grizzly would listen to Cutty’s woes regarding her pregnancy and troubled marriage over cups of herbal tea.
the troubled Dickey Simba....
As the saying goes: money talks and bullshit walks. Ground was broken next to the State House grounds and preparations were made for a new home for Shane Simba. Lewis Lyon asked his main architect to draw up plans and construction was imminent.
Lachlan naked and guilty.....
This same week, I returned to the bush house I shared with Lachlan to find one of the wild lionesses from a neighboring pride leaving by the front door. Following her was my very own Lachlan, naked as the day he was born. I stood stark still in the yard as the lioness, casting an insolent glance in my direction, sauntered past.
“Lachlan, what is going on? Why is she in our house?” I screeched. “And why are you in the buff?”
It didn’t really take a rocket scientist to figure what had transpired but I was in shock.
“I just had sex with her, Maurice. It meant nothing at all. I just wanted to find out what it would be like to be a wild lion again and screw a lioness,” he said.
“Where is the pride male?” I asked, still in complete horror and not believing my ears and eyes. “That lioness is smelly and full of fleas and ticks.”
“The male is feeding off the meat I brought them. He’s glad for the absence of one more mouth to feed.”
“Lachlan, the bush has gotten to you. This is unimaginable,” I cried.
That evening, I took some personal things and put them in one of the state mansion’s bedrooms as Shane had said I could. My face was wet with tears as I found Shane having a Scotch alone in the library. He had the houseboy give me a strong drink and I sat down and told him what had happened.
“Jesus, Maurice….those wild lions are flea bags. I can’t believe Lachlan did that. He’s gone bush crazy.”
“I know,” I said and realized how close Shane and I were becoming – real friends at last.
Later Betty joined us. I wept to them both and they practically tucked me in the bed since I was feeling no pain from much drink.
I lunched with Bertram Baboon the following day and he noticed my angst. He was the last animal on earth I wanted to tell of Lachlan’s wild lioness peccadillo but being adept at manipulation, he dragged it out of me – to the last disgusting detail.
“I am holding my nose, Maurice. This is an atrocity. You need to leave him. You can live with Glo and me until your house is available again,” he said, brow raised to its highest level.
“I am staying with Shane at the mansion for the time being,” I told him as the waiter arrived with my second martini.
“Speaking of wild lions,” scoffed Bertram who is no admirer of Shane Simba.