Hubby's willy looks like a pelican!
Jane and Dave with their son Teddy
Monday 27th October 2008
We all know how much men love fiddling with their bits. What's different about my man is, he's made a career of it. I first met David 'Friendy' Friend, 39, in a club in May 1995. He seemed like a nice, normal bloke. But after we'd finished chatting, my mate saw him handing out business cards to other women.
'Apparently, he's a male stripper!' she whispered.
'I'm not a stripper,' Friendy grinned, when I asked him later on. 'But I do perform naked.'
He handed me a business card that read Dicque Tricques, and explained he had a talent for stretching and folding his willy into unusual shapes. Maybe that would have put you off, but I thought it was hilarious. We soon became a couple, but, thankfully, he kept his 'tricks' out of the bedroom! I first saw him perform a few weeks later, at the launch party of a local radio station. When he appeared on stage, starkers, my eyes went straight to his todger, along with everyone else's. But I didn't feel jealous or embarrassed. In fact, after the initial shock, I started to relax and enjoy myself.
I was amazed by the variety of things his 'friend' could do. There was the wristwatch, where he flattened his willy and wrapped it over his wrist, the Eiffel Tower, the pelican…I was in fits of giggles. But then…
'This trick is called the cocktail,' Friendy said from the stage.
Men winced as he manipulated his scrotum into a cup shape.
'Come here,' he said, calling one lady from the crowd.
He took her drink from her and poured some in his 'cup'.
'Take a sip,' he said cheekily.
And she lowered her face towards my bloke's bits!
Well, I wasn't having that.
'Oh no, you don't!' I said, racing on to the stage, handing the girl a straw.
Some things were out of bounds! The next day, he bought a packet of straws, and promised to use them from now on. Friendy was booked solid for hen nights. But I trusted him.
The only downside was worrying that he might do himself a mischief.
'I've only hurt myself once,' he said. 'I burst a blood vessel in my penis.'
Ouch! Fortunately it had cleared up after half-an-hour and he reassured me he 'warmed up' thoroughly, rolling his willy between his hands like he was trying to start a fire.
It was hard to explain Friendy's job to people, though.
'What does Friendy do for a living?' my mum, Sue Rainey, now 63, asked when we first met.
I told her the truth, but explained that what he did wasn't sexual or seedy, more silly. And I must have done a good job, because Mum ended up booking him for a ladies' night at her squash club!I know it sounds weird, letting your mum see your bloke's willy. But that just goes to show how non-sexual Friendy's act is.
'What a hoot,' Mum said afterwards, wiping away tears of laughter.
And she wasn't the only one who thought so. In December 1997, Friendy had just finished a show in a pub, when the barman came over.
'My name's Simon Morley,' he said. 'I do tricks like that, too.'
By the end of the night, they'd decided to form a double act, named Puppetry of the Penis.
'We'll book a theatre every Sunday for two months,' Friendy told me.
They even hired a cameraman, so he could zoom in and show their equipment on a big screen.
'That way, the audience will be able to get a good view,' he explained.
Of course, I got roped in, working on the door and taking tickets. Every night, the audience would be crying with laughter and, by July 1998, they were off on an eight-month tour.
I was tied to my job behind the scenes at a TV station, so I couldn't just pack up and go with him. But I wasn't worried Friendy would stray. He might be naked with hundreds of women, but it was definitely look but don't touch!
'I'm so glad you're back!' I told him, when they finally got home.
I'd missed him terribly. But…
'The show was a sellout,' he grinned. 'Now we're going to perform at the Edinburgh Festival.'
Great.
He'd only just got back and now he was heading 10,000 miles away from our home in Melbourne, Australia.
Taking his willy on tour? Who did he think he was, a rock star? In June 2000, I grumpily waved him off at the airport. You'll see, I thought. You'll come home when they don't get the joke. But when Friendy called two weeks later, they weren't a flop. Far from it.
'We've met a theatre producer,' he babbled. 'They want to put the show on in London's West End!'
'Congratulations!' I gasped.
But then my heart sank. 'You're not coming home then?'
Happy as I was for him, we'd been together five years and should have been thinking about settling down, not living on different continents.
'I'm not,' he said. 'You're coming here!'
He and Simon had been paid an advance and he'd use it to buy my ticket to London. I thought about it for all of 30 seconds before accepting, and within weeks, I'd packed in my job and flown to London. But I had a shock in store. I was used to seeing Friendy perform for 50 or so people. The Whitehall Theatre seated 800. Plus, the show now included fancy pyrotechnics and a live pianist. They did a five-month stint at the theatre, and by the time it came to an end, in January 2001, I couldn't have cared less about Friendy settling down with a boring 9-5 job.
So when he announced he was taking the show on the road round the UK, I decided to get in on the act, as a stage manager. Since then, we've taken Puppetry of the Penis round the world, performing everywhere from the US and Canada, to Spain, Germany, France, picking up a few comedy awards along the way. Turns out 'genital origami' is an international language! More than 10 million people have seen Friendy's award-winning willy.
We love being on tour and even when I had our son, Teddy, in November 2005, we were back on the road three months later. Heaven knows what tricks his dad will teach him when he's older!
It's been 10 years of Puppetry of the Penis this year, or as the boys cheekily call it, a dickade.
We're going to carry on touring until people get fed up with us. Though, to be honest, with Friendy hitting the big 4-0 this year, who knows how much longer people will want to see him naked. Except me, of course!