Under Purple Sheets

by Coco Houston

  On leaving the old historic place that Midsummer’s night, I glance behind me as I walk away, on looking back at the dark castle which is open to the rafters, it holds no shelter whatsoever from above and its’ very old stone walls are now actually all tumbling down; it stands very proud on the edge of the cliff with its broken, but once regal silhouette against the deep hues of purple worn by the twilight sky, it looks eerie, sinister even. I am convinced I feel something evil in the air back there, so slightly confused by this, I just go on hurriedly back to the car, saying nothing Brad. I tell myself now not to be so fucking melodramatic by putting a bad omen on our love, had the sex not just been amazing, sealing our love eternally? After all, I had pretended dreamily for so long that it was our romantic happy-ever-after castle.

  “Conceivably, Coco, in another life! The fact is, it was a castle once but that was a long time ago. In the 12th century it was known as a fortress then by the 15th century it was a stone castle which was used as a home. But by the 17th it had become a three-storey watchtower, one of many that sat along the coast! I guess so on this we can agree, Coco, as now it is as fucked as a castle as you two are with each other. So perhaps it is better this way for you, a watch tower to live in rather than a castle, because the tower after all would be much more useful when looking out for the enemy, you could very quickly see in advance, therefore be warned of Brad’s upcoming arrival,” my imaginary friends sarcastically state to me, ignoring what they say I disregard their facts intentionally. Staring out the car window, I watch the remains of the castle fading into the distant duskiness of the night. In my thoughts though I am trying to be more realistic, but I honestly still feel that something somewhere out there was warning me that I was terribly wrong in my decision to go through with this idea of mine tonight. Perhaps I should wait for now, just maybe the timing was all wrong. I choose, however, to ignore my instincts, which goes against what we are taught as human beings, that one of the most important given rules of survival in the protection of ourselves is – to follow our instincts – I do not. On this occasion, it leaves me with the result which is – I have fucked myself.

  Later that night Brad lays naked on the bed watching me walking around the room. The atmosphere is strange, he looks nervous, frightened with anticipation of something about to happen but worried on not knowing what. I feel neither love nor fear, just numbness with a readiness to do this. I lie down beside him, rolling my nakedness on top of him, as I start slowly, softly running my tongue over his lips, darting it in and out his mouth. He holds me to him, kissing me desperately, his erection, throbbing on my thigh, is now leaking out sticky fluid onto my tanned skin. His breathing becomes heated as he moves his warm mouth down onto my throat. He starts sucking on my neck, biting it sorely as I moan. I slide my hand between my legs playing with myself for him, making the gentle slushy noise he likes to listen too. I whisper in the darkness asking him to fuck me, he groans that he will. It is difficult to see the expression on his face as in the dimness of the room there is only a pale shaft of light coming in from the outside street lamp, which barely lights the place. Running my fingers gently through then around his hair, I grab on tightly then all of a sudden pulling hard, I harshly jerk his head backwards while tenderly biting on his bottom lip, thereupon searching his face; I find his eyes staring blankly into mine. I hold his gaze for a while, before I order him very clearly to follow my instructions

  “I want you to fuck me up my arse!” I demand roughly, pushing him away from me freeing him from my grip. I slip my body back onto the bed as I proceed onto my knees, offering him my little bare derriere high in the air. He gets on his knees behind me as I reach over to the table and handed him a bottle of scented lubricant, which he takes from me saying nothing. He lays it on the bed beside him as he roams his hands over the cheeks of my backside, massaging it, kissing it, whispering,

  “Oh! Coco, your bum is so firm, your skin smooth, Oh! Coco,” he speaks with a rasping tone in his voice. He is dripping more sperm out of his penis as by now I can feel it landing on my flesh. He opens the bottle of strawberry gel, massaging the fruity oily substance over my bottom half and thighs to relax me. He concentrates next on my little tight hole, he puts more gel on there, massaging it in, then he starts to gently open me up by pushing his fingers inside it, then he opens me up further by using his thumb. I hold the pillow, closing my eyes as he enjoys playing with me. I lie trembling in the shadows, where the smell of strawberries hangs heavily in the air, listening to how excited he’s become as I wait, terrified of the hurt I am destined to suffer when that huge, hard-on goes into ass for the very first time. He massages more cool gel on me; I feel the warm tip of him pulsing at the outer circle of my anus as he gets ready to enter. He pushes in gently, kindly protruding only a little way up to begin with, and I hold my breath, feeling my skin stretching to accommodate him. He slides slowly back out, and then he pushes back up in again, this time his cock goes deep inside me, right up that sacred, tiny narrow passage. Gripping the pillow furiously, I bury my face into it to stifle my scream, the searing pain I feel, is as I had expected, and unreal.

  “OH GOD!” he says in a deep gasping tone to the darkness. The same two words he used when he touched my soft, smooth pussy for the very first time.

  He continues to ride into my little hole as I buck up my behind to meet him, ignoring the discomfort. I clinch my cheeks together, lifting them high in the air, as I move with stealth and speed, keeping his rhythm with the accuracy of a dancer. I shake my behind for him, and then draw circles in the air with it, thus creating an amazing sensation on his manhood. This pattern I continue until the sperm comes hard and fast, shooting up my rear while he pumps it out of him time after time.

  Lying in his arms afterwards, I am significantly glad it was over. He is unaware of the throbbing ache or how tender and inflamed my body feels. He tells how much he loves me, that he finds sex extraordinary between us, besides he whispers clinging to me; I am the best lover in the world. In the gloomy grey space in the room, I lie staring at nothing as he talks away, my mind wandering as his voice drones on; I am rudely aware of this so he catches my attention just in time for me to hear him saying that he’d honestly never even thought of having sex that way before, which he’d enjoyed immensely. He appreciates the experience. He mentions also that he won’t take it for granted on knowing how much it must have took for me to do that for him, he says he thanks me beyond words. I comment back that I thought he was worth it and I love him infinitely, which is how I truly felt at that moment, but not a few minutes before. Well! Coco, which one is it? Love him or love him not? I see a black rose in my head with its petals being pulled off one by one, the voice which continues teasingly, love him or love him not? Love him, love him not? Along with the words, the music boxes’ melody plays in my mind as I get up shaking my head to block out the image, what the last petal would reveal or confirm the real resolution of the flower puzzle to be, well, I do not care that much not really. On moving my neck, I feel like it is burning, it hurts as I delicately touch the skin. I am sure it would be bruised, leaving a mark often referred to as a love bite or a hickey. It was a strong possibility, I consider, by the way Brad had sucked it. Knowing it was more a probable fact, I am mortified, so on deciding to hide it with make-up, and I just dismiss it for now. I think about how I’d always contemplated having anal sex with Brad as a given pledge of my love for him. That was exactly what I had done. I feel I gave myself indefinitely to him as a woman in the most scared way I knew how, which I feel was the optimum thing to do. More so than giving your virginity to a man, as it is something all women eventually lose, but this, in my opinion, was the most sacrificial gift of all. Is the feeling of regret for my actions already setting in? Maybe. As it begins to dawn on me that the leader has more regrets than the follower and the scholar makes more mistakes than the fool.

  Later, actually, it is the next day; I find out (from his mother) that he had sneaked out to phone his wife hours
before we went to the castle. He had lied to her apparently about where he was staying. She drove by and found his car parked outside my house. His wife texted him informing him she knew where he was, who he was with, telling him to stay there with his whore and to keep away from her. He’d been in tears at her finding out, besides he was worried for himself at being caught. I was not aware of these events taking place so all of this was unknown to me at the time. I questioned nothing when he came earlier that evening to tell me that he was going to visit his mother. I had just taken for granted when I’d noticed he’d been recently upset, that perhaps the reason for being so had lain there. It was only him on returning twenty minutes later after he left, I enquired if everything was all right he told me that he’d changed his mind apparently and decided to spend time with me in the garden instead, which he did. So idiotically, I accepted this was the actual case when he had in fact gone out to contact his wife. He hid the information from me by not disclosing that he had made calls to her. He made excuses to her, covering for himself by telling her stories of where he was and that he had left because he just needed some space to sort out his head and their marriage. Thereupon he had also made some detailed arrangements over the phone to visit the house they shared to speak with her in person. He claimed that I was only a friend, whom he was renting a room off for now because he was in dire straits as the other guy he was going to flat-share with had moved in his girlfriend. Now therefore under those circumstances he’d nowhere to stay or go so that’s why he’d come here to me. Despite the fact that she’d known about our affair in the past, she chose to believe him because she needed to be compliant with his pish for her own financial benefit. Yes, this time she had one over me; give her credit where it is due, but for money? At least my foolishness was for love, or so I thought. "Fucking told you Coco, but you wouldn’t listen!" said all the whispers in my head.

  Me, I wasn’t buying his fucking lies any more when he tried to deny all of it. After shouting and swearing at him, I retreated deathly calm. The pain I felt, however, was as if a surgeon had just sliced me wide open while still conscious and was ripping the heart organ right out of my body whilst I was still alive. He was, as always, talking his way out of his shit; I refused to listen anymore. I just looked at him coldly with tears running down my face, as devastated, I brokenly whispered

  “I thought you were my hero! I trusted you, Brad Blake.”

  A few days later, he came to me explaining he had to stay over with his mother at her house. He promised to phone later but did not call all night. That was because he spent the night in the marital home with his wife (as arranged earlier per phone call, unknown to me). Late on, in the following morning, he walked in the door, looking guilty. His face went bright red as he said, “I am leaving to go back home.” I did not look up. I replied, “Well go!” He wanted to take me to lunch first. OH! Do you really? Fuck off! “GO!” I yelled at the top of my voice. So he did. He took his stuff and he was gone from the house as quickly as he had arrived. First you don’t see him, and then you do. He is there! Then you still see him, and then you don’t. He is not! Fucking magician! In his absence, all that is left behind is a bag of presents lying on the kitchen table for me. Expensive crap he bought earlier that morning. I open the back door and fling the fancy presents one by one at those fucking cherry trees. I cry no tears as a cute teddy bear gets stuck up on the branches of one of them, and the bottle of Elle perfume skelps another, just as the last black petal falls and the music box tinkles in my head, the last notes whisper the words, “Love him not!” I know now for sure; I have made a complete arse (Cynical Coco, you fucking bet! That fucking word is burning through my body like acid raining down on my skin) of myself. Deep down I had always known this would happen. You should’ve trusted your instincts, not that bastard. Hell will mend you Coco! Oh! No it will not, unfortunately.

  I remember the day I thought he would never hurt me, he was my hero, then again perhaps now that is just all that is left of those thoughts, just memories lost in time.

  Chapter VII

  Disillusioned – You Were My Hero

  The daylight has long since filtered through my blinds in the bedroom. I realise it is New Year’s Day and I have been lying awake all night thinking about the past. I question myself whether it had all been worth it or not. Did I truly get what I wanted or what I deserved? I set out all those years ago to have an affair with a married man because I wished for the power and freedom which I thought that kind of sexual relationship brought. The bonus of it came in the form of a glamorous lifestyle, which I was led to believe is what a mistress lives. I expected to be treated like a spoilt princess, who received expensive presents. I would jet away on romantic rendezvouses whilst making love in exotic places without a care in the world for his spouse or give a fuck he was married. I would have all the unsolicited sex I wanted on tap but without the hassle of sleeping around or the pledge of marriage vows or having to behave as expected like a loyal, boring, devoted wife. Is that what I got in the end?

  I lie about it to me, because if I am to be true to myself, the correct answer would destroy that make-believe realism. After all, I committed to him in a form of marriage did I not? Albeit without legal documents, but by wearing a wedding ring, making promises of loving only him for eternity. In the end, I kind of contradicted the whole fucking thing of being in an affair with this fake marriage.

  The married man, who is lying sleeping beside me now, is classing me as his wife. By law or not, he states that I am by the terms and conditions of the definite love he feels for me in his heart. This is fact, Coco, he lovingly informs me. Exactly, ditto! Bullshit, Coco! I inform myself, changing my mind about it as I get out of his bed or rather my bed with him in it.

  We would have many moments where we lived quite happily like a newlywed couple. But that part of us could change instantly, tearing our love to shreds, we could be as unpredictable as the weather, as destructive as a cyclone storm coming in from the ocean, ripping apart a beautiful tropical island, shattering the illusion of a perfect hot, Indian summer’s evening.

  As it is New Year’s Day, we are going to spend the night at Port Patrick. Dressed expensively we arrive at our destination. The place where we stay is classy; we are welcomed profusely as we are known to be regular customers there. After a few drinks in our luxurious bedroom, Brad pushes me backwards onto the bed, hungrily making love to me, ripping off my silk knickers. Literally tore them off me, I go berserk at the price of them now ruined, which he promises to replace. That is followed by us sharing a shower. We get dressed quickly into another set of fancy Dior clothes for dinner. What are all these designer labels about? I fucking hate it. I am much happier in ripped jeans with a T-shirt. We sit at a candlelit table overlooking the harbour, drinking pink rose champagne whilst reminiscing about our first date. Brad takes my hand, he tells me he’d asked his wife for a divorce so he could marry me, but she’d refused. I smile sadly back. He explains it doesn’t matter what she said or did, or how long he had to wait for a divorce, because he loves me more than anything or anyone in this world. He promises me that we would be married as soon as possible, no matter what it costs him. I am the most important thing in his life, so fuck everything and everyone else, because if we have each other then that’s all that mattered. I agree with him on this that we stand together. We raise our glasses to the future, toasting the memory of his mother, to whom we gave our word to comply with her wish that someday we would be married. I look out the huge glass window, noticing how beautiful the moon shining above the bay reflected on the water. I smile, aware of Brad wistfully watching me. I think about how much my opinion of us has changed yet again since this morning. As I glance at the stars above, I think of his mother way beyond the darkness as I mentally make note to never forget her wherever she was.

  4th January

  Brad’s mother’s funeral is today. Fuck. This I very much would have been dreading under any circumstances, and I am trembling in antici
pation now of what the day ahead holds. How do you say goodbye to someone whom you had only known a few years but loved as if she was your own mother? Brad’s mother wanted so much to be there on our wedding day, when I married her son. This was not to be, so she had me making promises to her, some of those I would be unable to honour as they were out of my control but the others I hold onto my given oath. She particularly requested that she would very much like me to attend her funeral with Brad; this was also one of her last wishes. But the family rows which this was causing were making it extremely awkward for me to do so, which was very upsetting for Brad and me.

  One of Brad’s sisters had made it clear to the family that she did not want me to be there, while instructing the family to tell Brad of this being her position. She further stated to them that on my attendance, only if it was necessary, in her opinion I should absolutely be told to stand at the back on my own and this was her final decision in the matter. Brad was determined this was not going to be the case, if so, then that is exactly where he would stand at the back beside me. All this shit had made it extremely difficult for Brad to go and say goodbye to his own mother. He should have been up at the front standing with the family near her coffin, rightfully so; this is where he belonged on one of the saddest days of his life. Instead, he was torn by his sister’s horrific orders, which went against his mother’s wishes and his love for me.