“Holy Shit,” sounded a most un-presidential roar from the inner office of Shane Simba.  The secretaries jerked in alarm and I, who had just taken him some paperwork, stopped dead in my tracks.  His main secretary, an adoring baboon, immediately picked up the phone and paged Alexandra in her office down the hall. This was the thing to do these days when the President seemed a tad unruly – call his wife who could soothe him in any crisis.  Alexandra Simba swooped in giving me a huge wink. 

 

“I know what this is about, Maury,” she announced gaily as she entered her husband’s inner office, closing the door behind her.  

 

Shane looked up as she came in.  He had been staring at a picture and article in the Masai Mara Daily’s gossip column. 

 

“Look at this shit, Alex, the little bastard is banging his aunt now.  Doesn't he notice that she’s a dead wringer for his dead mother?” roared Shane. 

 

“I saw it, Luv.  We get the Daily in my office too, you know.  Calm down, Shane, you are not going to be able to control, in totality, a gown son who has returned to the Mara with two lucrative sports contracts.  Sean is his own lion now, Luv.  You will just have to take the knocks as they come.  He’s feeling his gonads.”

 

“He can fuck all he wants, Alex, but why does he have to make a specialty of incestuous shagging, for crying out loud?”

 

Alexandra began to giggle as she smoothed her husband’s brow with a lovely hand, and then kissed him on the lips.

 

“Caroline is not exactly a bundle of morals, Shane.  Remember that you had a son with her and she had been your sister-in-law.”

 

“I wasn't kin to her, Alex.  Sean is her blood nephew,” he commenced to roar.

 

“Well, don't get yourself in a pet over Caroline.  She probably came on to him and I feel sure he has your libido,” and she laughed again. “Which is quite formidable –I can happily attest to that fact.”

 

“He’s been shagging Sloane’s kid too, Alex.  How do you justify that one?”

 

“I can't, Luv, it is a happenstance of privileged youth and a matter of all the chicks he fancies being kin to him.  It will all work out in the end.  You'll see.  Let’s go to the bush house this afternoon.  We can spend the rest of the week there.”

 

“What would I do without you, my darling?” asked Shane, kissing his wife’s face. 

 

At that moment I reentered the office to bring more proposals to the presidential desk.  Alexandra left with a wave and went back to her own office where her twins were totting about the room with Bernice Bear laughing delightedly at their antics. 

 

            Two days later the ANIMAL ENQUIRER had a most explicit take on the entire range of Sean Simba’s doings with his blood kin.  There were lurid photographs and an almost pornographic article to accompany them. 

 

 

“Will you be okay, Betts?” asked Gloria.

 

“Yes, Glo, and thanks for bringing me today.  Jack had a full work day in Nairobi reporting on the labor picketing.”

 

“You are to stay the night here?”

 

“Yes, the embryo will be implanted.  Jack will take me home tomorrow and I will have to stay in bed for a few days.  I am so excited, Glo.  Jack needs his own cub.  He is such a wonderful father to my sons.”

 

“You never told me that Pansy had given you a uterus.  I think that’s so wonderful, Betts.”

 

“I received that several months ago when I started living with Jack.  I just had a feeling we would marry someday.  I wanted to be ready to give him offspring – at least one.”

 

“Will it be a clone, Betts?”

“I don't really know.  Jack wouldn't share that information with me.  Only the doctors Tigeres know for sure and they're mum on the subject,” giggled Betty. 

 

Two male nurses came in with a rolling bed.

 

“We're here to take you to surgery for the procedure, Mrs. Tarzan,” one said. 

 

The sisters clasped hands tightly before Betty was rolled from the room.  Gloria stood watching the procession go down the hall until they entered an elevator. 

 

Chris Simba and his pregnant lady, Caitlin Cougar....

 

            Chris Simba was aggravated.  He was in the midst of a decidedly unpleasant divorce battle with his fourth wife – the much used and sometimes abused human, Johanna Delacroix.  Johanna, though wealthy in her own right, was all for taking her Simba husband for a financial ride.  Chris figured it was more Shane that she hated than him but no matter.  What ever the cause, Johanna was being a real bitch and holding out for ungodly amounts of money and property.  With the help of the Tanzanian government, the new house Chris had built in the Serengeti was hidden behind a corporate veil and wouldn’t be disclosed to the voracious Johanna.  Nevertheless, she was holding things up at the Simba Brothers law firm, Sam Simba representing his brother, Chris.  For the first time, Chris Simba was looking forward to the birth of an offspring.  He had never been a very devoted dad, merely lukewarm at best.  Now with the peace and contentment he found in his new job in Tanzania and the love he was beginning to feel for Caitlin Cougar, he badly wanted to be free of Johanna – just in case, mind you.  Caitlin was free as a bird, having been divorced from the highly civilized Homer Leo.  The obstetrician in the Serengeti had done an ultra sound on Caitlin and found that she was pregnant with one cub only.  That would be wonderful, Chris thought.  He had been father to five at a throw with Christine Cheetah after three in a litter with the demented Laura Leo.  He relished the thought of a single birth – fewer late nights at crib side.

 

            Sounds of regurgitation emanated from the main bathroom in Imani Lyon’s apartment.  Imani, who was smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee, looked up in alarm.  She put out the cigarette and ran for the door which was only partially closed. 

 

“Georgy, what’s wrong?  Are you barfing?” asked Imani. 

 

Georgy tosses her cookies as Imani looks on....

 

Her cousin staggered from the bathroom holding a wet washcloth to her throat.  She went to her room and fell heavily on the bed.  Imani followed, sitting on the edge of Georgy’s frilly bed. 

 

“I think I’m preggers, Imani,” declared Georgy Simba and immediately burst into tears. 

 

“Oh Fuck!! Who is the dad or do I even have to ask?”

 

“It’s Sean,” sobbed Georgy. 

 

“Shit, Georgy, they’ll have four heads each.  He’s our cousin,” blurted Imani, who was not one to mince words no matter how dire the circumstances or upset the recipient. 

 

This made the still queasy Georgy roll over and sob further into her large crewel pillow with the fluffy stitched kittens on it. 

 

            That evening Imani dined with her father, Ashley Lyon and his new bride, another Simba cousin.  She was poking at a large chunk of seared beef when she let go the shocker, stilling everyone at the table, especially Staci Simba Lyon. 

 

“Georgy is knocked up with Sean’s cubs,” announced Imani, thoroughly enjoying the consternation that registered on both faces – especially Staci’s who was the prospective father’s sister. 

 

“Oh my god,” wailed Staci.  “Daddy is going to murder him and Uncle Sloane will finish the job.”

 

“He will be hung up on the road side like the ones who followed Spartacus in Rome,” offered Imani, who happened to be a movie buff that had particularly relished her grandfather’s last film role.

 

“That’s enough, Imani.  We don’t need descriptions of the desecration,” rebuked Ashley. 

 

“Sean has already made headlines by bonking Aunt Caroline,” moaned Staci who had bought a copy of ANIMAL ENQUIRER.

 

This brought forth a delighted snort from Imani.  “Georgy will be thrilled that he’s already screwing some other chick.”

 

“You are NOT going to be the one to tell her that, Imani,” cautioned Ashley.  “She has problems enough.”

 

“Shit, Dad, Georgy buys the ENQUIRER every time it comes out,” was his daughter’s response.

            In another quarter which happened to be his office at the State House, Sloane Simba was in a state of near collapse.  He had just seen the Masai Mara Daily with his not yet divorced spouse’s picture with Shane’s son on his front porch.  His secretary, Marla Meerkat, kept chirping about his dejected form with cups of coffee laced with brandy.  Sloane decided that he wouldn’t mention this to Shane yet.  He was sure he had seen it too. 

 

Marla Meerkat, Sloane's devoted secretary...

 

            Georgy Simba was on the edge of the soccer field when Sean Simba finished his practice session.  She waved to him and he came over.  She wanted to be very together and cool when she told him the news but instead she broke into sobs. 

 

“I’m pregnant, Sean,” she choked. 

 

“What?” he asked, his face a study in horror. 

 

“Pregnant, Sean, and they are yours.”

 

“How do you know that, Georgy?”

 

“I took a pregnancy test, dummy, they’re available in every pharmacy,” she said, becoming agitated. 

 

“I know that….I meant are you sure they’re mine?”

 

He barely knew what hit him.  He wasn’t expecting the slug from Georgy. It took him by surprise.  He toppled backwards to the amusement of some of his team mates who were still on the field. 

Troy Simba who resembles his dad, Roy Lee...

 

            Troy Simba is a handsome lad who shows nothing of his leopard and cougar blood from his mother.  Some older than his cousin, Sean, he looks amazingly like his lion father, superstar, Roy Lee Simba.  A teammate of Sean’s and sharing a house with him, he was bound to be told the alarming news.  It was over beers in their den that held the 50 inch television set, a gift from Roy Lee. 

 

“I think I knocked up Georgy,” confessed Sean to the stunned Troy. 

 

“Is that why she took you down on the field today?” was all Troy could manage. 

 

“I just asked her if she was sure it was mine,” answered Sean. 

 

“Damn, Sean that was a skuzzy thing to ask her.  I would’ve knocked the shit out of you too.”

 

“I guess they must be mine.  She wasn’t a virgin when I banged her the first time but we’ve been going pretty hot and heavy the last few weeks.  Just my badass luck, huh?”

 

The ramifications of all this was so great that Troy could hardly catch his breath.  It involved the daughter of a powerful Simba pride member and the son of the most powerful Simba of all, Shane.  Troy shook his head in dismay and lit one of the rare cigarettes that he indulged in being a professional athlete.  He failed to answer his cousin. 

 

            Much later that night, he slipped out of the house and walked to his father’s home just down the same street.  Roy Lee Simba had always been a busy but loving father and highly accessible to all of his children.  Now he was married, once again, to Janice Jaguar, the mother of eight of his offspring.  Even though Troy was from his dad’s marriage to Chloe Cougar, Janice welcomed him with open arms and led him to the screening room where she and Roy Lee had been watching a movie.   Roy Lee took his son to the library where he opened a beer for both. 

 

“Dad, there’s something going on in the pride that’s going to cause a bunch of shit.  Can I confide in you?” asked the distraught Troy, running his hands through his thick golden mane so like Roy Lee’s.

 

“Of course you can, Son.  What is it?” asked Roy Lee, lighting a cigarette.

 

Troy told him of Sean’s relationship with Georgy Simba and the fact of Georgy’s pregnancy.  Roy Lee sat quietly for a while, staggered by the news. 

 

“You’re right, Troy, the shit is bound to hit the fan on this one.  Just sit tight and I won’t tell anyone you told me this.  Let’s just hope it doesn’t tear the pride to bits, things have just gotten good again,” said Roy Lee, patting his distraught son on the back.