AU PAIR

Explicit yet sensitive recounting of her journey from a straight relationship to a lesbian one. (Review by Caroline Smart)

Michele Macfarlane is a happily and fulfilled (she believes) married woman with three lovely children, a comfortable home and supportive parents. However, she suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease. This means that she is no longer able to drive so she employs an au pair (Marizette) to help her get the children to and from school

However, while Marizette is accepted into the family, her husband trusts her and the children adore her, Michele finds that she is becoming more attracted to Marizette every day and the relationship develops to the point where they enter a sexual relationship. This grows in passion and commitment until Michele’s husband moves out, leaving the two women to bring up the children while he gets weekend visiting rights.

Michele relates her sexual relationship in candid and graphic detail but also with much humour. The book is racy and you need to keep reminding yourself that it’s a true story.

It is also important to remember that Michele was abused as a young girl and this coloured her attitude towards sex. Despite having a loving relationship with her husband and having had three children by him, it wasn’t until meeting Marizette that she discovered the explosive enjoyment that a sexual relationship with an experienced lover can bring.

Falling in love with your au pair and then leaving your husband is hectic enough in a straight relationship but, when the “other woman” is a lesbian, a whole different set of issues come into force.

Things get even more complicated when Michele and Marizette decide to get married. Bound by convention - and in Marizette’s case, coming from a strict Afrikaans Calvinist upbringing - neither of their parents are emotionally or socially prepared for this.

Over the years, Michele remains emotionally loyal to her husband which Marizette finds difficult to accept. Michele undertakes a further emotional process when she agrees to a counsellor’s suggestion to meet with her abuser (a member of the family) face to face. Accompanied by her parents and her brother, she endures this process. However, this does not provide the closure she desperately seeks. It is only her initial sexual awakening through Marizette’s skilful lovemaking that makes her finally feel a woman.

Macfarlane uses her email messages to a friend in the UK to add a different focus to the text, said friend also being in the same situation as Michele found herself at the beginning of her story – married but in a gay relationship.

With its clever double-meaning title, Au Pair provides a rare insight into lesbian relationships. It also charts a highly emotional journey as one woman comes to terms with who she really is.

Au Pair is published by Jacana – ISBN 978-1-7700009-908-1 – Caroline Smart