Under Purple Sheets

by Coco Houston

  I get up, having to drag myself out of bed sighing and making faces. I can’t be bothered with this up in the morning before ten o’ clock, pish. This was a regular thing here, where hoovers were your alarm call, that with those awful squawking birds. I grab a shower, pulling on a white robe with wet hair, I head downstairs for breakfast. I can’t stomach eating a fried breakfast presently, so I have some fresh fruit with yogurt instead. Being naked under my robe, I stand in the kitchen again in my bare bum, so on making coffee I flash my tits at Brad; he laughs, shaking his head at me. A little later, while Brad is talking away taking his breakfast out the range, I am dancing to the radio holding my robe up in the air this time, showing off my fanny. We both go into hysterics as I just manage to get my robe down in time on hearing Megan coming towards the kitchen.

  “I’ve landed myself with a nutcase,” Brad asserts to his sister on entering the kitchen, to which Megan replies, “I could have fucking told you that, Brad!” oblivious to the fact that Brad was referring to the nonsense of my stupid dancing.

  I now style my hair then apply face moisturiser before applying some light cosmetics. During the daytime I normally just wear a little foundation with mascara, going for a natural look; when night falls and the evening appears, I wear heavier and darker products when going out with Brad, kind of like stage make-up but keeping it classy.

  Brad does appreciate the time and effort I take on looking after myself, he comments on how proud he is of the way I look after my image, which is costly, however he views it as money well spent. He is always buying me expensive gifts, including perfumes, clothes and stunning exclusive underwear (perks of being a mistress!). He never buys shoes though, I used to love owning loads of pairs, but I was put off them as when working I had to dance in high stiletto heels for hours, sometimes horrendous purple glitter ones. He buys me boots instead, I prefer that the ones I have wear a price tag that screams a fortune, but he don’t mind and now I have a rather verifiable collection of them.

  Brad’s wife is fifteen years older than him. He is very embarrassed in going anywhere with her as rather than a couple going out together, many people mistake him for being out with his mother; it certainly doesn’t help matters that she’s so very old-fashioned in her way and dress sense. He told me she never takes care of her image and that she never ever has, also that never in all the years together has he ever heard her sing, besides that she has no personality and very rarely smiles. Brad admits to all that she was never ever anything to look at. Brad likes to think of her, in fact constantly refers to her, as an old crow (The Craw), with me in comparison being a beautiful black swan, both in my stunning elegant looks and with my wild dangerous nature.

  Just as we’re about to leave the house to go to town, Megan gets a phone call. It’s Brad’s wife asking if he is there plus informing Megan to advise Brad that she has packed the rest of his clothes for him. “Aw, well!” Brad states, we all laugh, saves him doing the job; he sarcastically smirks, not given a shit either way. I’m slightly annoyed, however, as she thinks Brad is there on his own as nobody has told her yet I’m with him. Not even Brad. Then again deep down she knows, she is not that stupid surely, woman’s instinct and all that, she must know.

  “Coco, who is making a cunt of who?” He broke into my thoughts, winking at me. “Who cares what she thinks or what she knows, just as long as we both know that I couldn’t get to be with you quick enough (eh! Understatement took him years) and that, Coco, you’re my world. Fuck her and her sour face, she thinks packing my clothes upsets me; I don’t give a toss, I am delighted it gives me more time to spend with you and less time spent in that jail she calls home. I fucking hate being there,” he says with so much passion. I lean over kissing him, smirking with satisfaction, knowing that he was correct.

  We set out for town together to share a special day, which Brad had arranged just for me. We spent a magical time together, which consisted of completing a list of going to all my favourite places and doing what I wanted to do. As a white witch practising a form of magic, I always need different things, like unusual herbs that are sometimes hard to come by. I very much like to go into all the little dark time-gone-by aged curiosity shops that sell magic stones with antiquated enchanting witchcraft spell books which I cannot find in my own home town; therefore, I often therefore have to wait until I am away visiting towns elsewhere that stock what I need, so I can buy all my uncommon ingredients with other stuff to make my special potions and lotions. Besides, they also sell all the colours of the candles that I require for use in all the different kinds of bewitchment sorcery, in which the candles are properly colour-coded for use depending on the spell being made. I also adore cute little old-fashioned coffee shops there that you find sometimes off the beaten path as you go down the town’s ancient cobbled streets. The atmosphere there can be amazing. With shafts of the light from the sunshine hitting the crystal ornaments and sparkling jewels in the shop windows spreading warm glows, casting shadows, with soft multi-colours of the rainbow across the old stonework creating a magical aura as if hidden away in another secret land. Sitting drinking cappuccino with great views into gardens or across little rivers with the scent of coffee and vanilla from the home baking in the air is a sacred place of contentment for me to be.

  Before we go back to the car, Brad stops in at an old bookshop that sells stuffed animals plus distinctive candles, which he buys for me. The stuffed foxes with the candles are for my lounge at home. I adore the smell of the scented candles drifting through the house while the animals complete my décor, making my place even more beautiful, and the wild flowers which I pick in the woods add to creating an earthly haven resembling a witch’s cottage.

  Afterwards we pass through a graveyard. This is a whereabouts I like to visit often on my own, wandering about looking at the inscriptions on tombstones. I find a lot of peace here imagining all the complex lives these people had, the good times with the bad, the failures and the successes, questioning if these people here had lives just as intricate as my own, wondering to if they ever had immoral love affairs with secret illicit sex. I am fascinated, wondering about the drama and history of these people now gone from this life, leaving behind a legacy of themselves with just a name on an expensive stone in the graveyard. It reminds me that whilst I am still alive, I continue to create my own story. As Heidegger once said, “People should spend more time in graveyards.”

  I imagine changing the words on an inscription in a poem that Rabbie (Robert) Burns wrote; I smile, considering this to be the epitaph on my head stone.

  "Here Lies Coco, Blake’s Banes

  Oh! Satan when you tak them

  Gie her the skulling o’ yer weans

  Clever strippers, she’ll mack them."

  Or maybe perhaps it could say, ‘Coco, always The Mistress but never The Wife’. Now that would make whoever read it talk. Or ‘The Coco, The Dancer, The Stripper’, and ’May Heaven have chocolate and rain the colour of purple. Or I am not going there.

  I sit there on a bench for a while as Brad heads off to the shop to pick up some goods for Megan. Alone in the graveyard enjoying some time by myself, I reminisce about the time in my life spent around Father Peter. Father Peter was a monk who took me in when I needed somewhere to go. Father Peter and I became very close, and I was very appreciative of him always being there for me. My first religion is witchcraft although I am a Protestant, I prefer the Catholic ideals of worship. I became a member of the Catholic Church, taking the vows that were required of me to join; it changed my life not only in the way I perceived the world but because I feel I became a better person towards me and others in this life in a different way from witchcraft. I feel I was less solitary but on practising my craft a lot of the time, I chose to work alone despite the fact I was personally in charge of five covens. This was similar again with the kind of same basic rituals. I used all three of religions to my advantage, it worked for me, albeit it was definitely not the proper thing to do.


  One time, after praying with Father Peter, I asked him, “What do you wear under your robes, Father, is it just your bare arse?” to which he had responded mortified at the very thought, “No Coco, indeed not, I wear black trousers.”

  “Unfortunate then that was for all of us as we (as in the female congregation) have been on our knees for months trying to peek up the gown for nothing!” I declared. We both started to laugh, after that he would cross himself, smiling when he saw me coming. One day I asked him if Satan really did exist. His answer was of course, so I questioned him on how he knew that. “Well, how do you know that, Father?” I persisted. To which he answered that he did know because his daughter was sitting in front of him. We both found it extremely funny as he was horrified with my behaviour most of the time. Secretly and in fun, he called me The Devil’s Daughter from there on in.

  Father Peter understood my personality and he once said, “I have never met anyone quite like you, Coco, and I don’t suppose I ever will again. You are so full of life filled with mischief, but you know what, God knows of your past; he knows your present status as a stripper, but he forgave Mary Magdalene, so I know you are forgiven too, my child, you think with your heart more than you do your head.” Perhaps Father Peter was right on that count. I speculate as to what he would say today about me in this affair. Committing adultery is not acceptable neither was witchcraft and I was always in serious trouble and at confession for that, Father Peter would probably go fucking nuts at me. Or would he even be surprised?

  That is what I loved about Father Peter, he was a priest but he had a strange sense of humour that I just got; he was never judgemental of me, no matter what I said or had done in my past, so he would be the same now I supposed after all, perhaps he would just say ‘you can’t help who you fall in love with, my child. Nothing startles or leaves me dumfounded with you anymore, Coco’. Yes, Father Peter would probably say exactly that, then some. I remember Father Peter with fondness, smiling at our time together. One day Father Peter said to me, “Coco would you help with my dinner party tonight?”

  I replied, laughing, “I suppose so, but tell me Father, how does a stripper like me fold the napkins?”

  Affronted, he crossed himself, “Coco, my child, I shall teach you. We shall make the Pope’s hat.”

  And so we did. Just before everybody was due to arrive, I filled the napkins, in shape of the tall hat, with fruit sweets and thongs, chocolates and popcorn. I also had homemade witch wine for them. The priests all sat to dinner, drinking the wine, which was strong liquor, so they all got drunk very quickly. So funny. Perhaps not! They were pulling all the stuff out the napkins, laughing and holding the thongs up in the air as in trying to work out what they were. The looks that were worn on the church elders’ faces was a fucking picture at this, I was once again in serious trouble. The next day Father Peter sent for me. “Why did you put underwear in the napkins, Coco?” he sternly demanded.

  I hung my head. Then I lifted it up, looked straight into his eyes and said, “Because when I asked you about the vow of celibacy and not having sex, you said that you had not even seen a woman in underwear in the flesh. So at least now you can all say that you held a pair of knickers!” For me. Confession to ask for forgiveness for leading the priests astray. Plus 3 Hail Marys’, including having to write out three chapters from the bible and set up the altar for four Sundays in a row. Now that suited me just fine, because I drank the wine while doing it. I walked towards the door of the church very much reprimanded. As I looked back behind me, Father Peter was bent over the pews, holding his side and I heard him ending himself laughing, just at that the older priest came out the door of their changing room, holding his head, declaring loudly which echoed through the silence that he was ill with the amount of wine drunk last night, which caused Father Peter to laugh even more. That was me and that was us I surmised, oil and water.

  Brad arrives back, kissing me he tasted of chocolate; much to my delight, he hands me a huge box of chocolates plus half the bar he was eating. So now it is time for us to make our way back up to Brad’s sister’s house. While Brad is driving the jeep, I pull back the little pants I am wearing and start playing with myself, and then I put my fingers in Brad’s mouth, enticing him to taste me. Brad shows restraint laughing as he tries to focus on the traffic in the middle of the road; he orders me to behave for once. I shout out: “No!” Then I continue to play with myself, flinging my head back moaning as Brad loses concentration and goes straight through a red light, causing a commotion with him swearing and swerving his car to safety as all the other drivers blast their horns in fright and anger. I just smile angelically, putting my finger back to Brad’s lips as he starts to laugh, shaking his head. “You’re wild, Coco, fucking wild man!” is all he says.

  When we get back to Megan ’s, we immediately go running upstairs to our room, leaving her wondering what the hell the rush was as we come in through the front door. “What the fuck you two running for?” she shouts behind us, getting no answer. “Fucking tornado hits York rushing in through my hall today,” she says, talking out loud to herself as she once again walks away with her cigarette in hand as we laugh quietly behind the bedroom door.

  Still playful from the car, I push Brad down on the bed; taking his cock out from his jeans, I begin to suck it. Brad lay back enjoying it as I sit on top of him, fulfilling my desire to have his cum inside me my way. As I am about to climax, I sexually demand my only request from Brad, “Cum inside me.” Brad obliges on hearing these words, he fills me with the hot sperm that I have been wanting since we got in the jeep. When still perched on top of Brad, I make a gesture with my arms up in the air like a fountain. “Pshpshpshpsh, that’s your sperm spraying way up me, Brad, on sucking you I need a golf umbrella for me to stay dry, it covers my hair and sometimes hits the wall,” I say to him cutely. Now satisfied that I got what I wanted, I climb off the top of him. Lying down beside Brad I cuddle into him, noticing that in my haste to take Brad, I had left the bedroom door wide open. Oops, fuck me, a good job no one came upstairs.

  We take some time out to be alone together in the room for a while. The rest of the night we spend downstairs drinking wine, rudely whispering, sharing our secrets and dreams with each other. Planning our future, I still couldn’t believe he had left his wife as it had not actually really dawned on me yet. On realisation that it certainly was the case, I was at first astonished, then ecstatic. It felt amazing, I felt so privileged that he had chosen me over her.

  The rest of the holiday continued much the same – with us going out for most of the day, and then spending time in evening with Brad’s family. But we had made definite plans for the final night of our holiday to go out together to York’s old town.

  31st October

  Samhain or All Hallows Eve to us witches, but commonly known as Halloween. I won’t be celebrating the Sabbat tonight in the way I usually do as I am here on holiday. I feel kind of out of sorts, this is one of our major celebrations; however, I decide to do something when I get back home so I don’t feel so bad about missing out on my celebration tonight. Father Peter would lay an egg if he knew as he certainly doesn’t approve of my witchcraft. At all.

  Brad and I are going out as agreed earlier in the week as this our last night of our romantic rendezvous. I wanted to have my nails done for this evening, so Megan booked me an appointment for that afternoon. Later that day in the salon, Brad is sitting on a sofa near the window waiting for me. I can see the workers in the nail salon looking over at Brad, then back to me again. I get it in my head that they are comparing his weight to mine and laughing to themselves, so the little voice in my head starts to think how Brad is like Humpty Dumpty sitting over on the sofa (having lost his wall) while the Noodle is getting her nails done.

  My nails are perfect, “That’s it done, Humpty Dumpty time to pay for Noodle’s nails,” I yell over at Brad. He gets up to pay laughing, attracting more strange looks from all in the nail bar. As we left I was still giggling
.

  Brad asks, “What are you fucking talking about, Coco?”

  “Oh! Just the stories, you know, the voices in my head, Noodles with Humpty Dumpty,” I reply… Brad just shakes his head, he was speechless. Given Brad’s confusion, I decide to wind Brad up even more. Showing him the colour of my nails, which are dark forest green, I clarify, “Brad darling, what do you think of my lovely red nails?” No answer, he just looks blankly. He must be baffled as he doesn’t answer me, he just stares vacantly right through me. Then he looks back down at my nails without saying a word about the colour, not a fucking word.

  “Brad, where did you park the jeep? We need to get out of this fucking rain, I am getting soaking wet!” I assert, continuing to tease him. Brad, looking more bewildered, mystified glances up at the sky before holding his arms to check for rain drops to clarify it before contributing, “Coco, it isn’t raining.”