TO FALL IN LOVE
"To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god."
Jorge Luis Borges
The sun shone hot as Cutty Sark opened the deck doors to her rented condo allowing a stiff breeze from the Indian Ocean to cool things a bit. Dickey Simba, her houseguest, took a bottle of Chivas Regal from a grocery bag and poured two drinks in plastic cups. Dickey looked wonderfully handsome in a white shirt and jeans. He handed her the whiskey and lifted his glass to hers.
“Here is to a successful weekend of unbroken bargains,” he teased.
“Keep that in mind while I put on my bathing suit. I can’t let the rest of this day go by without some windsailing.”
She cut through the foamy surf on her way to deeper water. Suddenly the sail flipped and struck, knocking her into the water. Fortunately for the hapless Cutty who had lost consciousness with a resounding hit on the head from the board, Luke and Jane Leoparde were in their power boat and witnessed the incident. The leopard and lioness pulled Cutty into their boat and brought her around.
“Cutty,” recognized Jane, who was a member of the press and familiar with Shane Simba’s new assistant. “You are very lucky that we spotted you.”
“Oh shit, I was knocked out too,” groaned Cutty. “Thanks so much, you guys. I owe you big time - how about dinner at my new place?”
“I think we can manage that,” said Luke.
Luke hitched a tow line to Cutty’s windsurfer and the threesome headed for shore.
Cutty is rescued by Jane and Luke Leoparde....
Bernard Cougar (left), Sloane Simba and Carl Cougar discuss marriage at the dinner table...
“Got any plans for tying the knot?” inquired Bernard Cougar as he cut into a leg of lamb during dinner in the family home on Leoparde Drive.
“Berns,” scolded his wife, Sylvia Leoparde Cougar. “That’s sort of Sloane and Lucy’s business, don’t you think?”
“Poppy,” chimed in Lucy. . “Sloane and I are contented and getting to know each other.”
“I would think you two had gotten a real ‘feel’ for each other by now,” snarled Chloe Cougar, who had once been Sloane’s sporadic lover.
Most of the extended family was present including Bernard’s brother and wife, Carl and Georgia Cougar.
“Don’t get bent out of shape, Berns,” counseled his brother as if no one else was present at the table. “Our daughter, Caitlin, is a serial shacker all the time.”
This statement made Sloane most uncomfortable having been Caitlin Cougar’s only legal husband to date. Now she had borne a cub with his half brother, Chris Simba and was living in sin just a few doors down the block.
“I still think marriage is a good idea, Carl,” announced Bernard Cougar, taking another chunk of lamb onto his plate.
Chloe was thoroughly bored and itching to get out of there. She adored her mother but locked horns with her dad when ever the two got together. She wondered where the hell Dickey Simba was this weekend and if she could finagle a ride to the Watering Hole Pub with her son, Troy Simba. She hated to enter night spots alone -- it just wasn't good for her celebrity image.
“How about this Obama fellow, Berns, think he’s going to get the presidency in America?” asked Carl Cougar.
Oh shit, not politics, thought Chloe. Let me just get out of here first. I hope Nat doesn’t tune in on the subject with that damn dull leopardess wife of his.
Chloe excused herself and went to the bathroom. There she dialed Bop Boon on her cell phone. ….
Chloe Cougar escapes from the Sunday dinner at her parent's home...
Betty Chimpo continued to dial Dickey’s cell phone which ended up with his voice mail kicking in. She left no messages. She went to her desk and opened the file folder of student essays that she was grading. The phone rang.
“Fifi, want to join me in Lamu Island? You haven’t seen that place yet?” invited Shane Simba.
Of course she did. She accepted and hurriedly packed a bag.
Dina Myers was getting way too much publicity out of her pregnancy with Sean Simba. His coaches, Junior Lyon and Charley Lyon were casting disapproving glances in his direction.
“Your throws and passing need some work,” scolded Junior Lyon. “You may have to make the bitter choice between being a celebrated cocksman or professional quarterback if push comes to shove.”
The evening of that remark, Sylly Cougar Lyon had noticed her usually cheerful husband was off kilter.
“What’s bothering you, sweetheart?” she had asked him.
“That bloody Sean Simba. Lewis and I paid a mint to get him on the new football team and all he wants to do is screw his brains out.”
“What did you expect from the son of Shane Simba?” giggled Sylly.
“Lew and I are looking at Solly Simba. Now that lad is a great player and very serious -the opposite of his half brother.”
“When can you get him?” asked Sylly, opening another beer for Junior.
“Next season, he’ll be ready for either professional soccer or football – maybe both.”
head coach Junior Lyon (above) frets about Sean Simba's future in the new football team..
The cub in question lay on the bed in his father’s Lamu house reading Macbeth. It was his favorite Shakespearean play. Solly could hear the voices of his mother, Betty Chimpo, and dad, Shane Simba, as they conversed like old friends over pre-dinner drinks.
“Fifi, I have to take a run to Tookie’s house. She says my social secretary was hit in the head in a windsurfing accident today. Want to go with me?” asked Shane.
Once arrived at Tookie’s condo, Shane’s sister took Betty and him to the dwelling next door. They stepped into a place that was sparsely furnished but tastefully so in the few pieces placed around the living area. Cutty Sark was relaxing on a chaise lounge with Luke and Jane Leoparde on a sofa across from her. Betty’s heart fell to her knees as Dickey Simba emerged from a back room.
“Fifi, have you met my right hand, Cutty Sark yet?” asked Shane.
Betty, fighting tears and approaching panic, managed to extend a hand to the reclining girl. After what seemed like an interminable time of agony infested visitation, Shane finally rose from his chair and made to leave. Betty didn’t look at Dickey Simba. She didn’t want to see the look of contempt in his eyes at what he would naturally perceive as reconciliation between Shane and Betty. Little did he know that Shane had given Betty one of the guest rooms and had not laid a sensual hand on her. The following day which was Saturday, a helicopter landed on the pad outside the estate on Lamu Island. It disgorged a beauteous, dark haired woman with flashing eyes. She was the one in all the tabloids. Shane installed her in his boudoir.
When the guests departed, Dickey Simba handed Cutty another Scotch.
“Gorgeous moon,” noticed Cutty, suddenly aware that she was alone with a very sexy male lion.
“They usually are – moons, that is.”
“I think I am very aware that we’re here alone together and I barely know you.”
“Oh, you’ve just thought of that one? That’s sharp thinking on your part, Cutty.”
“You’re making fun of me now.”
She seemed close to tears.
“Not really, just finding all of that American Kansas bred naiveté appealing at the moment.”
“I am sure I fall way below the sophistication level of the chicks you knew in Amsterdam, Dickey.”
He stood and came to where she sat, pulling her off the chaise and into his arms.
“It is sort of like diamonds and bottle caps in comparison, Cutty – you being the diamond.”
“Have you ever made love to a human before?” she asked, fingers on his shirt front fumbling with the buttons.
“One only but I’ll bet it’s safe to guess that you have never made love to a male lion, have you?”
“No, but I’m game,” she said and then began to laugh.
He guffawed at the slip.
“I don’t think I worded that very well,” she giggled. “Game is not a good word to use, is it?”
“Not when you’re about to make love to a lion,” he concurred.
“Am I about to make love to a lion?” she asked, voice trembling.
“You damn sure are.”
Cutty and Dickey in her condo in Mombasa.......
Lachlan’s brow was furrowed as we sat with our sundowners watching that very spectacle take place beyond the border of fever trees in our yard.
“Maurice, I am in the mood for a sea change.”
If that statement had emerged from the late Lawrence Leoparde’s lips, I would have gone ballistic with fear at the imminent departure of my lover. With Lachlan, I merely sat to attention, patting his hand as I did so.
“Tell me about it, Lach.”
“I am burned out with such a heavy case load at the Mental Health Center. You know how much I love to cook and concoct my own recipes, Maury. I am thinking of taking out a loan and opening a restaurant of my own. I will still head the center but will hire a new shrink and let go of some of my caseload.”
“Lach, I will be your loan agent. I’m so excited at your doing something that you really love to do.”
He patted me on the back with his lion strength and gave me a clear amber gaze.
“Maury, I appreciate that so much, but I have already talked to Chris Simba at the Nathan Leoparde Memorial Foundation. He has agreed to the loan. I prefer that we don’t mix business with our relationship. Just remember how I love you for offering this.”
I realized the firmness of his decision and didn’t argue.
“Anything else I could do that would help you in any way?” I asked.
“Yeah, you can use your position in the government to drum up business when it opens,” he said with a wink.
“Done deed.”
Lachlan with me in our kitchen preparing one of his elaborate dishes......
The sun was sinking beneath the rim of the Great Rift Valley when Shane Simba’s helicopter landed at his wife’s coffee plantation. His guards led the way to Alexandra’s manor house. He found his wife and twins in the garden room. Alexandra was reading to both children. Her voice was calm but rather chilly.
“Would you like a drink, Shane?” she asked, as the children piled into their father’s arms.
The couple jollied it up for their offspring and the twins went to bed happy. Then Shane got down to the bitter business of effecting reconciliation with his wife by confessing to the fact that he had been ‘a complete prick’. Alexandra lit a cigarette and exhaled the smoke toward the ceiling fan circling slowly above them.
“That you most certainly have been, Shane. I am just as well off running my plantations than returning to you who have been screwing around consistently since I left.”
“That will stop, Alex. I have no excuse except to say I was reeling from the affects of Kenya’s turmoil. Your disappearing didn’t help at all.”
“I will return, Shane, for the sake of the children………I will not take as active a role in the State House since you have hired someone to take my place there.”
“Alex, I will relieve Cutty of the social activities or just allow her to help you out. Her main role is my press secretary since Amy Chui took a powder. Will that suit you?”
“I suppose so. This is something I never thought would happen to us, Shane.”
“This is fixable, Alex. I intend to make it up to you.”
She refused his overnight stay, saying that she would make arrangements and return to the Mara by Wednesday.