by Coco Houston
Oh! Will he? Coco, we need to talk, he said. Well, it seems to me he is the one doing all the talking whilst I listen. He is the one talking. Not me. Will he come back, really? Not just his fucking decision to make that, now is it?
I sit numb as I hear the words tumble from his mouth. His mind is made up, it would seem. No point in attempting to change it as he is making statements rather than leaving the conversation open for discussion. He then goes back out to phone his wife, stating he is now going to explain to her that he will be coming back to stay at the house with her on the given date because he needs to go into hospital for an operation. This is not the first time she has heard this, which is what he was trying to convince me was the case. He told me first, he says, then her about the hospital and the operation. Fuck off! I am very much aware that this has been discussed between them at one point. He is just now making and confirming the final arrangements with her as it had all already been planned earlier than today. He would probably have gone to the house to see her after he had left the doctors this morning the phone call will be her final acknowledgement of his return. How cute is he?
The rest of the week the wind continues to blow through the trees, just as Brad continues to go about his tasks preparing to leave me. He stocks up the cupboards with food for me. He buys gifts of expensive chocolates, perfumes, make-up and underwear. He is as particular as a little squirrel collecting winter food for hibernation. He leaves no stone unturned on this bizarre shopping spree. Another mind game but the game being played is in whose head though? Mine? His? Buy Coco plenty so she has enough of everything until I return. Or is he thinking, give her no reason to leave here, leave him, hoping on doing all this that it would guarantee for him in some way that I would wait for him and he would be able to return to me as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “He won’t come back!” the whispers in my head say. “Please he has too!” my heart cries. “Eh! I think not, not anymore.” Buy Coco everything and secure myself a place to return when it suits me. Give my pawn a guaranteed winning place in a game of chess. Buy stupid Coco? Whatever it is he is thinking fuck knows, but one thing I do know for sure, all the stuff just keeps on coming and coming.
7th March
This is our last night together before he leaves, so we have sex three times. Nothing, just sex. I gave him the best sex he ever had, feeling fucking zero. It is my goodbye present to him, his fucking last gift from me. Another sexual sacrifice of myself, Stupid witch! This time and for the last time though the bastard is taking my heart with him. Actually, he is welcome to it. I want it no more. It is so broken; it just keeps me in pain. Broke my heart and destroyed mentally. Now would he not love to know that Coco? Fuck him and his wife. Let him go back and physically fuck her too, in fact. Me, I have no desire to make love with him ever again, I am done chasing his fucking rainbows, tired of looking for silver lining in an old fucking teapot. I lie with my eyes closed whilst he lies on top of me for the very last time, as he comes moaning my name, I feel oblivious to the moment and my surroundings. I just feel dirty. As he takes my body, my mind is far away, I picture myself lying in the warm sunshine, and I feel its warmth on my skin. I imagine the smell of perfume in the air from the Cyprus trees blowing in the breeze. A pure white chateau with pale pink tiles on its roof stands behind me and that is the place I intend to go to, when this night is over. When he has finished the sex, with his ejaculation emptying sperm into me, it is over. I open my eyes to find he is looking at me closely. I lie silently watching him just watching me.
“I love you so much, Coco,” he says, tears running down his face. From my tear-stained face, I say fuck all.
8th March
The morning arrives as if it has no place in this nightmare. The day of his big departure has arrived, yet again. He offers to take me for a farewell lunch yet again, this time I go, to a restaurant by the beach. I recall that sometime before those waves rolled in as he was leaving me. The meal is lovely and he promises me that on the day he returns to me, we will come back here to do this again. This time he will stay with me forever. I listen to the sincerity in his voice, look at the honesty in his face and believe fucking none of it.
We go back to the house, Brad packs up most of his belongings, leaving behind some of his important personal things with me as proof that he is coming back. It’s time to say goodbye, then he leaves, just like that. Gone as quickly as he came. He is becoming real good at this disappearing act. He phones me on the way up the road to her, promising to love me forever. I glance around the quiet, empty house. As I sit on the stairs crying, my little dogs all come to sit at my feet, trying to comfort me. I pick them up one by one, kissing them. I appreciate all their love so much. They never hurt me, never let me down, this, I realise, is what real love is in this world and them leaving me will be when the darkest days in my life will once again be. “Not today,” my friends in my head say, “not today, Coco, because you still have all of them.” I stop crying, and then get up putting my music on. I sing, cleaning and re-arranging my furniture to have my house right back just the way it was before Brad Blake arrived. I wash and polish, removing all memories of him away quite happily. The hell of all this mental abuse makes me crazy, making me wonder half the time if I am in New York or New Year. I smile at my own sarcasm as I keep cleaning. I sing to myself, “I’m gonna wash that man right out of my house!” instead of hair.
The door opens; there stands Brad in the hallway, so Brad is back. His hands are full of more chocolates and flowers he bought for me. He kisses me crying, saying he is so sorry to have left me and that he loves me so much. He has been away less than three hours. He looks around the kitchen then back at me. He tells me he has just made the biggest mistake of his life and perhaps he should come back, as in right now. Just cancel the operation, go back up there this minute to get his belongings and bring them back here straight away. I say, “No!” He looks shocked. I tell him to just keep arrangements as they were, just as he had planned. This time I’m calling the shots, not him. He goes back out still crying, he is begging me to let him cancel it all, and he wants to come back here within an hour and he is confused because I won’t agree to it. On him returning back up the road once more he phones me yet again, this time he is pleading with me to wait for him. A while later, when it is still early in the evening, he calls me back once more, this time from the shop. She walks in behind him, so he hangs up on me, pretending to have been talking to a work colleague. His second secret phone is hidden as before and I don’t hear from him again that night. It is one of the longest, saddest nights of my life. The voices in my head keep me company and all the earlier bravado has now gone. I feel myself slipping slowly back into the darkness. Once more I hear the friends in my head returning, singing the same song over and over to me:
“You made something perfect, so perfect with your spell.” But it was far from perfect though, wasn’t it? I ask of them. "No!" they say, “It was perfect, you know it was perfect Coco, so perfect with your witch’s spell.”
It was hell.
“Yes, but it was your perfect spell, that made Brad Blake your perfect hell.”
9th March
The day of his operation. A lot of strangeness today. Brad phones me very early morning as soon as she drops him off at the hospital and before his operation. He tells me he missed me very much last night and he will call as soon as his surgery is over; he tells me he loves me and I am his world and that he detests being with her. I exercise all morning then I phone the hospital for information on Brad, whereupon they ask me if I am his wife. Knowing she has taken him there and is returning to collect him, I cannot say that I was. He is using her and we both know it. So I state in confidentiality that I am his mistress, whom he has a very close relationship with and I am very concerned at this moment about his health as he just had surgery. The nurse says she understands and releases the information I asked for. She informs me that he is doing well at present and out of theatre. He phones me as soon as h
e comes around from the anaesthetic. He asked the same nurse, who had by then informed him quietly that I had called. He asks her to dial my number for him on his secret phone and on listening to his conversation with me, she hears him telling me how much he loves me. The nurse, who is also very much aware that I am not his wife, is at the same time looking out the side room door in case someone comes along the corridor to visit him and he gets caught talking to me on his hidden phone. Apparently, just after he finished the call, the nurse came abruptly back to inform him that was good timing as his old mother had arrived to take him home. The nurse was then shocked as Brad informed her that this woman was not actually his mother who had come to collect him but that the old aged woman was his wife.
Sometime later his sister Megan calls me to ask what is going on. She informs me that she already knew Brad was going back home as Brad’s wife had told her a few nights back. Well, well, well there is another shock statement for me. Not! She goes on to tell me that Brad’s wife is under the impression he is back for good. Really! This apparently is the arrangement that has been made between them, with him also promising her to have no contact with me ever again. More hurt and devastation, but no surprise here, by no means. A huge commotion ensues with me screaming and swearing at Brad when phones back later. He persistently informs me this is not the case. He is coming back to me, and his wife can think what the fuck she likes about the situation but he is leaving her again for definite as soon as possible.
Over the next few days Brad phones me as much as he can. He has to attend a funeral one day so he has the chance to come by the house for a short visit. He has company in the form of a driver, so he doesn’t say much and he can’t stay long. The following day when I am in town, he phones me, begging me to trust him, saying he is not sleeping with her and he informs me for the third time that he has made the biggest mistake of his life on going back there. He feels like a caged animal being kept in that house, and she keeps on checking his white phone like an idiot and she is making plans for them, hoping to keep him there with her. I hang up on him with my own thoughts on the matter being she won’t find anything because she is checking the wrong phone; not only that, in her desperation she is making him dislike and use her even more.
16th March
It’s wild out tonight. The wind rattles through the branches of the trees in the garden and rain hits off the glass on the windowpanes. I stoke the log fire, now the place is so warm and cosy, with only the fire glow and light from the candles making dancing shadows on the ceiling. I snuggle up, enjoying the fact the only company I would have tonight is my little dogs. Brad has been phoning but I have been ignoring his calls. I wonder if the weather is as bad where he is, probably, but I don’t care that much really. I am just curious, so be it if he goes out in it to phone me, yet receives no answer to his calls, his problem not mine. I have my own plans tonight, however, which do include him but answering his calls is definitely not one of them.
I go for a ritual cleansing bath, and then, donning my robes, start to mix all my unusual ingredients needed for the preparations for my spell. I plan to cast a spell at evening tide, and then at midnight bury the magic of it under the willow tree. I would make sure that Brad Blake this time, under this spell made tonight would be bound to me forever. His love for me will be his downfall, as I intend it to be used as the tool he will be tortured by. He will suffer torment at the depth of it, causing him to feel so bewitched by me; he will not be able to live his life with or without me in any form of peace.
On completing the chant and formulation of the given spell and as the torrential rain falls from the heavens, under the old tree I bury my sacred object, believed to hold the supernatural powers of my craft. Wrapped in both a lock of his hair (I cut awhile back) and my blood, it is planted deep down into the earth. So now that symbolises that he bears the burden of his love for me until the end of his time, death is the only thing to set him free or if I unfold the magic conjuration to remove the curse. In the darkness, there is very little moonlight as I crawl out from underneath the old willow. I am damp from the mist of the weather but with its branches bowing to the ground, they provided some protection from the elements while I was under them. Now, however, with the wind and heavy rain blowing right into my face, I put my head down as I hurry back towards the house. Tripping in my haste, I stumble over my heavy robes, which by now are suddenly soaking wet in the storm. They were already all covered in dirt, which is turning to pure mud on being drenched with the icy rain.
As I enter quickly in through the door, I wonder for a second if Brad Blake is worth this? I strip off the layers of the gown and cloak, stepping out of them; I stand naked, shivering with the filthy garments lying at my feet on the wet stone floor. On looking down, I think perhaps a spell now to clean them is in order; I smile wistfully to myself at the thought. I shake my head hopelessly, then wrapping my arms tightly around my bare breasts, I shudder again as I am chilled to the bone. I step over the damp clothes, running naked upstairs to have a hot bath. I sink into the hot water, allowing the cold to leave my body; eventually, I begin to feel relaxed and warm once more. Brad Blake, however, shall be the worse for wear than I am tonight. If I have regrets on falling for him, the price he pays has just been ten folded on him for falling in love with, then attempting to leave me.
18th March
Brad arrives unannounced. Now I know the spell yet again has worked. He says not last night but the night before, he woke at midnight feeling very unwell. Since then he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about me twenty-four hours a day plus he can’t sleep with the loneliness his life holds now without me. He says that the uncertainty of him not knowing where I am or what I’m doing is driving him crazy. He goes on to explain a kind of longing inside, missing me while desperately feeling he needs to make love to me to fulfil the emptiness. He walks around with a hard-on at the thought of me. Peculiar, I smirk, that part was not in my spell. He emphasises more, elaborating on the fact that he can’t be without me much longer and he needs to be here, with me. Well, today I am not surprised by him appearing at the door of my house now, am I? But I am shocked he is driving his car with a plaster on his foot. His insurance would be void, apart from anything else. He states she had gone out, leaving him home alone for once, and he wanted to come; in fact, he needed to come to visit me as he desperately has non-stop urges to be with me. He went outside with his car keys to see if he could handle the car and voila! Here he was. "Well! Well! Well! Coco Houston, do we have a problem?" No, not yet, well perhaps.
This is only the second time I have seen him since he left me to have the operation, with it being the very first time we are alone. After living with him for months and being with him almost every day for years before that, I found these last ten days had been extremely heart-breaking for me. Canada all over again. It takes a very bad situation to make you stronger though, not only that, I am extremely angry. No tears. No running and jumping into his arms, no kissing him, no sex, and I am not going to be giving him any declarations of undying love on missing him. He sits down. Shaking, I go and make him tea for him, coffee for myself, trying to hide how nervous I am. I find it stupid pretending I am fine, working hard to keep my true feelings under control. I breathe deeply, exhaling slowly, then repeat this procedure to calm me before entering back into the lounge, handing him his drink. He is sitting on the sofa, as I stand over by the window, he is watching me
“I want to talk to you, Brad,” I say in a matter-of-fact tone to him, which causes his face to literally pale in front of me.
“Okay, Coco!” he replies meekly. I stand a few moments in silence, staring at him as he waits anxiously listening for what I have to say.
“Just recently, when you went behind my back to discuss with your wife about you returning to the marital home, I believe your wife told you a few things, Brad. One that she loved you and that she wanted you, but she didn’t need you!” I say in a smart tone used when being arrogant and rude. He loo
ks at me with surprise showing in his eyes, I can see he is astounded by the accuracy of the information my informant had provided, by the expression on his face, I can see that he is quickly trying to calculate who could have possibly told me this. I know this to be the truth about the conversation they’d held and I had just repeated word for word because his face turns pure red with shame and embarrassment at being caught out with his lies. He can’t answer me, he is speechless; I stare right through him before I continue talking.
“Well! Guess what, Blake? I have my own opinion on the matter too. You see I loved you. I wanted you and unlike her, I thought I did need you but you know what has happened now, Brad? These last ten days I have learned to live without you!” I very confidentially brief him.
“Oh Blake, and by the way, I don’t give two cents what you do with her, actually make that phrase two fucks, more appropriate choice of words I think, don’t you? After all, you sleep with me and her!” I say sarcastically, knowing he didn’t have sex with both of us, but sharing our beds, well that he fucking did, so I know I got that part right.
“Now go! Get out. Go! Get back to your wife and out of my fucking life!” I speak in a very calm voice to him.
Seriously, I feel nothing. I am just glad it is finally done, it hadn’t been planned, it had just happened that way. The picture on his face is a rainbow of colours; believe me it tells a thousand stories. He sits now wearing a look of surprise and shock of not quite being sure of exactly what had just taken place as I walk out the room.
I hear him get up, shuffling along the wooden floor behind me as he stumbles after me with his foot in plaster. I go marching back into the kitchen; he is closing in on me from behind with his face pure red in temper. He is shouting and swearing, saying it didn’t take me long to get over him, then calling me a whore amongst other things. I ignore the name-calling, walk to my back door, then holding it wide open, I gesture for him to come to it, as he does, I wait then I put my face right up into his, ordering him out as viciously I spit in a voice full of contempt: