Linda gets her marching orders...
The common thread that binds nearly all animal species seems to be that males are willing to abandon all sense and decorum, even to risk their lives, in the frantic quest for sex. ~Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer, A Natural History of Rape
Linda Cougar sat weeping in front of her father, Carson Cougar. She was in the great room of the home he had bought from Ashley Lyon.
“It’s taken you a short time to mess up here in the Mara, Linda. First you got pregnant by Alex Simba and now you’re dallying with that trash Sloane. I hope you’ll get your act together and do better,” he snarled. “Why don’t you get yourself a decent guy? There are plenty around the Mara.”
“I’ll do better, Dad,” sniffled Linda. “I promise.”
“The only two Simbas worth their salt are my boss, Bubba and Roy Lee. The rest of them are a bunch of puffed up nouveau riche with the morals of an alley cat. You would do better not seeing any of them.”
Linda knew better than to remind her father that he had once been on the decadent side himself. With his return to the Mara, job as chief deputy to Bubba Simba’s police chief and marriage to Monica Margay, he had become sedate at last.
The next time Sloane Simba went to the Watering Hole Pub, he found Linda to be frosty to a fault. She was standing, nursing vodka on the rocks, smoking a cigarette and staring straight ahead.
“Why the sullen disposition, Linda? Did something distasteful go down since the last time we fornicated?” was Sloane’s less than convivial approach.
“My dad has threatened to cut off my money unless I straighten up my act and that means doing away with you, Sloane.”
Sloane was very taken aback. He had not counted on incensed parents. After all, it had been the married Alexander who had impregnated Linda.
“I thought you were a Leoparde family heiress, why do you need his financing, Linda? You also work for the only realtor in the Mara and it is well known that Jackal Realty is worth millions now.”
“I’m a great grandchild of the Leoparde family; we have to wait much longer to get ours.”
“Well, girlie, I’ll miss you,” said Sloane turning his attentions to fellow Simba Brothers attorney, Liz Leopard who had just bellied up to the bar near him.
Linda didn’t have to wait too long for another very good looking male lion to stand next to her. It was Daniel Lyon with his half-brother, Ashley. Linda already knew Ashley as one of her father’s close friends but she had not met Daniel yet. The three chatted amiably, Ashley having introduced her to his recently arrived brother. An hour later, Ashley said he was going home to Leah. Sloane Simba watched Daniel as he escorted Linda from the pub. They went to her condo nearby and engaged in sexual antics. Daniel feeling rather guilty that he had banged the daughter of his brother’s dear friend invited Linda to dinner at OKAPI’S. She accepted with pleasure.
Caitlin was sculpting away on the almost completed lion’s head. Her phone hadn’t rung all evening. Daniel usually called as well as Sloane but that hadn’t happened this evening. She took off her smock and took a shower. After toweling dry, she lit a cigarette and assessed her social situation. It wasn’t the best, she concluded. It could certainly use some enhancement. She got a bite to eat, sat on her back porch and watched the moon rise over the savanna. Tomorrow was always another day, she thought to herself, as she went to bed.
As it turned out, tomorrow was the day that she was to take her lion’s head to be exhibited in a mixed media gallery showing that we were putting on at the arts center. She presented the finished piece to the curator and wandered down a hall in the center. One door was open to the theater where Micah Mbube was rehearsing Macbeth. Caitlin slipped into a back seat and watched. The lion actor’s magnificent voice fell across her heart and mind as she sat there mesmerized by what had been her favorite Shakespeare play in college. Caitlin emerged from the theater determined to meet Micah. Who better to help her accomplish this goal than her aunt, Sylvia Cougar, who had her paw firmly on the pulse of the Masai Mara society?
Sylvia Cougar was busy on another front concerning her granddaughter, Linda. Linda had cried to her about her father’s edict, then, comes Caitlin wanting to meet Micah. Sylvia talked it over with her husband, Bernard.
“We seem to have a shortage of eligible males in the Mara for Caitlin and Linda,” said Sylvia one afternoon while she and her husband were having sundowners in their walled garden.
“I thought Caitlin was seeing one of the Simba pride and Linda was too, Syl.”
“Unfortunately, it’s the same Simba. A young lawyer named Sloane. Carson doesn’t approve of him and has read the riot act to Linda. Caitlin wants to meet Micah Mbube,” giggled Sylvia.
“We don’t really know Micah that well, do we?”
“No, but Roy Lee certainly does. I guess we should have a youth oriented party and invite the unmarried.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Linda and Caitlin need to find good mates,” agreed Bernard.
In the home just down from the Cougar’s on Leoparde Drive a father was having a problem with his daughter.
“Daddy, why can’t I date?” asked Staci Simba of her father, Shane.
“Because you are too damn young, Staci. Give it a few months.”
“No, I’m not. Tigger Tigeres wants to take me to the movies, Daddy.”
“If Arlon goes along you can go too,” was her father’s stance.
“I guess you are so hard on me because you can’t be trusted yourself, Daddy.”
Shane let out a roar that brought the rest of the family running to the library.
“Staci, you’ll be grounded for a week for that piece of insolence. You’ll be coming home immediately after school and practice. No parties all week,” he snarled, his green eyes filled with fury at this show of cheek from his formerly placid daughter.
“I think I’m a better animal than you are, Daddy. I’m having new brothers and sisters because you got our aunt pregnant. That’s shit!”
She ran from the room before he could hit her with his upraised paw. Arlon and Sean followed Staci upstairs, not wanting to risk Shane’s ire. Betty took his paw down from its poised position.
“She’s never spoken to me like that, Betty.”
“She’s upset about Caroline, I suppose. You received another letter from her today,” she said, handing him the envelope from a table.
He opened it and read the contents, frowning slightly. He then handed it to Betty.
“She’s having a single cub, she writes,” said Betty, placing the letter back in the envelope. “She hopes it’s a boy.”
“I don’t really give a damn what she has. I’ve made it plain that I want no part of it. She’s on her own, Betty.”
“I think you will probably change your mind when she actually gives birth, Shane.”
“No, Betty, I will not. What is this? Rebel with a cause night in this house?”
“No, Shane but if you thought this thing with Caroline was going to disappear easily you thought wrong. Staci has told me the children are still buzzing at school about it.”
“Shit!” he roared, leaving the room to find Staci.
She was behind locked doors in her bedroom upstairs and refused to answer his knocks on the door.
Where there had been a shortage in lawyers for Simba Brothers and lack of single males around the Mara, this problem was relieved with the arrival of two new Simba males from London law study. Steven and Sidney arrived on a sunny Wednesday morning, picked up at the airport by Alexander and Sloane. They were not the happiest campers around having been pressured by both Roy Lee and Sefu to return. They were taken directly to Leander’s home where they placed their baggage in the rooms they had occupied as cubs. They went to work the following day at the pride law firm. That evening they introduced themselves to that delight of delights, the Watering Hole Pub. Female heads swiveled as the muscular and spectacularly maned males entered the pub. The single females flanked them as they ordered the Simba’s signature drink from the bartender. Lucky Linda Cougar got first dibs. She was the realtor and the twosome was eager to get their own dwellings so they could practice the free and easy sex that is a mark of that pride’s males. Linda preened as they asked her which the better restaurant around town was. She naturally chose OKAPI’S so she could be the first to be seen with the drop dead gorgeous new males in town. They invited her to dine with both of them.
Steven and Sidney Simba in the pub after their return from England….
OKAPI’S was filled and they waited at the bar for a table. When their table was ready, the trio walked among the admiring glances of Caroline Cheetah who was dining with her pal, Glenda Gorilla, among others. Linda felt like a star that night as Steven and Sidney flirted and made arrangements for her to show them rentals the following day. She made mental note to find all available condos in the Watering Hole group near hers.
Forgetting her promise to her father to clean up her act, Linda invited both to her condo where they engaged in a three way, another trademark of Simba sex. Linda would just have to play it as it laid until she could make good on her pledge to Carson Cougar. The next day she found them condos very close to hers. That same evening she was helping her grandmother, Sylvia, make a list of attendees for the planned party of the younger set. She had her add the names of Steven and Sidney Simba, who went by Steve and Sid.
The air was unpleasantly cold between Shane Simba and his daughter, Staci. The night of the movie had been resolved by Arlon Lyon’s presence when Tigger and Staci went to the movies. Still the chill remained between father and daughter. This was an entirely new state of affairs for Shane whose daughter had always adored him without question. He had tried to talk to her but Staci had stiffly reminded him of how he had almost broken his marriage to Betty because of his dalliance with Caroline Cheetah. He had used the excuse of her looking like Staci’s mother to no avail.
“But she’s not Mummy and you knew that, Daddy,” said Staci, with anger in her dark eyes so like her Catherine’s. “Are you going to have sex with a lot of female cheetahs using that excuse? They will all look like Mummy.”
Shane was mystified as to how to regain his former warm and loving relationship with his daughter.
“Shane, she’ll come around. Just be patient, Darling,” his wife had advised.
Sloane Simba was sitting across the table from Caitlin Cougar in Klip ‘n Dodi’s. They had just received their drinks.
“Do you know Micah Mbube?” she asked, lighting a cigarette.
“Not very well, I met him at a party at Roy Lee’s house. Why?”
“I saw him rehearsing for Macbeth the other day when I took my bust to the curator. He has such a splendid presence on stage.”
“I know that he had Chris’s ex-wife with him at the party. I think he goes with her. Are you interested in him Caitlin or is this a ploy to make me jealous?”
She reached and slapped him across the table, running from the restaurant. He caught up with her in the parking lot. She was leaned against his car crying. He turned her around and held her against him.
“That was a rotten thing to say, I’m sorry, Caitlin.”
“I don’t think I want to see you anymore, Sloane. Can you please take me home?”
He tipped her face toward his.
“Caitlin, do you want us to become engaged. I love you. I know I’m a son-of-a-bitch but I’m one that seems stuck on you.”
The elation that coursed through her almost made her faint. She could barely see his face through her tear filled eyes.
“Are you sure about this, Sloane? I know I am about my feelings for you.”
“Yes, I am, Caitlin. And my mother loves you too.”
“It’s going to take more than your mother to love me. It means my being everything to you as well. I don’t want broken engagements and the travails of having a male who is ambivalent about me.”
“Caitlin, let’s try being engaged. We will know more about it once we try it.”
“Sloane Simba, I know I want to marry you but you are obviously not sure about me. I don’t want some half assed liaison that will be rocky from the get go. Just take me home, please.”
“Caitlin, I think I’m sure.”
“Fuck you!”
He drove her home. There were no further words between them. She got out when he reached her drive, slamming the car door. He drove off. At his building, he checked his mail before going to his apartment. There was an invitation to Bernard and Sylvia Cougar’s party. Sylvia had not wanted to insult any of the Simbas by not inviting them. She was too fond of her son-in-law, Roy Lee, to do that.
Fate has such strange twists as we all know. Micah Mbube bought the bust of the male lion’s head that stood in the gallery for mixed media artists. He called her to find out where to send the check. She told him she would come for it and where should they meet. He told her they could meet in the Watering Hole Pub. Since he lived in one of the condos he often went there for a drink to unwind. Sloane Simba happened to be there when Caitlin came in and made a beeline toward where Micah stood at the bar. Sloane, who was discoursing with Liz Leopard and Dr. Carey Caracal, snapped to attention. The same jealousy made mush of his insides and he knew the proverbial ox was in the ditch. He left the company he was in and went to join Micah and Caitlin. He greeted both pleasantly and offered to buy them a drink. Micah declined saying he had to meet Christine Cheetah. Sloane’s eyes bore into Caitlin. Micah turned away to speak to someone he knew.
“Caitlin, let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
“All right, Sloane, but we have little to say to each other.”
“I think we do. I want to marry you right away, if you’ll have me.”
“I don’t believe you, Sloane. You just saw me with Micah. He bought my lion’s head from the gallery. He met me here to give me my check.”
“I know I just saw you with Micah and realized, once again, that I can’t bear the thought of you with another male.”
“That’s not much to base a marriage on, Sloane.”
“It’s enough. How about it, Caitlin, will you marry me?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she almost shouted, grabbing him around the neck and kissing him soundly.
The females would have been much more upset if there weren’t two other Simba males at the bar to replace him.