Barack Obama’s Australian lover

SCANDAL of the week! Well, maybe not a scandal, but the best piece of salacious gossip of the week has to go to the Vanity Fair article that alleges US President Barack Obama had a two year sexual relationship with an Australian woman in the early eighties.

In 1983 when Obama was 22 and just out of law school, he met Genevieve Cook (25) the daughter of an Australian diplomat living in New York. Ms Cook kept a diary of their affair, excerpts of which have now been published by the popular magazine under the article,  The Story by David Maraniss.

In the article Ms Cook describes their first date: ”I’m pretty sure we had dinner maybe the Wednesday. I think maybe he cooked me dinner. Then we went and talked in his bedroom. And then I spent the night. It all felt very inevitable.”

Then she talks about Obama’s aroma: ”I open the door, that Barack keeps closed, to his room, and enter into a warm, private space pervaded by a mixture of smells that so strongly speak of his presence, his liveliness, his habits – running sweat, Brut spray deodorant, smoking, eating raisins, sleeping, breathing.”

She’s candid about being wary of the now US President: ”The sexual warmth is definitely there – but the rest of it has sharp edges and I’m finding it all unsettling and finding myself wanting to withdraw from it all. I have to admit that I am feeling anger at him for some reason, multi-stranded reasons. His warmth can be deceptive. Tho he speaks sweet words and can be open and trusting, there is also that coolness.”

Unfortunately for the then assistant Aussie teacher in New York, it all came to an end.  ”Barack leaving my life – at least as far as being lovers goes … In the same way that the relationship was founded on calculated boundaries and carefully, rationally considered developments, it seems to be ending along coolly considered lines … Obviously I was not the person that brought infatuation. (That lithe, bubbly, strong black lady is waiting somewhere!)”