[GLBT Fairy Tale Week] Kilt Kilpatrick: The Gingerbread Man Speaks
The inimitable Kilt Kilpatrick is the author of “Handsome and Grateful,” which appears in both Bednknobs & Beanstalks and Rumpled Silk Sheets Fairy Tale Anthologies. Read on for why…
I know all good fairy tales hearken back to a long ago, never-never magical past, when things were so much better and the world gloried in a more enchanted time. But I have to admit, I’m delighted and grateful to live in our own time, with its own plentiful store of wonders, heroes and heroines, perils and monsters. After all, I don’t think I could have written a story like “Handsome and Grateful” in any time before our own – it’s a particularly post-modern mash-up of classic Bros. Grimm, Fractured Fairy Tales from the old 60’s Rocky and Bullwinkle show, pop culture references of everything from John Waters and Andy Warhol to Cabaret and Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua, and, well – lots of steamy sex.
Oh, and Udo Kier.
When E.M. Lynley first gave the call for submissions for a sexy m/m fairy tale anthology, I immediately called dibs on Hansel and Gretel. True, in hindsight, it’s not an obvious choice for hot man on man action, but I knew in my twisted little heart a classic story with a magical gingerbread cottage and a child-ivorous witch had loads of potential.
And sure enough, it quickly became obvious that it would have to be a gay AND lesbian story, with a Wicked Witch who of course wants to, ahem, eat Gretel.
But what to do for the male love interest? Naturally, it would have to be a trusty woodsman (insert your own saucy innuendo on the word “woodsman” here). Honestly, I don’t even remember if there was a woodsman in the original tale, but Bros. Grimm stories are lousy with brawny lumberjack-types conveniently passing by anyway, so there were no worries there. I just had to make him a more, um, nuanced (read: horny and morally sketchy) character than the usual deus ex machina who only showed up at the last second to give the Big Bad Wolf the chop.
So I told Em I would upgrade H & G from underage poppets to sexy appropriately-aged young people, avoid any hint of incestuous anything (easy enough, since both would wind up gay anyway) and promised lots of tight lederhosen and big schnitzels. She said “Your mind works in such wonderfully naughty ways,” and we were off!
There were concerns over the issue of dubious consent; Em cautioned me to be careful with that touchy subject, and I duly promised I would behave, all the while already plotting how far I could push that particular envelope. After all, this WAS a fairy tale – bad things always happen to the heroes and heroines. And perv that I am, I get such a charge from the forbidden thrill of innocents being dragged off into lusty orgasmic misadventures against their will. It’s probably a holdover from my repressed Southern Baptist upbringing, but we’d better save discussing that kink for another blog post…
Speaking of celebrity cameos, can you guess who the Wicked Witch is? Here’s a hint by way of a brief snippet from the story:
Hansel and Gretel, famished and exhausted, rushed to the miraculously well-preserved cottage and eagerly began to gobble up exterior fixtures and decorative elements to their heart’s content. So distracted trying to sate their ravenous hunger, the young pair did not notice the pfeffernüsse door open, or see the black clad figure observing the serious property damage they were causing.
“Ahem,” the stranger said, clearing her throat, for it was indeed a her. She was all in black, as I mentioned, sporting a tall, peaked hat with a flat round brim, and a long, slinky dress with an even longer slit up the side, the better to show off her long, slinky legs to good advantage.
She was a handsome woman, her face a beautiful work of art with perfect silky skin, and the high, elegant cheekbones of a countess.
Voluptuous waves of luxuriant golden hair spilled from under her hat and glittered like diamond dust. Her hooded, cat-shaped eyes regarded them with the languorous, dangerous interest of a panther. “You seem rather large to be termites,” she at last remarked in a husky voice. The siblings looked up, startled and ashamed to be caught with their mouths full of candied cottage siding.
Can you guess? Spoiler Alert: If you said Marlene Dietrich, you win! Incidentally, there’s a quick reference to Rita Hayworth later in the story; you get bonus points if you knew that’s because according to venerable Hollywood rumor (and what are they but modern fairy tales, after all?) Rita Hayworth once confessed that she got the best oral sex of her life not from a man, but from Marlene. See how educational these stories are? You’re welcome.
By the way, all that talk about H & G gobbling up the candied decorative elements of the witch’s gingerbread house made me realize how well the story works as food porn, too. There’s not only the gobs of confectionary delights that festoon the enchanted cottage, described in great detail, but a hearty helping of all four of the proper German food groups: Sweet, Sour, Salty and Smoky. Feel free to sit down with a nice schnitzel while you enjoy the story. (I promised myself I would limit myself to no more than three gratuitous Schnitzel references here, so you’re safe now).
Best of all, since it worked so well as both m/m and f/f erotica, it was eligible to appear not only in the gay male fairy tale anthology BEDKNOBS and BEANSTALKS, but in the new lesbian fairy tale anthology RUMPLED SILK SHEETS as well. Woo Hoo! In the immortal words of Steve Martin, “that way you appeal to more people, and that means more… money.” See? Everybody lives happily ever after! The End.
Love,
Kilt
This is true: The Irish start their fairy tales with “Fadó, fadó…” (“Long, long ago…”). This might be true: Legends disagree on whether KILT KILPATRICK is the pen name of a sexy lesbian, a feisty gay man, or some twisted genius of a straight man or woman. This may well be true indeed, or not: All the bards and seanachies do avow that Kilt is a figure of Celtic mythology, can be found in San Francisco (but like the unicorn, only by the pure in heart), speaks all the languages in the world, loves to swordfight, is cursed by a geas to ever be surrounded by cats and zombies, and is mad for a leanan sídhe called Inara Lavey. This may not be true, but if it be not true, ‘tis not me who made it up: Kilt is beloved by all. This is certainly not true: None of the above is true. Find Kilt online at Facebook
3 Responses to “[GLBT Fairy Tale Week] Kilt Kilpatrick: The Gingerbread Man Speaks”
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love your work!!
I’m definitely going with the fact that Kilt is cursed to be surrounded by cats and zombies! You know how much I love you KK. You’re stories are sexy and funny. You write in a way that transports the reader to a new world — I hand on every word! I haven’t read the other stories in the anthology — but I have read Handsome and Grateful and it is fabulous!
Hi Kit,
Actually started at TRS, hit your facebook page and linked to here. I will certainly visit you again. Can’t wait to read Handsome and Grateful. I’ve always loved fairy tales. When I was a child, I spent many an afternoon rewriting them to suit my mood for that day.