0 comments/ 4563 views/ 3 favorites Year of The Cheetah Ch. 00 By: JeanPaulParis Crocodiles devoured six critics of the regime overnight. But the news barely moved the morning price of commodities from the Ivory Coast. Cocoa was unchanged, and coffee was slightly up. Vietnam, Tanzania, Java; the beans had travelled the world before their distinct flavor exploded in his paper cup stamped with the green goddess. Djambo Diallo set it down on the right side of his keyboard. He always arrived first in the morning. At twenty-three, he was also the youngest intern at Occidental Trading. After four years at the University of Chicago, crowned by a joint MBA in Finance and MS in Information Technology, he was at the right place at the right time. Young Wall Street analysts came from every corner of the world to the vast and promising rectangle of America. Increasingly, they came to search the torch of liberty from the Third World. This was also his case. He was Djambo the Cheetah, the young boy from the African savanna who had left his village to live his dreams. And this was his first opportunity after college. He took a sip, and instantly the sweet acidic flavor of the well-roasted Italian nectar transported him home with nostalgia: The coffee trees, the plantations, and his adoptive white parents, Robert and Francoise Martin. They were so proud of his journey. In four short years, he drove a yellow Chevrolet Caprice Classic, the quintessential cab of the nineties, put himself through school, and successfully graduated. On the Windy City's South Side, grass grew through the cracks of abandoned McDonalds and empty churches, but Djambo never let the surrounding landscape obscure the brightness of his hopes. Now that Y2K was behind, it looked like clear sailing in the financial markets. He flicked on the bulky computer screen to scan the overnight world market quotations, and began reading the morning news. The entire eightieth floor was empty. Cool, Spartan, dominating the city, it was an ivory tower; a bunker of some sort, where white shirts, ties, suits, and trading tickets would soon buzz around during the frenzy of the 9:30 am opening. Djambo loved this time of year. It was a pure, blue, early fall morning, with cool air already. The city's humidity evaporated into the heavens without leaving a trace. Coffee, in America, is a religion, a comforting ritual. Without it, mornings are meaningless. He closed his eyes for a second time, grabbed the cup gently, inhaled it all in his deep lungs, and thought about Felicia whom he had left in Chicago. When he opened them again, a 767 jumbo jet flying at five hundred miles per hour, carrying eighty one passengers, a crew of eleven, and ten thousand gallons of kerosene in its belly was coming straight at him. It was closing in fast on the other side of the bay window. It was exactly 8:46 a.m. in New York that morning. The impact did not register in his mind. It was that quick. Instinct took over his body and his limbs reacted automatically. When charged by a herd of Cape Buffalos a decade before in the presence of Robert Martin, far, very far from that cool New York morning, he had plunged to the ground in the same manner. The feeling was identical: Death had arrived. It did not come from nature this time, but in the cigar shape of a terrifying man made flying machine. The wing decapitated the entire office: Fax machines, computers, water cups, and millions of pieces of paper were flying around him like confetti. Djambo coiled under his desk. Everything had turned black around him, and he immediately ripped off his business shirt. The heat emanating from the floor below briefly rose to a thousand degrees, and it must have been well over a hundred in his now completely demolished office. It had transformed into a war zone. It looked like the presidential palace in his native Ivory Coast after being looted by the revolutionaries. He was coughing, gasping for air. The windows were pulverized and the sixty-eight Fahrenheit breeze was mixing with the ashes, lighting up fires everywhere. Djambo crawled to the entrance of the darkened trading room. Six instantly carbonated bodies were lying outside of the elevators from which black smoke was slowly puffing out. He retreated back in, around the reception area. There was a pool of blood, scattered limbs, where young Molly Parks greeted him with a smile at 8:30 am every morning. He had absolutely no idea of what had just happened. Nothing came to his mind, except that he was there, at that moment, and alive. He wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. The trading room was no sanctuary. It had erupted into an orange ball of fire and begun to melt. Djambo crawled down the hallway to his left, but an entire wall had collapsed, obstructing it right in the middle. Daylight appeared from a small office on his right. He looked behind him; smoke was already swirling his way. He threw himself into the room, and kicked the door behind him. "HELP!" He yelled. Debris accumulated all the way to the ceiling; Burnt paper, chairs, metal, wood, plastic had piled up as if an entire Office Depot had suddenly compressed it all, getting it ready for a landfill. "Climb over the wall." A man's voice said from the other side. Djambo looked up: There was a small opening at the very top, rough, edgy, with metal pieces erect like barb wire. All he saw was a hand, and he coiled his legs. Speed was his forte, but he was not a weight lifter. He briefly felt the top of the drywall under his fingers and slid back down on the debris. He took a deep breath, jumped again, reached the top, hung on to it, and the man managed to pull him down on the other side. Djambo hugged him. They both quietly began crying. He kissed the stranger, and sobbed like a baby. Three thousand people from more than one hundred countries died that day. The choice for those trapped on the floors above his was between asphyxia and jumping out of a window. How long did it take them to rush down eighty-four stories in a dark stairwell, unable to breathe? Another man, tens of thousands of miles away, with his own beliefs and illusions thought he was a new prophet, a messenger of God. He had masterminded it. That night, millions around the world celebrated the one-day, man-made apocalypse in America. It had been meticulously prepared, pre-meditated, articulated, sliced, diced, and masterfully executed. Once on Liberty Street, Djambo immediately thought about Felicia. She was the love of his life. He had no one else but her. In the chaos that ensued, he ran for his life, fast, leaving both towers crumbling behind him. Felicia was in Chicago that morning. She was twenty-three, about to finish her thesis in theology at the University of Chicago where they had met the summer before. When she saw the towers collapse on television, she immediately realized Djambo worked in one of them. She sobbed alone in the faculty bathroom for a moment and managed to walk home in a daze. She called again, from their cozy one-bedroom in Hyde Park. But he did not answer. She tried her parents in Wisconsin: "Oh my God! Oh my God! Mom! Mom! My baby is in there! He works there!" "Felicia, stay calm. This is a terrorist attack." "I know that, Mom! I haven't heard from him." "You have to give it some time honey. Stay calm." "Mom! I love him." She curled into a fetus position on the sofa, phone in hand, and cried liked an abandoned child. Hours went by, with the same confusion, television footage, and repetitive clueless commentary. Djambo no longer had his cell phone with him. What he said did not matter when he called her at 4 pm from a lonely booth in New Jersey to tell her he was alive. Felicia cried more than she ever did. "Do you believe in miracles?" she asked once he was home. "I do, baby, I do. This is a miracle from God," he said. "I don't know. I don't know if there is a God. Lots of innocent people have perished in those towers." "It's hard to wrap my head around it, baby. That man, that dark stairwell..." "Do you believe in me?" Felicia asked. "That's all I believe in, sweetie. Without you, the idea of you, I wouldn't be here now." "I didn't think of it this way." She said. "That's how I feel." "What does it mean for us?" "It means..." and he paused, tears were coming to his eyes: "You know, we believe in those things in Africa, the things of the spirit. It means there is a greater force out there; a force of goodness, a force...stronger than us, wanting us to be together." Silence invaded their small apartment. They could hear sirens far away. Heat had risen, and their flat had no air conditioning. It was late summer and not autumn yet. Cold water in the white ceramic bathtub was their only relief. Felicia turned on the rusty faucets. She heard the neighbors making love upstairs, already, that early in the afternoon. The both of them were soon in the tub, and Felicia began caressing Djambo's long and tender penis. It emerged in the silence, now and then, through the white foam, and grew thicker, electrified by his fiancée's hands. Year of The Cheetah Ch. 01 Francoise felt it, like a cold current, a cold breeze slicing through the entire villa the day her husband passed away. After the funeral of the white patriarch in Abidjan, and the crowd sweating under their suits and ties, she perused the entire photo library Robert had meticulously compiled over five decades of their life in the Ivory Coast. "I will always be there for you now, Maman." Djambo promised. Francoise looked up into his eyes. She remembered how, at the beginning, she hadn't been too keen on her husband bringing young Djambo into their life: Her life. In her mid-thirties, when Robert Martin was an expat, she felt lonely at first, missing home, France, and the fun of 1960's Paris. Then she began enjoying her quiet solitude, discovering her own sensuality for the first time in her life. She particularly enjoyed the company of younger men as long as they were over eighteen. Djambo's arrival at the villa changed everything, and she no longer had the delicious privacy of her afternoons. She became a mother again, and the logistics of loving became too complicated. So she vowed chastity, renewed faithfulness to her husband, and began raising Djambo as her own child. Now, in the ornate living room in Chatou, looking at her, Djambo remembered too. She had been a wonderful stepmother, helping him with the intricacies of mathematics and science in High School. In the absence of Papa Robert she became his confident when it came to the things of love. He confided to her about his romances at school, his timidity with girls, and his adolescent natural shyness. Girls scared him at the beginning. They were such a mystery. He was attracted to them, but feared them at the same time. "It's natural" Francoise had said; "It's your age." "I wish I weren't so afraid of speaking with them, inviting them to dance, Mom." "You won't be. A day will come and you will meet a nice girl. Let love come to you, you're so young. The world belongs to you. You shouldn't be so worried, so curious." But he was curious. It was stronger than him, universal. The romantic current that brings men and women together started young, always. Djambo felt it with the first vibrations of his heart, and it stayed with him for the rest of his life. Francoise knew he would be fine. As long as he was heterosexual, all would be fine with her. She was reassured about it when she felt his presence watch her sunbathe in the nude. Under the sun, heating the inside of her thighs until it burned sometimes, she occasionally overheard a step, a movement, behind the thick bougainvillea bushes surrounding the pool. The thought alone that it could be him, her little Djambo, her adopted native son, flattered her. His voice had been muting. He was becoming a man. Djambo turned eighteen at the beginning of Junior High but he was still a virgin. With his stepfather, he only discussed the things of nature, hunting, politics, the things of the world, but never women. Robert Martin had a certain catholic modesty about him that made him almost a puritan when it came to sexuality. His wife Francoise came from the same vein, from the Loire Valley, but life in Africa had changed her and she became more daring in her thirties. That early fall in Junior High, he was turned down by a girl at a dance party. It occurred at one of the expats home one afternoon, and Djambo felt rejected and lonely. It was the end of the rain season and extremely hot outside. Francoise saw it in his eyes, the sadness of youth, and found her own loneliness in them. They were in the villa's kitchen, drinking Coca Cola with lemon to cool off, and he wanted to confess his attraction for her, but he couldn't. Francoise knew; she felt it. She gave him a little kiss on the lips and kept him snug against her. Djambo was already much taller than her. She climbed on the ceramic kitchen counter to reach his height. Swiftly, she bounced up on it and was facing him, while he stood still next to the refrigerator. He had kissed some French girls at school, but those early attempts were hidden, quick, and never prolonged or sensual. Francoise knew that too. She gently caressed his neck with her left hand, kissed him more, and offered him her wet and expert tongue, very slowly. He let go of the refrigerator door, which plunged the both of them in the sweltering shade of the kitchen. Robert was away at an embassy cocktail and wouldn't be back until very late. They had all the time in the world. Djambo could feel Francoise heels bouncing nonchalantly in the back of his thighs, her hands, up and down his bare back, and her tongue showing him, the cheetah, how to kiss a woman. With his both his thumbs, he hesitated first, and then found the vicious hardness of both her nipples under her thin shirt. Francoise smiled. She temporarily abandoned her caress to lift up her generous breasts, and offer their wide brown areolas to her son. "Doucement," she said. "Suck them softly." His tongue reached out to his stepmother's extended nipple for the first time in his life. Francoise closed her eyes, pushed her ravishing extremities closer to him, and began enjoying the moment. She hadn't had a man in ten years, ever since Djambo had moved in. Robert had neglected her. Suddenly, at almost forty, with her eighteen-year old stepson, she was re-becoming a woman. She was shy and hesitant too at first, but in the glistening evening heat they were soon entirely nude, locked, and trapped in the promiscuity of the tiny kitchen. Djambo was afraid to go further. He was learning to lick the long nipples slowly, and occasionally it made a little sound on the finish. The slight pinch at their end gave Francoise a cosmic urge to capture him. She did not want to let the opportunity elude as it had so many times before. She lifted her right thigh and pushed him down so that he could discover more of her femininity. Djambo quickly found the scent of his mother's opulent black forest. It was delightful, abundant, secretive, and yet unique in the fragile pink oasis it harbored at its very center. She enjoyed her young man's scent as well; His sweat, his strong body odor, and the obedient up and down movement of his dedicated tongue. He looked up at her brown eyes, now wide open, seeking more. She noticed his ferocious erection. She had never seen him in that state. It was all for her, only for her now. It needed no attention from her mouth. It stood as if it had waited years for that moment. She gently caressed his chocolate softness, brought it up close to her, and slid back further to the wall behind the cool tile counter. Now they were both looking at it: The powerful young cock she was holding, beating it very hard against her moist pubic hair, searching for her lips, was giving her devastating waves of pleasure every time she found them with it. Djambo joined his hands behind his back as to show respect to his stepmother, and let her guide their first encounter fully. He too was feeling the streaks and the intensity at each and every impact inside her welcoming lips. But the best hadn't begun yet. Francoise wanted the tip of him to swirl around her clit until she would be completely ready. Djambo's heart was beating violently when he saw the pink thumb of flesh emerge aggressively. He had never seen one before. Francoise looked deep into his eyes and kissed him again to reassure him. Now he realized she had a little penis too. It was not comparable to his, but it seemed to show the same eagerness, the same insatiable untamed curiosity. Francoise's heart was beating just as fast as his. She opened her mouth and was breathing through it, straight into Djambo's chest. Now both tips, hers and his, were conjugating their passion by brushing each other under her firm hand. She could see his cream already oozing under his savage impatience. She allowed Djambo's head to explore further in the sweetness of her wider lips. She felt him, wide, powerful, profound, dedicated, obedient, and hungry. She welcomed his first thrust, and seemed surprised at how deep he penetrated her. Djambo saw himself disappear into Francoise and his instinct took over. He mimicked the young women of his village, rotating their hips, and he began pushing forward and pulling back, with rhythm, like a dance. Francoise was sweating and screaming. "Oh Djambo! My little Djambo! My darling, you've grown so strong!" "I love you Mom." He said, and he meant it. "Please not yet. Please not yet. Please continue." Djambo could feel the world, the stars, the cosmos, scintillating inside his entire being, but he abided by Francoise's request. She always gave the orders at the house, and he followed them. She had the power. "Let me move son, stay where you are." She turned around on the ceramic counter. Now Djambo had a full view of her imposing behind, with the abundant black jungle growing outwards, already seeking his menacing somber circumference. He beat on it again, from behind this time. Violently, his cock was slapping her humidity, bringing out wetter squeaks and screams from Francoise. "Take me now. Don't wait any more. Take me, son." Francoise asked, holding on to the rusted plumbing tube running along the wall. He penetrated his stepmother with vigor, and particularly savored the contrast of his fully stretched skin coming out in unison with her pink lips every time. It was equally gratifying for Francoise. She could no longer see his face. She impaled herself on him violently, and immediately ejaculated. She had never screamed this much in her life. She was hanging to the steel tube, vibrating, matching the clinging metallic sounds with the relentless cadence, yet imposing her will on her young buck all the while. Their secret would last his entire senior year in every room of the villa. Now, thirty years later, she was saying good-bye to him again as he disappeared in the winter night of Chatou.