Disney Dads I'd Like to 🍆

I'm writing this to cheer myself up, like a perv

I’m so happy to see you! How to Build a Life is a newsletter by me, bestselling author of 12 (!!) books Laura Jane Williams, going out to thousands of readers bang in the thick of life’s mess and mayhem… who are still trying to find the magic. I’m almost 40, a solo parent by choice, decorate my house like a tart’s boudoir, and lift very heavy weights. Those four things are my entire personality. Oh! And so is my new writing course for 2025! Get involved! Anyway. I really love writing to you here. Hi.

Let the record state that I am an equal-opportunist Disney Dad Shagger, and as such these are presented in no particular order:

Chief Benja

You get a part-time job at the premier greengrocers of Kumandra’s Heart Land, because your interpretative dance troupe are low on bookings lately and your sister happens to own it. She has you on deliveries - she can’t do them just now, as she’s in her third trimester and lugging sacks of potatoes and boxes of romanesco cabbage isn’t within her current realm of physical ability.

You enjoy the ease of it, this delivery job, get to see some new places and satisfy your curiosity of the palace when you head there every morning - through the tradesman entrance around the back, but still, to breathe palace air!! At least you’re getting a story out of this!!

One morning, when you’re running late, your sister’s coded questions about what you’re actually doing with your life ringing in your ears as you concoct clever ripostes that come twenty minutes after the fact, you don’t realise you mis-stacked the yardlong beans and Jerusalem artichokes until poof, they’re pooled around your feet along with your dreams.

A handsome chef appears to help you.

There’s tears of frustration, of low self-esteem, of hopelessness in your eyes, but they clear as you take him in: deep brown eyes, facial hair, a top-knot, sure, but then you can’t have everything. His biceps have biceps, bulging mounds begging for attention from under the smooth turquoise silk of his sleeveless shirt. His smile is wide, his teeth straight and white, his lips full.

Let me help you, he says, and you mutter something about being a mess, a klutz, and when he hands you a stray black radish your fingers brush, you pull away, shocked by the intensity of it, embarrassed, even, because your sister is right, what are you doing with your life? But looking at him, this man, the way he is is looking at you, too, something settles in your chest.

You find yourself hoping he’ll be around tomorrow as you beg your leave, and he is. It’s the same the day after, and the day after, until eventually he asks to show you the gardens and you suppose you can steal ten minutes, fine, but only ten, your sister will kill you otherwise! People bow to him as they pass, your new friend Benja putting a hand to his heart and receiving the gesture lightly. You joke that it’s like he’s the king or something. He says he is. What! you cry. No, wait, are you serious? He says yes, you ask why he never thought to mention it, he says because it’s the least interesting thing about him.

You make love that afternoon in his chambers, the rest of the deliveries be damned, and it is slow and deliberate and it turns out the guy is really into eye contact. He’s hung like a horse. He knows his way around the clitoris. It is perfect. But on the way home you get a call about a booking over the Dragon River in Fang. You have to leave tonight - there’s the chance of a residency, the whole dance troupe is counting on you! You go, you need the money, but you think of Benja often.

Does he think of you too, you wonder?