The first couple threw another Christmas party at the mansion.  This time it centered on the media.  Being a member of the press, Jack Tarzan was invited.  Naturally his wife, Betty Chimpo Tarzan accompanied her husband.  There were also others present such as Lachlan and me.  Alexandra had done a superb job of decorating the mansion.  There were outsized and beautifully decorated trees in the library and main drawing room.  It was done tastefully with no sign of ostentation.  Alexandra and Shane, Daniel and Stella Lyon, and I formed a reception line as the invited streamed by.  I noticed that Jane Leoparde’s greeting to her former lover, Shane, was brief as she hastily made her way past him and eventually to the bar where she ordered a martini.  Jack Tarzan was greeted warmly by the President and Alexandra  but was lacking his wife who had avoided the receiving line altogether.  I noticed Jack swing around and look to see where Betty had got to.  She had made a beeline for the bar and was standing next to Jane downing a major cocktail.  I was rather nervous.  I am privy to many of Shane’s pet peeves.  I know that one concerns Betty’s flagrant affair with his son, Sean.  Believe it or not, there is no sign of jealousy in this situation.  Shane has grown to respect and like Jack Tarzan a great deal.  Sean Simba is now a very high profile animal thanks to sexiness, a lucrative sports career and being the president’s son.  I could sense the fact that Shane wouldn’t let this evening pass without a warning to Betty to lay off his son.  Next to approach the line was Caroline Cheetah looking breathtakingly gorgeous.  I wondered how Alexandra kept her cool having to receive in a civilized manner so many females that had carnal knowledge of her husband as well as a few offspring from him.  I suppose it is because she is such a thoroughly nice person and knows damn well that she is the only one on his mind these days.  Shane Simba is completely besotted with his wife, a stance I don’t see him giving up anytime soon – if ever. 

            A superb string quartet made up of several species of ape was playing when the invitees arrived.  Theirs was a soft and semi-classical offering of music.  After dinner, however, the tone turned to soft and romantic tunes for dancing.  I was standing with Lachlan, Jack and Betty when Shane approached and asked Jack if he would mind if he danced with Betty.  I saw a glint of apprehension in her dark eyes but she maintained an admirable cool.  Shane led her to the floor where he proceeded to dance with her in a noticeably non-titillating manner. 

Shane accosts Betty on the dance floor......

“Could you possibly cease your sexual liaisons with your former stepson that are sure to cause a major brouhaha if the media catches wind of them, Betty?”

She stiffened and tried to move away.  He held her back in a vise. 

“You have much at stake – a wonderful husband and a cub on the way.  Why endanger those things with a cheap sexual affair with a young male you mothered at one time?” continued Shane in a tense and rather unpleasant voice. 

“I don’t know what you are referring to, Shane,” she hissed.

“Oh yes you do, Betty.  I am referring to some rather sordid photos that I’ve seen in compromising positions with Sean,” he snarled in a soft but menacing voice. 

“You are being absurd, Shane.”

“Let me warn you off of this folly by telling you that if it continues, I will wrest our sons from your home and deny you visiting rights on the grounds of moral turpitude.  Don’t push the envelope, Betty.  You know me well and my ability to cut you off at the pass.  Think about this one long and hard.”

With that he removed his arms, releasing her.  She almost stumbled to the bar for a well needed drink.  He returned to his wife’s side where she was conversing with several reporters from the Associated Press.

            Later, as Betty and Jack were about to leave the party, she walked to where Shane, Dickey Simba and I were chatting.  Jack was saying his goodbyes to several press buddies in a far corner.  Betty threw all caution to the wind.  

“Who are you to threaten me with accusations of moral turpitude, you freaking male whore?” she said and laid a loud slap across Shane's face. 

It was the slap heard around the room, rendering everyone rigidly stiff and dead still - even the simian quartet.  Jack ran to Betty’s side and took her by the arm, hastening her out the door.  I, in semi-shock, almost ran to the quartet and asked them to continue their musical offerings.  Slowly several couples went to the dance floor, among them Alexandra and Shane.  However the life had gone out of the party.  Many left, probably to get to their sources and report the horrific incident.   

“Betty’s timing is always impeccable,” remarked Lachlan on our way home. 

“What better place to slap the living shit out of her presidential ex-husband than a party for the media?”

            Jack Tarzan slung his jacket across the couch in the library of his home and accosted his wife.

“What the hell was that about this evening, Betty?  I demand to know,” he roared. 

“I just didn’t like the way Shane talked to me while we were dancing is all, Jack.  I’m terribly tired.  I need to go to bed.”

“What did he say?  It couldn’t have been an overture, Betty.  I read his body language and it didn’t speak of desire,” said Jack with a fat dose of sarcasm.

“He just threatened to take Jalil and Tarek away from us.  I’m so weary, Jack.  Can we speak of this another time?”

He held her hand in tightly.  “Somehow I don’t believe that, Betty.  Shane has been very fair with you in sharing your mutual children.  There is more at play in this thing and I want to know what it is – NOW!!”

“It is absolutely nothing, Jack.  I AM GOING TO BED NOW!”

            He left her alone in their bed that night and when she woke the next morning, a Saturday, he was already gone from the house.  Patsy seemed silent and withdrawn. 

            Solly Simba stood outside the door of his father’s home office.  Inside were his father and Alexandra. 

“I think that was the wrong time to address this issue, Shane – on the dance floor.  Couldn’t you have been more circumspect than that?” asked Alexandra. 

“That was the only way I could speak with Betty without it being noticeable.  I had to tell her to stop screwing Sean.  It is something that can’t go on without terrific scandal accompanying it, Alex.”

Solly stood still, knowing that the conversation was about his mother.  Finally he returned to his room and fell into a fitful sleep. 

            For some strange reason, the only mention of Betty’s assault on Shane Simba at the media party was contained in ANIMAL ENQUIRER, a tabloid where the staff was persona non grata with the president and his family.  Few knew that Glenda Gorilla and Caroline Cheetah still offered tidbits of dicey gossip under pen names.  The wickedly lascivious Caroline was wreathed in delight at the assault on the President.  She couldn’t wait to turn in her interpretation of the event to the gossip rag. 

            Betty and Jack were in a state of estrangement.  He hadn’t slept in the room with her since the party at the Simba mansion.  He would speak with her in front of Patsy but once the old woman was in bed, Jack ignored his wife.  He knew that more was at stake than a threat by Shane to remove his sons from their home.  He had heard the words ‘moral turpitude’ and ‘male whore’ coming from Betty as she slammed the hell out of her ex-husband at the gathering.  Jack wrongly figured that it was Betty’s innate jealousy of those that surrounded Shane Simba that had prompted the action.  He knew that his wife still harbored an infatuation for the lion president. 

            Sean Simba left the practice field and pulled out his cell phone.  He dialed Betty’s. 

“Betty, I have some off days since we won’t have another game before Christmas.  Can I see you?”

“I’m afraid of seeing you at your house, Sean.  Is there somewhere else we can go?” she asked. 

“I can get the key to Staci’s house in Mombasa that Dad gave her and Juma when they married.  Let me call you back.”

            The unsuspecting Staci Simba Lyon who was hovering on the brink of delivering her first litter, told her brother to come by for the key to her beach home.  They were now using Ashley’s when she was able to go at all. 

            Betty paced the floor until Sean called her back and asked her to meet him on the narrow back alley of the Lewis Lyon Mall.  There was little traffic there and she could slip into his car and go to Mombasa with him. 

Staci Simba Lyon hugs outgoing and gregarious hubby, Ashley Lyon....

            With Ashley Lyon’s penchant for friendship with his ex’s and the recent hiring of Sloane Simba as a bush pilot for the Leoparde-Lyon Safari Clubs, a new round of buddies came into play.  Ashley was a great one for establishing cliques.  With his outgoing and gregarious manner, he immediately included Sloane Simba who was almost living with Ashley’s ex-wife, Lucy Cougar, into the inner circle of his couple friends.  Along with Luke Leoparde and his wife, Jane, Ashley and Staci began to invite Sloane and Lucy to dinners held at the various homes.  This group sometimes included Luke’s brother Leland Leoparde and his wife.  Also among the chic partiers would be Ashley’s childhood friend, Carson Cougar and his wife, Monica Margay Cougar.  It didn’t seem to matter that Carson’s baby sister Lucy had been divorced by Ashley.  Lucy was as happy as a clam with Sloane and the lovely house Ashley had given her as well as hefty checks for alimony and cub support.  As for Staci Simba Lyon’s feelings about her husband’s ex-wife being among his dear friends, she was becoming accustomed to the warm and giving ways of her new hubby.  Staci happily awaited the birth of her first cubs.  Dr. Frank Tigeres had performed an ultrasound on Staci and found she was carrying two male cubs.  She and Ashley were picking out names. 

            Sean Simba simply could not resist flaunting his aquatic sports skills while on his short break with Betty Chimpo Tarzan in Mombasa.  With the brawny and buff Sean riding the waves on board and wind sail, the media were bound to hone in.  They focused long range lens on him both in the house  where he was staying and on the water.  One mild day filled with intermittent showers, they caught Betty sunning nude on a secluded beach which she had felt was safe.  Sean was stretched next to her.  Her swelling belly shone with suntan oil in the glimmers of sunlight breaking through the clouds between showers.  This was the hottest tidbit yet.  In fact, this went beyond morsel – it was a full blown event of extreme titillation.  Before Betty and Sean could even return to the Mara, the scoop graced every newspaper and television news segment.  Pictures of the two catching rays sans clothing were on the front page of ANIMAL ENQUIRER.  Her cover was blown.  Now Jack Tarzan knew damn well what had occurred at the Simba’s Christmas bash for the media.

            Shane Simba lost no time in asking his brother Sam to serve Betty with papers removing their sons, Tarek and Jalil Simba, from her joint custody and home.  The weekend visits of Solly Simba to Jack and his mother ceased until further court action.  Solly Simba adored his stepfather and grieved at the loss of visits with Jack.  Shane, seeing this and realizing that Solly was of an age not to be too influenced by his mother’s immorality, relented and spoke with Jack about continuing Solly’s visits. 

            There was no big issue there.  Jack Tarzan had, in spite of her pregnancy, asked Betty to leave his home.  This was just too much for the author and reporter whose life had been turned around when meeting Betty in Tanzania.  Immediately Luke and Jane Leoparde closed ranks and sought to soothe the heartbroken Jack.