Under Purple Sheets

by Coco Houston

  I go to Adam’s place (he’s my gay best friend) first thing the next morning to tell him all about Brad Blake. Adam is shocked at my behaviour. Adam and I go way back, he is one of the wealthy people who befriended me in my younger days. He taught me how to dance way up at a different level as he was qualified as a male ballet dancer. Adam’s opinion is that I should have an affair with Brad Blake if he is willing, as after all, what have I got to lose?

  31st October

  One of the witches’ 8 Sabbats, as well as, being one of the major ones. We call it Samhain, also known as Halloween. It is the night when spirits of our dead friends and of our loved ones return briefly to celebrate with us in the living world. It is a very old custom of the ancient Druids to carve out eerie faces on pumpkins, as this was believed to scare away the bad witches and the malevolent who would return to haunt the living on Samhain night.

  It however, is also the Druids’ New Year, and the most important of all to the Sabbats, as it is a sacred festival marking the end of a goddess-ruled summer and welcoming the beginning of the god-ruled winter. Tonight, I celebrate in style, eating wild berry bread I baked earlier and drinking homemade Samhain cider until I can hardly see my fucking broom. Bad witch. Me. Besides, I am certainly not scared of the evil spirits. I am drunk and shouting out to Satan asking him to come and join my party. I can dance to him playing his fiddle. Fuck off Coco, this is not what you are supposed to do, you are a white witch, but you are so moving more and more to the dark side!

  6th November

  Brad and I continue to work together constantly on the night shift. Tonight, the ward is very quiet at mid shift as everyone is in bed, so we just sit talking about various areas of our personal lives. We speak about how we grew up, where we came from… then eventually, that I was single and that although Brad was married, he was very unhappy in the marriage, with him and his wife living separate lives. He tells me that he hasn’t had sex with her for years or with anyone else for that matter. Well, well, well! This is a perfect situation for me. We both know that night we’d end up in bed together. It was only a matter of time. “Just time, Coco!” he says to me as he goes off to make us coffee. I know exactly what he is talking about without further explanation.

  November–December 2008

  Over the next two months, we become extremely close. There are a few times when Brad asks to kiss me when taking me home in the jeep after our shift, but I’m still unsure, so I always change the subject to deflect the situation. Brad becomes jealous of the other guys at work spending time with me, it is clear he wants me for himself.

  Brad becomes quite obsessive with me and for some reason he questions what I did and who I was with on my nights off, which were very few because we worked most nights together. When Brad put his name in to do overtime at the clinic, he put my name down on the off duty along with him to cover all of the spare shifts. I request the 21st of December off, to celebrate Winter solstice which we also call Yule. It is another celebration on the witches’ calendar. We celebrate the birth of the Sun God, this being the shortest day and the longest night of the year. From this point on, the days become longer. We have yule logs and mistletoe, just like at Christmastime. I get no peace, Brad constantly phones me demanding to know where I am, what I am doing? I switch my phone off, completely ignoring him. The following night when I am on the ward and he is off, I don’t answer my phone to him, so he phones the ward and I instruct the nurse in charge to tell him I am busy. He knows that is a lie and comes into work at ten o’clock at night looking for me. Staff are now very much aware of the relationship forming between us as at work people are starting to say that Brad is totally besotted with Coco. My thoughts are exactly that, though I prefer to think of him as bewitched by me, and I wonder at what he has told his wife to get out of the house so late, probably something like he had to return to work with keys or a similar story, whatever it was, the lies he told her just to get to see me… Hmm!

  Christmas Day 2008

  Today Brad and I have made plans to have sex tonight in my lounge, on my rug in front of the log fire, with the twinkle of the Christmas tree fairy lights glowing in the dark. We haven’t even kissed yet, so at this point I have no idea at all why I agreed to do this with him. Maybe because I thought it would be such romantic thing to do, making love with him for the very first time on Christmas Day. Brad comes down as agreed but on seeing him arrive at my house, I rush out to the jeep, so Brad doesn’t get the chance to come in. I don’t go through with it, so we ended up at work over an hour early instead. Later that evening Brad tells me a sad story pretending to be upset, hoping that I would comfort him. I don’t. Instead, I tell him an old tale of how when the geese were in a pond outside my childhood home, a very long time ago, one Winter it snowed so heavily so that the pond, well it very quickly, froze over, so the geese, they flew away taking the pond with them, now that pond lies today somewhere over in Mississippi. It keeps the mood light-hearted. Brad is disappointed we never made love, but then again in a sad kind of way, so am I.

  Christmas–New Year 2008

  The week following Christmas the air is electric between Brad and me, and it must have been obvious as multiple members of staff and patients now began to pass comments about us. One night I have to work a night shift on my own as Brad is off. Having coffee with Bobby, we get talking about my situation, he was our charge nurse. We laugh about how I would cope on shift tonight without Brad as he’d become my wingman, which led to us getting the nicknames of Maverick and Goose (from Top Gun), little did I know then that he would go from being my wingman to becoming my fucking wings.

  Even though we aren’t in a sexual relationship yet, it is round about this time that Brad starts to buy me little presents like strawberry milkshakes from McDonald’s and randomly brings gifts of bars of chocolate and cheesecake. I love the way he spoils me, calling me his Princess Coco. The spell I cast has worked this time for sure.

  Hogmanay 2008

  Hogmanay arrives with another year almost over. I am at Adam’s house today, waiting for the limo to pick us up as I am performing in Edinburgh tonight, I’m dancing there to celebrate the bringing in of the New Year. I’m excited, so I’m looking forward to the evening, but I really do wish Brad could be with me for the bells. As I sit in my old ripped jeans, Ugg boots and white T-shirt (with no bra) – this is my trademark outfit when travelling to do a show – my mind wanders off and I’m thinking about Brad, wondering what he will be doing tonight, whilst Adam is frantically double-checking times, PA systems and stage arrangements before it’s time to leave.

  Glancing down at my T-shirt, clearly seeing my nipples, I remember how one cold night at the clinic Brad had commented that he was impressed because he could see them showing through my underwear and my shirt. I’ve always been proud of how big and dark they are, so often I don’t bother to wear a bra.

  I snap back to reality as Jamie and Michael arrive with the purple limousine edging its way up the driveway. I love the huge letters along the side that read ‘COCO’; it seriously gives me a high each time I see it, every single time. But I still feel disappointed that Brad can’t be in my limo or share this night with me.

  “Coco, no bra, as per,” Michael says smiling, he greets me, with a kiss.

  I hug him back. “Nope, no bra and no Brad,” I say in a monotone response.

  “Who the fuck is Brad?” Michael asks, playfully rubbing my hair which is already in a mess, but before I get a chance to answer him, we both turn around at the sound of a door opening behind us.

  “Well! Well! Well! Look what the fucking wind blew in!” Adam bellows as he comes outside to greet Michael, whom he hasn’t seen for some time now.

  “You’re the fucking fairy man, you’re the one that flies with the wind,” Michael laughs, shouting back at Adam. They walk up to each other, high-fiving with their hands.

  “Right, Tinkerbell, you and fucking Peter Pan here hurry up and get in the limo. We’re working to a tight s
chedule and now we’re late as it is with Jamie fucking things up, giving me the wrong time to pick up the car,” Michael says as he gestures us to get our stuff into the limo as time is really running out.

  Next Ward turns up in his car to join us. He is wearing a very expensive designer suit in a dark purple. The suit is as always immaculate (and probably full of snow). He’s a bit of a Mr Know-all but a great guy, besides we are very close and he is special to me in his own way. With everyone now here, we all depart for Edinburgh later than we had initially planned (This was the usual for us – always late, never early or even on time, for that matter). Looking around the limo at us all sat there, I think we must look an odd lot to outsiders. Ward has lightly tanned skin, extremely slim, very tall with blonde hair falling over in a side shed always flopping over his eyes. He is very handsome in an old-fashioned sort of way, with his shirt and tie and the tweed jackets he wore at times (a gentleman due to his upbringing and education, I suppose. He had old-school mannerisms as in times gone by). Michael is half his height, with Italian looks, dark hair, dark eyes and deep olive-toned skin; he is also very good looking. Women throw themselves at him (well actually they also throw themselves at Ward and so openly even more when they know or become aware of his fortune). Michael grew up in a deprived area in Glasgow. Looking at him now with the way he conducts himself and speaks, you can never tell, plus he also wears very expensive suits with handmade shoes, which screamed money to all who pass by. He had educated himself so well that you would never have guessed in a million years where he originally came from.

  Then there is our Jamie, he is a big guy but a little smaller in height than Ward. He is very overweight and he carries it well. Deep down he’s a kind nature with a big soft heart but his appearance makes him out to be different. He is bald-headed with tattoos, lacking education, which you noticed the minute he opened his mouth, he is also well known as the hard man from Glasgow. He is the total opposite of Michael, although from the same neck of the woods.

  Then there is Adam, who is of average height, his physique is very toned with clear definition of six packs due to the ballet dancing. He is tanned (fake) very good looking, blonde hair, soft eyes. Adam has the same effect on women as Michael but he, as we all know, is only interested in men. I am extremely close each one of them, I have been for a long time now. They are what I call my shadow dance team as every time I move, one of them is there. Michael and Jamie are my personal security (Michael specialises in all the different forms of self-defence arts, whereas big Jamie just fucking fights). Ward deals with all the financial stuff. Adam sorts out the stage arrangements as well as playing the roles of personal trainer/choreographer, including being my dance partner on many occasions, depending on what is required of him at the time. I smile to myself, thinking I love them all very much.

  Sitting in the limo I’m hungry as I don’t eat before I dance. I forget about the hunger as my mind goes over the dance routines in my head, Brad constantly creeping into my thoughts, with me questioning whether he is going to be thinking of me tonight or not. Adam is mostly preoccupied, wearing headphones, looking for property to buy as an investment on the internet.

  We arrive at the venue around six p.m. I head into the dressing room to start getting prepared for going on stage. First, my hair is shampooed again as it needs to be soaking wet so ice cubes can run down the strands to create a shine, once my hair is blow-dried and has a massive amount of volume due to all the products they use, my tan is then done (three layers) and left to dry. Next, all the body art is painted on, followed by all the individual jewels stuck on by hand one by one, and are all prepared accordingly. Now I may have a coffee. Fuck! Thank you.

  Food is forbidden before I go on stage, so I am not allowed anything to eat. Ironically, however, I can take a line of snow, which Ward puts out for me as they start working on my hair. As I snort the white powder up my nostrils, I am hit with the sensation of the dry powder tickling the inside of my nose. Shaking my head as I look in the mirror, with a tissue I wipe my face, cleaning away any tell-tale traces of the powder. I don’t take a lot of the so-called snow but I usually have a couple of lines on special occasions or sometimes on dance nights, it depends on my mood or perhaps if it is available for free, of course.

  Even snow can’t keep my mind off Brad though, so I decide to excuse myself, asking to leave the dressing room on the pretence I need to go to the bathroom (so I could go and try to call him), much to the annoyance of the hairdressers, who are half-way through doing my hair. It is awkward out in the hall trying to get signal with security watching me; also I’m shivering terribly with the cold from the ice being used on my head. Eventually, I get through on his house phone. His wife answers, so I just ask her if Brad is available to speak to please. Brad is in bed she tells me, but then his wife informs me that she’d take the phone through to his bedroom to let me talk to him. Brad says that he couldn’t stop thinking about me and I had been in his thoughts all afternoon. He continues, saying he’d been out drinking all day with Jim and he’d told him how he felt about me so for now he is just resting a while as he intends going back out again later at night to avoid being with his wife at the bells ringing in the New Year as he wants only to be with me. He listens as I speak away a lot of pish before telling him what I really wanted to say, which is that I was missing him too, I just wanted to be in his arms naked. I hang up at that, hurrying back to the dressing room, thinking about what I had just said. Boldly I think I am what I am! I hold no regrets, I make no excuses. Well maybe a little but not much.

  Speaking to Brad does not help me at all though, as after hearing his voice, I just want to be with him even more; however, secretly I am delighted he wouldn’t be with her either at this special time of year. But the show must go on regardless, so I have to have my hair finished off like it or not

  Standing in the wings of the stage waiting to perform my dance, the atmosphere is incredible. Coming out on to the stage makes me feel amazing. The crowd is endless, as far back as the eye can see, and they are so welcoming of me. The smell of hot dogs with the sweet scent of burnt sugar from the candyfloss is wafting in the breeze from nearby stalls. I don’t even feel the chill in the night air as the adrenaline pumping through me keeps me from being cold in the tiny dance costume. Dancing in the streets of Edinburgh with the castle standing so tall and proud behind me is an honour. The dance on stage is one of the best I’d ever performed, the crowd sings along whilst dancing with me to the music, holding sparkling light sticks. As they sway back and forth, it looks like a sea of candles blowing in the wind. I am sorry when it is over. My favourite song of the night is being played, it reminds me of Brad. The lyrics are about having an affair with a married man and about the sweet deceit that comes with it. Heartbreakingly true are those words.

  Back in the dressing room afterwards, I’m still on a bit of a high from knowing everything went brilliantly on stage, so after drinking some milky coffee, I indulge myself in another line of snow. The night has been extraordinary so far, but I can’t fully enjoy myself, still wishing Brad was here with me. Sitting looking around at my friends, make-up off, snow on my face, I can’t shake the feeling of being disappointed because he isn’t. He’d have loved my performance. I guess I kind of hoped that Brad would have turned up at the concert as a surprise, but of course, he never did. How could he? Even if he could’ve driven with all that alcohol in him, then how would’ve he found me? Michael refuses to go back to collect him and bring him to me, besides it is very stupid of me to ask him, I suppose. Rather than dwelling on it too long, I enjoy the music I can hear from the other performers singing. I’m passionate about music and my dancing, so forget about passion with Brad Blake, I order myself for now. Fuck it. My friends, now all excited, are taking coke and drinking the hospitality champagne, which I choose not to do, when I take snow I prefer not to take alcohol. I just drink chilled water besides I’m dehydrated from all the dancing. Behind me I hear them all laughing, catching u
p with each other, gossiping about their lives. Smiling I join in, thinking this year I’m going to have a new life too. I add to the gossiping by informing them that I’m going to go to bed with a married man. Seriously, Coco, so childish!

  I enjoy some time with everyone celebrating bringing in the New Year. As I hold my glass to the stars, I whisper in the darkness, “Happy New Year to Jet and River and Happy New Year to you Blake.” I’m not up for an after-party, besides I can’t stay anyway as my management team won’t allow it, so we all just head for the limo to get on our way now. On the road back home, I decide I want to go to his hometown to see Brad first before going to my house. Considering it a good plan, I decide to ask the limo driver to take me. He says nothing. In the dark, Michael pulls out his guitar, playing old songs whilst singing of times gone by, the deep melody of his voice echoes through the car in the night. Big Jamie joins in the singing. Well, he can hold a tune, I guess. Soon the whole limo does the same, as everybody makes requests to Michael, he plays song after song as they all sing along. Me, I just stare at the darkness flashing by, the tinted windows make the night look very cold and the moon look eerie, besides I wonder if Blake sees the same moon I do. Or is he sleeping now?

  In the end though, I do not get my way I am not allowed to go to his hometown, no way am I allowed to do this, neither am I allowed to get dropped at Adam’s place. I am taken fucking straight home. You would think I was ten years old the way I got ordered around. On saying goodnight then wishing them all a good New Year, I get out of the limo, not pleased but exhausted going into my empty house. Lying in bed, I cuddle into my covers, pretending Brad is with me before eventually drifting off to sleep.