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Thanks to my gifted grandson Jonathan van Butzelaar who did the cover illustration.
Any resemblance to any persons
living or dead is coincidental.
Chapter 1
Introduction
Was it because he was the Gingerbread Man that one couldn’t catch him- But why would anyone want to catch him? Was he handsome? Was he sexy? Not exactly. Sometimes he had a beard, sometimes not. He said that he had a beard when he wanted to hide. From whom? From all those women that were running after him. How about the men? It seems that he was only a Gingerbread can’t catch me man for women. He liked being caught by men, so this story is about his adventures with the opposite sex. We know very little about that part of his life that dealt with his own sex, so we have not written very much about that here.
The Gingerbread Man had kept up the long hair fashion of the 70’s, when he was young and his running days began. His hair was long all round with a small bald patch on top. Most unfortunate, especially that as the years went on, his hair style did not change but the bald patch grew, it grew larger and larger but did not make him look any less attractive because his charm made his faults invisible. Once he was conscious of the tremendous advantages of his charm, he began using it quite early in his career. His early years are a bit misty, he never talked much about them. Besides waiting at tables, he went to university and worked at KFC.
I forgot to mention his twinkly blue eyes. All those he charmed mention the twinkly blue eyes that accompanied his smile. No one mentions his shapely legs. These days shapely legs are not in fashion. It’s bottoms all round. Bottoms are often mentioned and are regarded as the most important part of a man’s anatomy. This is unfortunate, because once upon a time legs were IN. What about Betty Grable and the Second World War? Would we have won the war without her legs in every soldier’s locker room, to encourage him to fight and not only for liberty? What about Henry V111 and his famous jousting legs. No one looked at Henry’s bottom then. In any case looking at someone’s bottom when jousting on a horse would have required considerable effort. Henry was regarded as a handsome figure of a man, not because of his bottom, but because of his legs. Unfortunately, our Gingerbread Man was born four hundred years too late. So, he must rely on his charm and his twinkly eyes, every day of the week except Sundays. As will be noted later, Sundays he reserved for his special person of the moment. Then he would put on his shorts (he was not unaware of his shapely legs) and go tramping around the countryside with his legs and special person. I hope this is enough to bowl you over, if it did, you are by no means alone.
That is all mundane and uninteresting stuff, but what about sex? Great legs and twinkly eyes, no matter how blue do not make up for the real thing – surely, he was not always chaste? The story of his early sex life is more or less as follows. The reason it is less rather than more is because the information was obtained during a conversation about something else, namely could a man be raped? The rather innocent university girl with a limited imagination (obviously only recently come out from a convent boarding school) said a man could definitely not be raped. Well, said our Gingerbread man, I once had to run away from a man in a car and you are wrong. That was all he said so did something happen or did the fiddling about in the car fail? There was also another girl during his years at university who had not gone to a convent and was rather more conversant with sex than the first one. This was his first experience and he remarked once it was all over, he went and sat on the roof of the university residence and thought to himself, that was easy, I can do this anytime I want to. An odd comment. Why would he doubt that he could do this any time he wanted to? This is the first indication that all is not what it seems. That is all we know of his early encounters with sex. Although the above information is not a part of his later adventures and can hardly be regarded as “racy” (unless you had just left a convent boarding school) it had to be included because in this tale, chaste at no time meant impotent.
His first conquest was the daughter of a wealthy Italian building contractor in Perth. He himself came from a lower class of gingerbread whose origins he kept to himself, all we do know is his parents did not think it necessary for a Gingerbread man to be given a watch so how they thought he could tell what the time was we can’t imagine. Sometimes he would boast of his lonely French godmother, smelling as she did, of Chanel No.5, whom he visited in Paris. The size of the Eiffel Tower he found impress but does not enlighten his listeners with additional information. What about the Louvre? What about Versailles? What about telling us how he got such an upper crust godmother when his parents couldn’t even buy him a watch? On his father’s side he came from good convict stock, of course – did I mention this story is set in Australia? Well, it is and in Australia coming from convict stock adds a touch of not exactly class, but interesting antecedents. An additional touch was the great-grandfather who bravely fought at Gallipoli. He had neither convict, Gallipoli nor French connections. But his stories still stirred the heart, he was so adroit at telling them, which he did, now and then, when his charm needed a bit of a hands-up, so to speak.
Chapter 2
Perth- South of the River
Our Gingerbread Man had quite definite ideas of what qualities he needed in his wife. The most important was that she had to be gay. The wealthy Italian contractor’s good- looking daughter fitted the bill. Her name was Maria, with dark eyes, dark hair and a suspicious disposition. An additional plus was that the family were Catholics. He had for some years fancied Catholicism, a religion where no would cast any aspersions on your sex life if you were a priest, or so he then thought. It also didn’t hurt that the Italian contractor’s signs were all over the building sites of Cockburn, a suburb south of the city of Perth, reiterating the importance of his catch. The family Cottesloe residence was also a plus as was their holiday cottage at Margaret River (a double storey with a lift for the grandparents who are no longer as young as they used to be). He becomes engaged to Maria, despite the dark looks directed at him from her now and then. What happened next was unexpected. She stayed by his side for a couple of months and then became skittish and -she ran away from him! To Hong Kong! Perhaps the idea of a gay woman marrying a gay man was not her idea of heaven. He suspected her parents may have had a hand in this as well. After all he was penniless and as we stated, came from a lower class of gingerbread while the prominent property developer, Maria’s father is an important man in the Perth community. From then on, his second criterion for woman to be marriageable material, was that the relatives of any woman he married must live as far away as possible from the happy couple. He has made a mistake but these were early days yet and he has not yet honed his craft.
Chapter 3
Tamworth
So, while still in his twenties he meets up with another gay lady with rich parents. Linda was young, gay and not at all pretty but after the interlude of the Hong Kong runaway, good looks are avoided and never become a part of his agenda again. This time he makes sure the parents will not interfere. Where should they go after the wedding? He rather fancies Tamworth-it has a great music festival and our Gingerbread Man is musical, always interested in choirs and often singing along with his pleasant voice. Linda would go anywhere with him, so it’s settled. Linda buys him a watch. The newly married couple then move to Tamworth in New South Wales, as far away from her Perth relatives as possible. Her parents buy them a house in Tamworth, furnish it, buy them a car and all is ready for the Wisteria to grow over the white picket fence and fragrant old- fashioned roses to bedeck the garden. The picture is complete when they have a lovely little boy whom our Gingerbread Man calls Nicholas. He said he had wanted many more little boys (his second one was to be called Christopher) but it was not to be. No girl’s names were ever mentioned so we are not sure what would have happened had a little girl appeared instead of Nicholas.
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