The narrator in this story suffers from ADHD-I and Autism. Hopefully, this will give my readers a small taste of what it is like to suffer from a pair of 'Social Emotional Disorders'.
The Autism Spectrum is vast and encompasses several categories of issues, each ranging greatly in severity from "low functioning" (functionally crippling) to "high functioning" (mildly affected). The MC is "high functioning".
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder-(Predominantly Inattention Type), previously known as Attention Deficit Disorder, is characterized by difficulty paying attention-especially to details, difficulty following directions, forgetfulness, misplacing items, and problems staying organized.
By bringing up the issues of Social/ Emotional Disorders, I'm hoping it will prompt you to learn more about them. By doing so, I hope you can learn tolerance of those different than you, be it from disability, illness, race, country of origin, economic status, religion, political slant, education, and yes, even how attractive you are. None of those things, by themselves, are reasons to hate someone. We are all people: BE NICE TO EACHOTHER. The world will be a better place.
Thank you for reading all of the above ... Now that you know why the main character is the way he is, understand that this story has almost 36k word count. "Au Pair" contains plenty of sex, but most of it is near the end. That said, it is more about the MC coming to terms with his wife's sudden discovery that she's a cuckquean and her desire to form a FMF thruple.
Please note: the secondary stories referenced in Au Pair are only posted on this site or are being worked on for future posting. None are available for purchase.
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Au Pair.
A novella, by R.C.PeterGabriel, all rights reserved.
My wife and I had life all planned out, but it changed with one simple choice.
Of course, we had no idea how dramatically a baby would alter things. We both wanted a child, and neither cared whether it was a boy or a girl. Being healthy was the only thing that mattered. But having a son wasn't what turned our lives upside down.
I'm sure that I was the main instigator for our life altering decision, although the choice was made together. The discussion leading up to it had been ongoing since before Alexander was born. My writing carrier had started to take off and I wanted a PA.
My wife Sadie, being the practical one, realized that while I was making some money, I was only earning half of her salary as a nurse anesthetist. She was only in her first year of practice but was already pulling down 175k.
So, unless I managed a best seller, which wasn't likely with a three month old to take care of, her opinion was for me to shelf my books so to speak until the little one entered school. In other words, she wanted me to become a house husband. I didn't like that idea at all. Not the 'house husband' part, the 'not writing' part.
Being the dreamer in the relationship, I couldn't understand why things wouldn't simply continue as forecasted. After all, life should always work out as planned. Isn't that the way the world works? So why couldn't I keep working, hire my PA, 'AND' raise my son?
It didn't take long to realize that my dreams and how reality was working out, weren't the same thing. It quickly became apparent that I couldn't handle our son by myself. I was having enough trouble caring for him with my wife's help. With less than a week of her maternity leave remaining I was beginning to feel ... let's call it 'stressed'.
It's not that I don't want to help raise my boy, I'm just acutely aware of my limited capacity for noise and frustration. Attention Deficit with a hint of Autism will do that to you. According to my wife, and my publisher, I have no trouble articulating the scenes in my books. I just need someone to keep me focused and to point out all of the social cues I keep missing in the real world.
My characters seem to understand each other just fine but I'm told I miss a lot of things others understand intuitively. That being the case, when we met, my wife Sadie could tell that I liked her, while she needed a more direct approach to inform me that the feelings were mutual.
Anyway, as far as a PA goes, it isn't that we couldn't afford to hire one, assuming that I kept writing. But I couldn't keep writing if I was taking care of Alexander. If you aren't aware, babies are distracting, and noisy, and smelly, even if they are cute and simply amazing little miracles.
Both sides of the debate were helped along by my working from home. I had already been doing the work of a house husband minus the child care. But once Alex arrived, things changed. Even without my writing and Sadie being off work, she noticed our house was beginning to become cluttered. With the extra laundry, dishes and parental fatigue, the other chores were piling up. She agreed I was going to need help regardless of whether I continued writing or not.
At first she suggested we hire a maid to help out. Although that wasn't a bad Idea, I thought it lacked imagination. "Babe, we have plenty of room. How about we get a live-in, you know, someone that can take care of Alex and help do chores. What do you call those?"
She smiled. "For someone that spends all day doing research for your novels, you don't remember much do you? I think 'nanny' is the word that you're looking for."
"No, nannies don't do chores. The word I'm looking for is French. And my memory was why you encouraged me to keep a note pad nearby. You've always known I make money writing, not remembering."
"If you could make money forgetting things, we'd be billionaires," was her playful response.
"Funny," I mumbled while pulling out my phone. A few moments later I declared, "Au Pair. That's what we need."
"What's that?"
"An 'Au Pair', is a combination maid and nanny. They become more like a family member, sharing chores and responsibilities, in exchange for room, board and a stipend. Most of them are college students from other countries. It's a way for them to experience different cultures and places they wouldn't ever get to see otherwise."
"And where exactly are we going to find an Au Pair in four days? I'm not letting someone live here that hasn't undergone a background check and doesn't know how to take care of a baby."
"Leave that to me," I replied as I left my bride to finish nursing our son.
I made my way to my office knowing that I already had six possibilities to interview. My desire for a PA had led me to call my alma mater's English Department. I had graduated three years back but kept my professors email addresses. It was also conveniently located in our town. That led me to almost forty candidates that responded to my job board inquiry.
I ignored the dozen plus guys wanting the job. Although a male PA would be fine for some people, just not me. I didn't have a need to bounce ideas off of a male brain. Part of my need involved a female perspective. Let's just say that most of my stories are too ... intimate, to sell at Walmart. That and from what I'm told, women are more socially observant then men.
The majority of the remaining candidates couldn't tell me the difference between a determiner and an interjection. That left me six that I did background checks on.
I'd written a story about a stalker once and had researched available hardware and software that could help my hero in that regard. And being a bit of a 'method' writer, I bought all of the tools needed to become a stalker myself. Of course Sadie teased me for weeks about the purchases, wanting to know why I didn't just watch porn like a normal person.
No, I didn't use the software, mics, or cameras to actually stalk someone, but like how a mystery writer researches different ways to kill people, I researched how to stalk people. Anyway, I know more about my six candidates than their mothers, bankers and priests do. Although, I have to admit that there is a big difference between knowing a person's spending habits, social posts, and web searches, then it is to know that person's true inner self. I should know, Sadie had been the only person, besides my parents who knew what lies behind my mask. Fortunately, my story didn't require me to actually stalk someone. And I didn't have the time, nor the mental instability needed to stalk anyone anyway.
So, I had planned on interviewing the six candidates for the PA position, but that wasn't going to happen. At least not in the form I wanted. I called each one, explaining the new job description and living arrangements. I got a little worried when two dropped out at the first mention of caring for Alex. Two others were completely lacking in any form of childcare experience.
That left only two possibilities out of the original thirty nine responders. Both had come from large families, had cared for younger siblings, and had other babysitting experience outside the home.
After discussing it with Sadie, I set up interviews for the following two afternoons. They were for thirty minutes before Alex was usually fed and put down for his afternoon nap. It would give us a chance to see if Alex responded to either woman as well as giving us a chance to observe them.
I spent the rest of the day getting the house ready for inspection, including making sure the room across from the nursery had fresh linen and the guest bathroom was spotless.
Emily arrived five minutes before her appointment, wearing a power suit and office heels, her hair was up and nails polished. Her smile was white and lipstick pink. She was quick to point out her newly updated resume. It had been completely rewritten compared to the emailed version. The new one emphasized her childcare experience, while only slightly downplaying her ongoing literary education. She made eye contact and concentrated her answers on whomever asked the question. In other words she interviewed very professionally.
Unfortunately she made no attempt to take Alexander from Sadie until prompted. We had her feed, change and put him in his crib, which she did with mechanical proficiency. Once Alex was down we showed her around the house and asked if she had questions of her own.
Since we had already assured her she would be free to attend class, she wanted to know how much time would be left for her to work with me. I explained that it would depend on Alex's needs and other unpredictable scenarios. She thanked us for our time and explained that she would be looking forward to working for us.
The next day, Madison arrived one minute late, wearing a tee shirt featuring our alma mater, jeans and runners. Her hair was long but styled in a thick braid, and she made no mention of an alternate resume. Her nails were trimmed but not polished and she wore no makeup that I could discern. Not that she needed any.
While I had seen pictures of her, seeing her in person left me stunned for a moment. Fortunately, both Madison and Sadie were ignoring me as they made over Alex. It was several minutes before Madison apologized for failing to include me, but I was fine with it. It gave me time to close my mouth.
