Infatuation
The others – Wullie’s story – episode 1
The first time I see Mandy is at the company Christmas party at Le Guile. She’s Stevie’s girlfriend, and boy—the big man’s landed on his feet there.
She’s stunning. Proper dead-stop stunning. Like Leeloo in The Fifth Element—an extraterrestrial anomaly dropped into a drab Glasgow function suite.
I think she can tell I fancy her right off the bat. The way her smile radiates through her eyes when we’re introduced. It’s like she can see straight into my brain and drag every intimate thought into the light.
Her voice carries—or maybe my ears just hone in on her frequency, slicing through the noise to find hers alone. When the main course arrives, she catches me dream-gazing.
I bolt to the toilets—clock the burning roses on my cheeks in the grime-slicked mirror. I can’t push the smile down. I see it in my eyes, that glint. I’m falling headfirst into the jaws of infatuation, a total structural failure of the heart.
We run into each other outside the toilets. She tells me her table partners are boring and that Stevie’s doing her head in, going on and on about his ultra running.
My first mistake: I tell her she’s welcome at my table. Of course I do.
She leans in close, tells me I’ve got “magnetic eyes,” and I counter with a stuttered observation about hers being very pretty. That’s my second mistake. I’ve basically handed her the leash. “Pretty” is the white flag. I might as well have just laid down on the sticky carpet—belly-up, tongue out, paws in the air.
Later, when we’re all loud and loose, she stakes a place in my orbit. She’s warm, electric, utterly captivating. I complete the hat-trick by letting her draw me in on the dance floor. She finds the gap in my defence effortlessly.
Just as I’m committing to the play, Stevie blows the whistle, pulls her off the pitch. Prick wants to go home.
I shout a whole-chested, but ultimately futile—”Stay!” over the pounding techno.
On the edge of the floor, she leans in. “Thanks for the night, Wullie.”
Then she kisses me. No tongues—Stevie’s right there—but her lips press against mine for a split second.
The rug is gone, and with it, my grasp of reality.
After that, I’m under her spell. I lie alone in bed, glued to a screenshot of her face with Stevie cropped out, a digital amputation. Imagining my hand’s hers.
My finger hovers over the “Add Friend” button like a detonator, but I can’t trigger it. I try to tell myself it was just the chemistry of the night—a volatile mix of free cocktails and a disastrous dopamine leak.
On Christmas Day, Mum looks at me over the turkey and says, “You’ve got the look of love about you, son. Is there something you’re not telling us?”
“Just happy to be off the tools for a few days,” I deflect, leaning into the safety of the mundane.
But Mandy’s moved into my brain. Paying rent by playing the lead in my erotic fan fiction.
The night before Hogmanay, Stevie texts. They’re having a party; I’m invited. I want to be there more than anywhere else. Back in her space, shivering like a tectonic plate about to slip.
I bail on my original plans. A messy piss-up with my punk tribe. I buy a new shirt, something in Stevie’s style, and a new aftershave. Citrusy. Sharp. Just like his.
The party’s intimate, a small circle of their friends. I’m the only one there without a plus-one, a spare part in a room full of pairs.
Mandy’s presence hits me like the first kick of a bass drum in a tiny room—a sudden, physical thud that resets my heart rate to match hers.
“I’m glad you could make it,” she says. Her dress feathers onto her skin like purple paint. A devastating violet nebula.
She leans in. “I’ve been thinking about you,” she whispers.
Now I know I’m not the only one who’s been drafting this script. The what if becomes a glorious when. I can tell by the way she looks at me that she’s just as impatient as I am, pupils blown wide and dark, like she’s peaking in the middle of a strobe-lit floor.
Stevie has cooked beef wellington and splashed out on posh wine. I shift in my seat and she clocks it—a silent acknowledgement of the shared current between us.
I head for the toilet, and in the hallway, we kiss for real. Downstairs, I can hear Stevie talking league tables while I’m tasting his girlfriend’s lips. She pushes me against the wall, soundless. Her kiss is starving, and I respond with the same fever. I want to pull her away from everything, but we can’t. Not here.
“Come and see me. My place. As soon as you can,” I whisper, the words shaking out of me, the tremor subsiding, though the ground’s still far from steady.
For the rest of the evening, I have to watch her perform the role of Stevie’s devoted girlfriend. He treats her like a trophy. To him, she’s top-tier arm candy that validates his ego, but I don’t see a single spark of genuine recognition in his eyes. The custodian of a masterpiece who’s only ever appreciated the gloss.
I’m stripping the prick of his layers because it’s easier to rob a man who you don’t think deserves what he’s got.
At the bells, she kisses me again. Socially sanctioned. Less passionate for the gallery, but no less ruinous for me.
She slips a scrap of paper into my hand as I’m leaving. I read it while I’m walking home under the soot-stained sky: Can’t wait to be with you.
My heart misfires.
There’s a chat handle. Our digital hideout. I send the first message the second I’m through my front door, my thumbs trembling: Thinking about you.
Her response is instant: Same X
The first time we make love, it’s like a seized valve finally giving way under a lifetime of pressure. Second of January. The city is hungover, grey, sluggish.
She’s told Stevie she’s hitting the sales at Braehead, but instead she navigates the rain-slicked streets to Croftfoot. To me.
I spend the morning in a total fever—cleaning the flat, buying flowers, chilling champagne. Pure lover-boy cliché. I even buy three different bath treats, thinking she might want to share a soak. I want her to feel special. I want her to choose me over him.
We haven’t even shared a bed yet, but I already know this is going to be the record I’ll want to play until the grooves wear smooth.
When the doorbell goes, I freeze. I check my face in the mirror—clocking the frantic pulse in my neck—take a breath, and open.
No clinging dress today, but she’s still stunning. My whole body shivers at the sight of her. She flicks her eyes to the ground for a second before pinning mine with a look that says: I am here. Claim me.
I step aside. As she passes, her perfume fills the hall, marking the territory as hers.
We don’t say much as I follow her up the stairs; we just gaze at each other, barely believing this is actually happening. She tells me she needs to be home by five.
I pop the cork on the champagne, stick on a moody Prodigy mix, and try to forget that she’s only on loan.
She folds into me. I cradle her face, kissing her like I’m trying to brand her soul.
We migrate to the bedroom, dropping clothes like bombs along the way. At the bedside, she pushes me back and stays standing. She pulls her top off, revealing a purple lace bra—matching knickers, too.
“Stevie got me these for Christmas,” she says, her voice low. “Probably more for his benefit than mine. But now? They’re for yours.”
Lust hits me like an electric shock. Frenzy and hunger braided tightly.
She looks at my naked body and murmurs, “I don’t care about lace, though. I want to wear your sweat.”
She unclips the bra and lets it fall to her feet. A discarded relic of her other life.
“I’m gushing for you,” she whispers, straddling my hips.
She puts a hand on my chest—feeling my hammering heart—leans forward, and kisses me until my mind’s swimming. I find the rhythm of her hips, aching with a joy I have no right to claim.
My fingers find her—warm, ready, electric—and she surrenders. Collapses onto me, shaking with the aftershock. The hypnotic bassline of “Climbatize” surging through the air.
“Sorry,” she says, a little breathless. “I’ve made your bed wet.”
“Not a worry, sweets,” I whisper, giving her a wink. “I’ve fixed worse leaks than that.”
She laughs, a light, relieved sound, and crawls into me.
We lie there for ages, watching the wind turbine up at Cathkin Braes turn slowly against the winter sky. I pour the champagne and we talk. Not about Stevie. Music. The frequency we’re both vibrating on.
In a few hours, she’ll leave, and her absence will be a screaming void in this room. But right now? I’m brimming.
I stand in the doorway as her taxi pulls up. She half-turns, gives me a conspiratorial grin, and blows me a kiss. Then she’s gone.
A hollow ache hits my chest like a loose pipe rattling in a wall. You’d think the fumes of the afternoon would be enough to carry me through, but this isn’t just localised desire. Something deeper is already gnawing at the foundations.
If I were thinking with my boaby—the standard operating procedure—I’d be satiated. But this time, my heart’s got opinions.
She asks me to use the chat sparingly. Strategic silence. She doesn’t want Stevie getting suspicious, and it would make things socially awkward for me too if he found out.
We aren’t welded at the hip at work, but we cross paths most days. He’s not a complete tube, Stevie. That’s the problem.
He’s originally from Braintree, though his auld man was Parkhead born and bred—an identity hybrid. He’s been in Scotland a couple of years but treats it like a temporary stopover. Fit bastard, and the lassies in the office adore that cheeky chappy accent.
He told me how he’d met Mandy at the Minto—how he’d wooed her with fancy restaurants, expensive gifts, romantic getaways. He talked about it like he’s chalking it all up on a ledger.
They’d only been together two weeks before she moved in. She’d been stuck in a skanky bedsit on Allison Street. Moving in was an act of survival. An escape.
She clearly doesn’t love him though. If she did, we wouldn’t be a thing, would we?
Monday morning, I’m back on the clock. I’m sitting in the staff room waiting for my work sheet when he walks in, radiating that oblivious, mid-tempo energy.
I thank him for the party, the words feeling like dry ash in my mouth.
“Never thought hangovers could span days,” he jokes. “In my twenties, we didn’t have time for this crapulence shit between sessions.”
He mentions that Mandy wasn’t suffering half as much. “She was straight out the door on the second. Burning through my savings at the sales.”
I bite my tongue so hard I taste copper.
Then he pivots to the football. The safe, communal language. We sit there, two men connected by the same woman, discussing league tables while the ghost of her perfume still clings to my skin.
I don’t hear from Mandy for a week—a chronological abyss long enough for the paranoia to properly take root. I start wondering if I’ve blown it. Maybe I’m the boring one.
Then she drops a voice note that torches every doubt, her voice a low-frequency hum in my ear:
“I’ve been thinking about you since I left. Can’t wait to be with you again. Hashtag bring on the gush.”
It makes me laugh out loud. She’s funny, fierce—fucking fantastic.
I write back: I hear the January sales are topper this year. Maybe you should treat yourself to a day’s shopping. Or why not make it a weekend?
She responds: A whole weekend would be sweet, but not right now. How are you fixed for Saturday? I can be at yours around noon if that’s okay.
More than okay. And I mean it.
The days drag until Saturday. By then, I’m like a greyhound at the traps.
But just before lunchtime: Change of plan. Can’t make it today. Sorry X
I’m proper gutted. I reply: I’ll be hanging for the reschedule X
On Monday, I find out the truth through the office grapevine. Stevie slipped and hit his head off the bathroom sink. A prosaic failure of physics for a man who spends his days off conquering Munros in deep-lugged trail running shoes. A freak accident in the one place where his endurance and grit don’t count for a thing.
A dark, intrusive part of my brain wishes the porcelain had finished him off, but instead it was just a trip to A&E for a couple of stitches and a weekend of being waited on by Nurse Mandy.
She messages me again:
Sorry I let you down. I’ll make it up to you. Same time this Saturday?
Aye, sure. You’ll have to peel me off the wall by then.
LOL.
For the second visit, I don’t want her to think it’s just about the industrial-grade gymnastics in bed—though it would be a lie to say that isn’t the main event.
I cook a Thai curry from scratch, pounding ginger and lemongrass in a mortar like I’m trying to drum out a blast-beat. I buy massage oil online and spend the week studying instructional videos with the single-minded focus of a guy sitting a trade exam.
At noon, I’m standing in the doorway as her taxi pulls up. She beams me a smile that makes me fall apart and fall into place all at once.
When she’s close, I pull her in. I just hold her for a minute, breathing in the scent of her hair. It takes her by surprise—I can feel the hesitation. She likely expected the caveman routine. But I don’t want to be that guy. I’d rather floor her with something she didn’t see coming.
She tips her head up and we kiss. I find myself smiling through it.
“Happy to see me, then?” she says.
“Very, very happy. You hungry? I’ve made a Thai curry.”
She smiles.
We sit on the sofa and eat as she fills me in on her job at the chiropractor’s in Burnside. Monotonous but straightforward, she says. Phones, emails, taking payments—the exhausting art of being chatty while your brain is having a total system crash from boredom. She doesn’t hate it, though. Says her gaffer’s a decent guy.
I tell her about the band. About being a drummer. She asks if we have groupies, and I’m honest—I admit I’ve slept with a few in the past. I tell her straight: I like sex, but I prefer it with feelings attached.
“Do you have feelings for me?” she asks.
“I’m catching them.” I let the moment hang. “What about you? How solid are things with Stevie?”
“Dunno.” She looks out the window, her gaze drifting. “I thought I was into him. Until you stumbled in. Now I’m not so sure.”
“Do you think you’ll leave him?” I ask.
She looks deep into my eyes. “It’s complicated. I don’t want to hurt him—he’s been good to me. But the seed is already sown. I haven’t slept with him since New Year’s Eve.”
She doesn’t want him anymore; she wants me. Part of me wants to tell her to move in right now, but I know that’s a total disregard for the safety manual.
“Just let him down easy, then,” I say.
She whispers, “So… you don’t want to make love today?”
“Aye. Since the second you got here. But I wanted you to see I’m capable of more than just that.” I smile. “Speaking of which—how’d you like a wee massage? I’ve been learning the strokes.”
“Mmh. I’d love that. Wullie, you’re turning out to be pure top-tier boyfriend material. I hope that’s what you’re aiming for.”
“If it’s doing the trick, then aye.”
She stands, offers me her hand, and leads me toward the bedroom. I lay towels across the bed and help her out of her clothes, catching her lips with mine as we go. Once she’s bare, she lies on her front. I work her back in long, rhythmic strokes—drummer’s hands, plumber’s precision.
When I ask her to flip over, she pulls me down instead.
“I need to feel you.” Not a request—a demand.
I’m already electric from the touch of her skin. Within seconds, we snap together—a perfect fit, like we were designed for each other. Her warmth lights me up from the inside out. I love the way she rocks to find the friction.
Afterward, we shower to wash the oil away. Seeing her through the steam is like a cinematic fever dream. The soap suds trace her skin against the backdrop of grey light.
“Will you come see me again soon—please?”
She looks at me, serious now. “If I were to leave Stevie… how would you feel about me living here? With you?”
I know the physics of it—if you open a valve too fast, the surge can blow the whole system apart. I should throttle back, play it cool, but the words are already out:
“I would love that, sweets.”
In the staff room, Stevie pours his heart out—a man watching his personal empire crumble in real-time. He thinks Mandy’s about to dump him and asks if he should get in there first, just to save face.
He’d planned to ask her to move back to Braintree. Marriage, kids—the full domestic curriculum. He thought things were structurally sound, but then the sex just stopped.
“It’s been over a month,” he says, sounding properly wounded. “Nothing. Even bought her a nice bottle of perfume and got sweet Fanny Adams in return.”
I hate the crude arithmetic of it—the way he tries to balance a ledger: perfume in, sex out. But I hear him out; I’m looking for the precise spot to plant a seed of doubt.
“In my experience,” I say, leaning back with feigned detachment, “when the sex dries up, the relationship’s already buried. Unless you’ve got a mutual interest to bridge the gap. Scuba diving. Train spotting. Metal detecting. That sort of thing.”
“Fuck, that sucks,” he sighs. “’Cause at the start, there was fire. Total bomb in bed. But I can’t live with a sex-averse girlfriend.”
He’s desperate, says he’s gasping for the bare minimum of intimacy. I tut and shake my head, playing the part of the sympathetic colleague.
“I’ll try one last time this weekend,” he says, sounding determined. “Valentine’s Day. If that doesn’t salvage it, I’m done.”
“Good luck,” I say, my heart hammering against my ribs like a double-kick pedal.
The second he’s out the door, I message Mandy.
When I get home I start clearing space in my house, the prospect of her presence becoming a tangible reality. I want her to see me behind the drums, to feel the backbeat of my real life. I’m betting that once she’s out from under Stevie’s dull, static noise, she’ll find the rhythm of us.
The transition is a blur. After he dumps her, she tells him she’s moving to her dad’s in East Kilbride. He doesn’t ask questions.
The night his taillights fade, she’s through my front door with two suitcases and that look. The one that says: I chose you.
I feel like I’ve won the league on a last-minute goal. Stevie, the cheeky-chappy, fit bastard that every lassie in the office fancies, has been benched. He moves back to Braintree within the month. No more shadows.
The first few months are cinematic. Mandy makes the flat feel like somewhere I actually want to come home to. The sex is intoxicating; she meets me at the door in nothing but my jumper. She demands we make love on the internal stairs before I’ve even shed my work gear. Says shagging a hardworking tradesman is hot—and I lap it up.
When I tell her what I pull in for after-hours work, she encourages me to take every shift I can get, her eyes shining with a different kind of heat. I ignore the subtext. I’m too busy being the one who was chosen.
I bring Mandy to the Doghouse to meet Dexi—my wee brother, bass player in my band, chemistry teacher and my best friend.
He’s leaning at the bar greeting us with a slow, knowing grin. Mandy squeezes my hand and mumbles, “He’s cute. In a geeky way.”
We get settled in a booth. Dexi starts talking about his week; he’s been ploughing through The Second Sex—Simone de Beauvoir.
“So she’s arguing that women aren’t born, they’re made. Femininity is something society does to you—”
Mandy’s phone comes out. She starts scrolling, the blue light reflecting in her eyes. Dexi keeps going for another minute, being polite, but she doesn’t tune back in. He trails off, the conversation dying like a flat battery.
When she goes to the toilet, I lean across the table. “What do you think?”
Dexi considers this, turning his glass in a circle. “She’s very pretty.”
“And?”
A pause. “And… she’s very pretty. I don’t really know, to be honest.” He meets my eyes, and for a second, I see the chemistry teacher weighing up a failing experiment. “As long as you’re happy, bro.”
I nod. He doesn’t know her, I think. Not like I do.
“I’m happy,” I say. But even as the words leave my mouth, I can feel the first signs of a slow leak—the kind you don’t notice until the ceiling starts to sag.
The slow leak continues at the checkout.
I usually do the weekly shop at Aldi. Mum taught me to never buy into all that “because you’re worth it” shite. Mandy won’t have it. Aldi doesn’t stock her “requirements,” so we go to Asda in Toryglen.
She fills a trolley without doing the mental maths—twenty-pound wine, brand-name everything.
“Stop being so working class, Wullie. You should want to better yourself.”
“Paying two quid more for Heinz is bettering myself?”
We end up buying both. I get the cheap brand in protest, yet I’m still shelling out for her preferences. She buys stuff and lets it rot in the fridge, fresh veg turning to slime while she scrolls for a takeaway.
When I suggest a weekly menu, she complains I’m not being impulsive enough.
“Mandy, I’m having to pull overtime just to cover the shopping.”
My pleas fall on deaf ears. She sneaks in the extras—makeup, toiletries, stealth hits to my account that I only spot as they bleep through the till. I’m working a Saturday shift just to fund her foundation and Châteauneuf-du-Pape.”
At home, she puts the washing machine on for a single top. Keeps the heating cranked when we’re out. Leaves every room lit like Hampden Park.
I go around behind her, clicking the switches, trying to kill the glare; she just turns them back on.
“It’s wasteful,” I say, the plumber in me seeing the money literally evaporate.
“Fuck’s sake, Wullie. You’ll piss away twenty quid on a damp rehearsal room, but I’m supposed to sit here with purple fingers so you can save on the gas bill?”
Clothes. She likes labels; I like vintage. I inherited my granny’s sewing machine—DIY is the backbone of punk, and it’s how I keep my gear together. Mandy just shakes her head, looking at me like I’m an idiot.
“Second hand is minging,” she says.
She lives for Braehead with her friend Lorna. Twelve-pound bath bombs from Lush that smell like a meltdown in a chemical factory. A wardrobe full of clothes she never wears, an expensive monument to her impulsiveness.
She dragged me along once, but got so fed up with me complaining about capitalism and the death of the high street that she never asked again.
I’m still the one who was chosen, but I’m beginning to realise the price of the ticket is higher than the value of the prize.
The standing order was my idea.
“Let’s set up a joint account. Just for the household stuff.”
Mandy agrees. Kisses me. Calls me her domestic god.
I set up a standing order from my account—eight hundred a month. More than my share, but I earn more. She says she’ll set hers up that Saturday.
Weekend comes. Goes. Another weekend.
“Did you do the standing order?”
“Oh, I’ll do it tomorrow. Been mental at work.”
I don’t push. My parents always pooled everything; that’s what partnership looks like in a working-class household. I tell myself she’ll get there. She earns less. She has debts. Payday loans. Klarna payments for shoes still in their boxes—ghosts of shopping trips past. I’ve seen the statements once, accidentally.
You carry someone for a bit, don’t you? Until they’re back on their feet. Except she never seems interested in finding her footing.
The first time I check the joint account, I see my deposits. Eight hundred, then another eight hundred. Hers? A row of empty circles.
I bring it up over dinner.
“Joint account’s looking a bit one-sided, sweets.”
She puts her fork down. “I thought you said you’d cover things until I’m settled.”
“You’ve been settled for a few months, Mandy.”
“So now I’m a burden?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Because that’s what it sounds like, Wullie. Like you’re keeping score.”
She pushes her chair back, goes to the bedroom, and closes the door. A soft, deliberate click. No shouting. Just the weight of a vacuum sealing.
I sit there while the steam leaves my plate. The fever is breaking—the fog lifting just enough to show me the cracks. But I don’t want to see the truth. Not yet. I’m still white-knuckling the fever dream, trying to stay lost in the haze.
By the time I bring her to my folks’ house, the honeymoon is ebbing. The standing order. The lights. The way she dismissed my rehearsal space.
I tell myself that maybe meeting the parents will fix it. That they will love her and she will love them and we’ll progress to the next level.
Mum has done something nice with flowers on the table, really made an effort. Mandy spends forty-five minutes on the sofa, buried in her phone. I offer her tea twice; she says “in a minute” both times.
In the kitchen, I can hear the clatter of pots, Mum’s percussion getting angrier than it needs to be.
“Should we go help?” I ask Mandy.
“She hasn’t asked.”
“That’s not really the point.”
She blinks at me, the blue light of the screen washing out her face.
“I thought I was invited for Sunday lunch. Not to do a shift as your mum’s KP?”
The words hit me like a dropped wrench on a tiled floor.
At the table, Mandy suddenly finds her voice. The chiropractor’s. The well-to-do clients. Footballers. A guy from River City. She name-drops like she’s throwing confetti.
Dad chews his roast potato and says nothing, the ultimate Glaswegian veto.
“So,” Mum says, “what do you think of band?”
“I’m not really into all that angry noise. The raggedy clothes. It’s a bit much, to be honest. I like clubbing. DJ sets. Ibiza ideally.”
“I’m still working on widening Mandy’s musical tastes,” I say, too fast, trying to plug the leak.
Mandy gives me a look. A flash of dark in her eyes, but she holds her tongue—for once.
“Well, I think they’re brilliant,” Mum says, patting my arm.
“That’s what mums do, eh,” Mandy says, smiling sweetly.
I can see it’s taking precisely every bit of Mum’s composure not to blow up in her face. It’s a calculated sneer at the one thing Mum values most—our talent. The air in the room goes cold as she dismisses a lifetime of practice and passion as nothing more than a mother’s bias.
Dexi catches my eye across the table. His face is a total blank—a clean sheet of disappointment.
She doesn’t ask Mum about her teaching. Doesn’t ask Dad about his garden. Doesn’t ask Dexi about his books.
Afterwards, she doesn’t offer to help with the dishes. Just goes back to the sofa and finds her phone.
Mum catches my sleeve in the kitchen.
“You two need to be somewhere?”
“No, we—”
“You should take her up the road, Wullie. Now. Before I tell her exactly how unwelcome she is in this house.”
Later, when we’re back at the flat, my phone buzzes. Mandy’s in the shower. I step into the bedroom and close the door, cutting off the sound of the running water.
“Son.”
“Mum.”
A pause. “Are you serious about that one?”
I sit on the edge of the bed. “She’s… we’re still figuring it out.”
“She didn’t ask one single question. Not one.”
“She was nervous.”
“Girls like her don’t get nervous, son. They get bored.”
“She’s not like that normally.”
“What is she like then—normally?”
“She’s… fun.” It’s the only word I can find that doesn’t feel like a lie.
“Fun’s not gonna cut it, son. You need more than fun to make a relationship last.”
She hangs up before I can respond.
Mandy comes into the bedroom and drops her towel with that expectant gaze—the one that used to hook me so effortlessly. I look at her, and the embarrassment starts to creep in—the way it does when you know you’ve bought a dud and you’re still making the payments.
She only ever comes to two gigs.
The first one she spends at the bar, scrolling her phone. The second one she watches glued to the back wall with her arms crossed.
After that, she stops pretending.
“I don’t get it,” she says. “It’s just loud noise.”
That second gig, we’re loading out. Sammy from Gash leans in, her hand on my forearm, telling me she likes my fills on the new song. Just the usual band-to-band banter.
But when I glance toward the bar, Mandy is tracking us with the cold focus of a sniper.
In the taxi home, she stares out the window. When we get inside, the front door hammers against the frame—a rimshot that shakes the whole flat.
“Does that skanky bitch have to drape herself all over you?”
It’s a shriek bathed in bile, slicing right through my post-gig buzz.
“She was just being friendly.”
“She was being a fucking slag. I saw how you looked at her. Like you were ready to follow her out the door.”
I hadn’t looked at her at all. But the heat rises in my neck, a surge of static I can’t vent.
“I didn’t encourage her.”
“You didn’t shut her down.”
She turns her back and heads for the bedroom.
The sex that follows—the jagged full stop to every argument—is desperate and wordless. She pins my wrists and sinks her teeth into my shoulder, hard enough to draw blood. She’s marking her territory, or maybe just making sure I don’t forget the cost of the heat.
I don’t pull away. I just lie there, a crash-test dummy in my own bed, watching the fever dream dissolve into toxic smoke.
Then comes the cymbal argument.
I’ve been saving for months. A Meinl Byzance. Three hundred quid, in twenties, spread across the kitchen table like a winning hand.
Mandy drifts in. Picks up a note. “What’s this for?”
“New cymbal.”
She looks at the Drummers Only screen over my shoulder. “Three hundred pounds? For a fucking metal disc.”
“It’s a topper, Mandy. High-end bronze.”
She sits down across from me, her eyes flat. “You want to know what I don’t get? How you can moan about a twenty-pound bottle of wine but drop three hundred quid on something that goes crash. How you can lecture me about the heating when you’re pouring money into a bleeding shed so you can make noise with your pals.”
“It’s not a shed. It’s a rehearsal studio.”
“It’s a hobby, Wullie. A loud, expensive, time-consuming hobby that will never pay a single bill.”
“It’s not a hobby. It’s my heartbeat.”
She laughs. A pitying one. “That’s what’s worrying me.”
She gets up, pours herself a glass of water, and doesn’t offer me one. She throws the twenty back on the table like it’s something dirty.
I sit there long after she leaves the room. I can hear her in the bedroom, scrolling her phone—the little clicks and chuckles of whatever video she’s watching. Untroubled.
I put the cash back in the tin. I go to bed. I pull her close, and she lets me, and we have sex. It’s good—it’s always good.
But the blindfold has slipped. I can see her clearly now.
One afternoon in the staff room, Davie stirs his tea, the spoon clinking against the mug like a muffled metronome.
“Are you still with Mandy?”
“Aye. Why?”
“Right… ehm.” He doesn’t look up. “I spotted her with some big fella outside the Tesco in Burnside last week. Must’ve been a pal, I guess.”
Six months ago, I would have laughed. I’d have told him it was her cousin or a guy from the chiropractor’s.
But the blindfold is loose. The argument over the cymbal is still ringing in my ears. My mum’s warning about how girls like Mandy don’t get nervous, they get bored.
“Probably,” I say. But my voice sounds wrong—thin and brittle, like a cracked reed. It’s a note I can’t sustain.
Davie looks up. Just for a second. He sees the leak in my confidence, the sag in the ceiling.
Then he shrugs. “Aye. Probably.”
I walk out with my pulse hammering a frantic, messy beat.
A couple of nights later, I check her phone.
I’ve been lying awake for two hours, watching the streetlight bleed through the gap in the curtains, listening to her breathe. Steady. Untroubled. The kind of sleep you only get when you’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.
Or maybe that’s just what I tell myself.
I wait until her breathing hits that heavy, rhythmic low-tide—the point where I could drag a bin bag full of percussive instruments through the bedroom and she wouldn’t even stir—then I slide the device off the bedside table.
My thumb hovers. Her birthday. The same code she uses for everything, the same lack of imagination that should have been the first red flag.
The interface bleeds open.
I tell myself I’m looking for nothing. A habit. A reflex. I tell myself I’m being paranoid, that Davie saw her with a pal from the gym or a punter from work.
Then I see the name—Kyle.
My thumb stalls. I stare at the four letters like they’re written in an alien language. Kyle. Not a surname. Not a contact photo. Just Kyle, bold and unsmiling, the way you save someone’s number when you don’t want to look at their face every time you open the thread.
My fingers shake so badly I have to grip the phone with both hands.
I scroll up slowly. Not because I’m being careful—because I’m afraid of what’s coming.
Each message loads like a small, avoidable accident.
When are you coming to see me?
He’s got a gig tomorrow night. I’ll come to yours.
You said that last week.
I know. I’m sorry. He’s been weird lately. Suspicious.
Then stop being so obvious.
I’m not the one messaging first.
There’s a pause in the thread. A gap of hours. Then:
You’re right. I’m sorry. I just miss you.
Then come over.
Tomorrow. I promise.
I scroll up further and the selfie loads.
Square jaw. Expensive t-shirt stretched across a gym-built chest. The kind of smile that’s used to getting what it wants.
I recognise him instantly—the prick who owns the gym on Cathcart Road. The one I walked out of after our trial session because the whole place smelled of protein farts and misplaced superiority.
Kyle. A business owner. An upgrade.
I keep scrolling. I don’t know why. Maybe because stopping would mean admitting I’ve already seen enough.
And then I find it. The message from three weeks ago—before the cymbal argument, before Davie’s careful question in the staff room. A message I wish I hadn’t seen:
I’ve been thinking about you since I left. Can’t wait to be with you again.
My stomach turns over.
It’s her line. The exact one. The voice note she dropped after that first week of silence, the one I listened to so many times I could hear the shape of her mouth forming each word.
I’ve been thinking about you since I left.
She hadn’t written it for me. She’d just been saving drafts.
I scroll further and the language is an exact replica—the same breathless urgency, the same clandestine codes, the same fucking #BringOnTheGush.
She hasn’t written a new song for us; she’s just been playing the same tired record to a different audience.
I’m the B-side. The warm-up act. The mattress between upgrades.
I place the phone back on the nightstand with surgical precision.
If I wake her now, she’ll cry. She’ll tell me it didn’t mean anything. She’ll climb on top of me and make it good again, and I’ll let her, because that’s what I always do.
So I lie there in the dark.
She shifts, murmurs something, reaches for me in her sleep.
I let her arm rest across my chest. A dead weight from a ghost.
The next night, Dexi leans in over the snare checks. He spotted her on Green Street, arm in arm with a bloke who looked “like a cage fighter.”
The anger I’ve been banking ignites.
I play the set like a man possessed, a frantic mechanical exorcism that leaves my knuckles raw. Afterward, I stay for the post-gig shots, let Leanne tell me I was “vibrant” on stage.
I’m just waiting for the adrenaline to settle into a cold, hard resolve.
When I finally get home, the flat is a stage set for a drama I’ve already seen the ending to. Mandy is in bed, her face a mask of performative grief.
“You don’t love me anymore,” she sobs—the classic pre-emptive strike.
“That’s a lie and you know it.” My voice is brittle, the sound of a pipe snapping under a deep freeze. “I’ve worshipped the ground you walk on since day one. I still do—even while you’ve been making a Stevie out of me.”
The sobbing stops instantly. The mask slips.
When she speaks, it’s a low, predatory hiss.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Dexi saw you. With Kyle.” The name lands like a lead weight between us. “I checked your phone, Mandy. I saw the not so exclusive remix of the same lines you used on me. Did you think I was too thick to notice the recycled script?”
She sits up, her face hardening into something clinical and cold. The sci-fi goddess has been replaced by a squatter who’s just been served an eviction notice.
“It’s not the same, Wullie. I don’t love him. I love you.”
“Naw, that’s not gonna work, sweets. I see what I was now—a stopgap between a bedsit and a gym owner. Just a fucking stepping stone, that’s all.”
She opens her mouth but nothing comes out. For the first time, her performance hits a flat note and she knows I can hear it.
“This is turning toxic,” I say. “I’m bailing. You can stay until you’re sorted, but as for us? The set’s over. We’re finished.”
The words leave me completely empty. I turn and walk out fast, before the burn in the back of my throat wins.
The following evening, I come home to the smell of smoked garlic.
She’s cooked dinner. She’s wearing my jumper—her final play for a reconciliation.
“Let’s be honest, Mandy. We could never survive the mundane. You want constant upgrades—the plush postcode—and I couldn’t care less about any of that. I want the band, my pals, home-cooked food that doesn’t come with a hidden cost. Sometimes I wonder what you ever saw in me.”
She looks at me, her eyes welling up. “Your eyes told me that you wanted me. And looking at you now, Wullie, they’re still saying the same thing.”
She reaches across the table. “I miss you.”
The anger and the wanting collide. I sweep my arm across the table, knocking my plate to the floor. It shatters—the sound of a final, heavy beat ending the set.
I pull her up and we clash into a kiss that tastes like the end of the world.
I fold. It’s the last time.
We lie there in the quiet aftermath, crying for a future that was never going to hold us.
When I wake up, she’s on the sofa. My jumper is folded on the chair like a flag of surrender.
A week later, she tells me some forty-five-year-old hedge fund manager with a gubbed back has asked her out.
“Should I go?”
“We’re not together anymore, Mandy. I’ve got no say.”
She nods. I see the door close in her eyes.
Phil arrives on a Saturday. Thinning hair, moobs, a house in Bearsden, a labradoodle. He’s not dangerous or magnetic; he’s just sorted. He waits by the van while she comes back for the final lines.
“I still love you, Wullie.”
“Aye, sure you do. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”
“Thanks for not chucking me out.”
“I’m a bigger man than that. Take care of yourself Mandy. Hope Bearsden works out for you.”
She smirks. “I’m counting on you becoming a big rockstar so I can do a kiss-and-tell.”
“Go on, sweets—Phil’s waiting.”
She kisses me. No tongues—Phil’s right there—but her lips press against mine for a split second.
Then she’s in the passenger seat, and the van pulls away.
I close the door and lean my forehead against the cool glass.
The flat is silent now—her perfume still lingers like a ghost, but I think she took some of the oxygen with her. The air seems thinner somehow.
After a while, I walk into the bedroom. The wardrobe’s almost empty and the sheets have been stripped. On the bedside table, she’s left the massage oil—the lemongrass one I bought for our second date when I was daft enough to think I was “top-tier.”
I pick it up, turning it over in my hands. I should chuck it. I should pour it down the sink. I will. Eventually.
I go to the window. The wind turbine at Cathkin Braes is turning slowly against a grey sky. The same view we watched that first afternoon, when she told me she wanted to wear my sweat and I believed that we had a future.
I don’t know how long I stand there. Long enough for the light to shift and the shadows to stretch across the floorboards. Then I turn away.
I start to put fresh bedding on—snapping the sheets flat, smoothing out the creases, reclaiming the territory one corner at a time.
Circus
The others – Wullie’s story – episode 2
May 31, 2026
I’ve played the Black Box more times than I can remember. It used to be a monthly staple for my old band—The Schticks. Patrick, aka Psycho Pat, founded the band around his vibe: a completely unhinged blend of piss and vinegar punk. He insisted we all take similar monikers, so I was Radge, Josh was Rocket, and Dan was Wacko. We played together for five years before Pat fell for Yuna, a Japanese exchange student, and emigrated after she finished her degree.
When Schticks launched we were barely out of our teens, totally convinced we were destined to become a reincarnation of The Stooges. Pat performed bare-chested, usually after smearing body oil across his torso to look all slick. Once he overdid it—his hands were so fucking oily that the mic lead slipped right out of his grip mid-swing, launching the microphone into the crowd and giving some punter a nasty bump on the forehead. Lucky for us, the dude saw the funny side. Didn’t complain to the venue, didn’t get us banned. I still hear that story getting retold sometimes, with varying levels of accuracy.
I wasn’t even thinking about joining another band until Dexi came begging after Jane dumped him. He’d spotted a post on one of those ‘Musicians in Glasgow’ forums—a couple of lads looking for a solid rhythm section—and he was adamant we should audition. I didn’t want to disappoint him, so I went along. Glad I did. I recognised Spike from the scene. And Milo just had this presence—nearly messianic—that made you want to stay close. From the very first beat, we locked in. I’ve never experienced anything like it. Like we’d been playing together for years, already knew that quiet language a band builds over time. By the end of the song, we all knew: this was the band. This was Bad Faith.
Despite having the chemistry licked, we didn’t rush. Stayed in rehearsal mode for over a year, writing songs, and doing open mic nights to hone the stage presence. Then we launched. Regular gigs, building a tribe. Spike’s ex Louise and her sister Leanne handled our social media and merchandise. Before long we were gaining traction on the scene.
Tonight’s gig is a benchmark: we’re sharing the line-up with two bands who have solid followings—Seccelles and Coitus. The hope is to win over some of their tribes to grow our own.
After soundcheck, Dexi and I linger by the bar watching the other bands set up. His eyes practically pop out of his skull looking at Seccelles’ bass player.
“Nice looking girl, eh,” I say.
“I can think of a million words that better describe her than just ‘nice’.”
I know right then that he’s lost. Dexi doesn’t do no-strings. He’s had one girlfriend. One sexual partner. And he’s looking at this chick like he wants her to be his second. She glances over at one point and smiles.
“Damn, she just smiled at you,” Dexi says, disappointment lacing his voice.
“How do you know? We’re sitting right next to each other. Might’ve been you she smiled at. Don’t be so defeatist, bro. Flirt back. Show her you’re interested. Otherwise she ain’t gonna know.”
“What if she’s not interested, though? Then she’ll think I’m a creep for coming on to her.”
“Listen, that’s the chance you’ve got to take. Need to be brave. Otherwise you’ll never get the girl.”
Spike joins us and we get the tequilas in, watching the third band soundcheck.
“Not a single dog in Seccelles, eh?” Spike says.
“That’s a bit demeaning.” Dexi’s voice is level .
“What is?”
“Calling women dogs.”
“Fuck’s sake, Dexi, stop being so tediously PC. It’s just bleeding banter. I bet they call us a lot worse.”
“They’re really good musicians,” Dexi says.
“Aye, you’re right. But they’re also fucking hot.” Spike knocks back his tequila and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. “Better not have any more of those or I won’t be able to remember my solos.” He grins and starts scrolling his phone. After a while his eyes snag on Seccelles’ drummer, who’s perched on the side of the stage with a poke of chips. She shouts over and he doesn’t miss a beat—he’s over there like a gunshot.
Dexi knocks back his second tequila and slips off to the toilet. When he comes back he looks like the sun’s given him a Glasgow kiss—glowing and a completely dazed.
“I spoke to her, bro. She spoke to me. Her name is Laine.”
I laugh and pat his shoulder. “What did she say?”
“That she’s impressed with my playing. Asked if I was influenced by Chancellor.”
“The bassist from Tool?”
“Aye. Huge influence.”
“So, she’s not just hot, then. She really knows her music. Her craft. I’m impressed.”
“I want to marry her.” His voice is completely sincere.
“You’re skipping a few chapters there, Dex. In fact you’re skipping the bleeding whole novel before cracking the spine.”
“She’s perfect. I never thought I’d meet the perfect girl. But there she is—living, breathing, wrapped in actual skin—perfect.”
“Dexi, come back to Earth.” I lean in. “What you need to do tonight is play like you’ve never bleeding played before. Your best ever performance. She’ll be watching, so you’ll want to impress her.”
“No pressure, then?”
“You’ll do fine.”
Spike comes back looking smug as fuck.
“That woman there, Tia—she’s mine,” he smirks. “I need her in my bed like I need to breathe. Christ on a bike, she’s hot. Almost got third-degree burns from that gaze. Who’s up for the Bunker after?”
“The Bunker? Why do you want to go there?” Dexi asks.
“Because that’s where she’ll be. That’s where they hang out.”
“OK, then. Count me in.”
“Wullie?”
“Aye, I need to chaperone this wee tube, don’t I. Make sure he doesn’t make any hasty proposals on the dancefloor.” I jab Dexi in the side. Spike shows no interest in getting the joke—too preoccupied thinking of Tia.
The gig feels like sex. Milo’s voice is pure seduction and the crowd is getting turned on. They lock on and gyrate with us. The electricity in the room is crackling. By the end of our set the moshpit peaks like a bleeding orgy.
“That was awesome.” Spike looks radioactive. “We landed a bullseye there. I reckon we truly satisfied the mosh—looked like they were ready for a lie down after.”
“With any luck I’ve done enough to impress the ice queen,” Milo says.
“Who’s that then?” I ask.
“Stella from Coitus,” he smirks. “A wee hit of that would be the right reward for the effort.”
“Not my type,” I say. “I need a bit more bite. A bit more stank. She’s too vanilla.”
We down a couple of shots then push into the crowd to watch Seccelles’ set. I look over at Dexi—he’s utterly spellbound, eyes never leaving Laine. I see her smile at him once and watch his face colour red.
When the gig’s over I spot Laine struggling with an amp on her own, hauling it into their van.
“Have the girls abandoned you?” I shout over.
“No, just my turn to drive the van back. Heading to the Bunker after, are you guys coming?”
“Aye, was thinking about it. Sorry, I’m Wullie.”
“Laine. And is that your brother on bass? Dexi, was it?”
“Aye. He was very impressed with your bass skills, by the way.”
“Ditto,” she smiles.
Dexi returns from the toilets.
“Just the man,” I say. “Laine here is having to load-out herself. Give her a wee hand, will you, and I’ll get our gear sorted.”
His eyes widen. I clap him on the shoulder. He walks over to her.
“Let me carry that for you,” I hear him say. Then I leave them to it.
Milo fails to melt the ice queen and skulks home. The rest of us head to the Bunker, still riding high on the post-gig energy.
Spike slopes off with Tia.
Dexi and I chat to Laine and Shell before they’re claimed by a swarm of fresh-faced lads on the dancefloor and swallowed up by the night. Dexi heads home and I link up with Leanne. She’s rinsed but is begging me to come back for a no-strings encounter. Stupidly I agree and then she pretty much falls asleep on the job. I put her in the recovery position—don’t want her ending up like Jimi Hendrix—tell Louise to keep an eye, and head home. I almost get halfway to Croftfoot before I manage to flag a taxi. At least the walk clears my head.
At rehearsal next day I see the hope drain out of Dexi as Milo’s spilling what he’s unearthed about Seccelles. I haven’t even pried my cymbals out of their case yet, and Milo’s already practically vibrating with gossip.
“Fan’s single,” he announces, lounging against the amp. “Wouldn’t mind a slice of her. She looks bleeding delicious.”
Despite having a fiancée Milo flirts like he breathes. He only sleeps with the ones he really fancies and keeps it casual. Truth be told, he could fall into a different bed every single night and still have a queue snaking round the corner but deep down I think he’s a bit of a romantic. The man’s got needs though, and according to Spike those needs aren’t being met at home. I don’t pry.
Milo also found out Tia’s single, and apparently a bit of a player. So her and Spike are a match made in heaven.
Then the blow—Shell and Laine have boyfriends. Shell’s in the bad books with hers, something about snogging his wee brother. She sounds like pure chaos. Hardly the kind of girl you’d trust with your heart. Still, I wouldn’t say no.
Laine’s going out with some guy who’s proper straight-laced and sorted, the type with a banging credit score and a solid golf handicap.
I catch Dexi’s face crumple while Milo’s talking. He’s tuning his bass, fingers working the machine heads, but his eyes have gone somewhere else—somewhere hollow. He doesn’t say a word. Just keeps turning those pegs long after the strings are in tune.
I bet he’s thinking: He’s everything I’m not.
A few nights later, Spike, Dexi, and I are huddled at the Doghouse necking tequilas. Spike checks his phone every ten minutes like it’s a ticking bomb.
“Whose text are you waiting for?” I ask.
“Ach, was just hoping for a call back from Tia. Doesn’t look like I’m getting one.”
“So you failed the audition? That’s harsh.”
“Maybe.” Spike shrugs, then tells us that having sex with Tia was like a fucking circus act.
“What—two clowns in a bed?”
Dexi laughs—short, but it counts. Spike grins.
“Aye, very good, Wullie. No clowns. More like contortionists and acrobats. And feeling like you’re being fired out of a bleeding cannon.”
High praise indeed. I wonder what she’s saying about him.
Dexi heads to the bar. I scan the room on instinct and spot them the second they barrel through the door: Laine and Shell. No boyfriends. No entourage. Just the two of them. Laine spots Dexi at the bar and her eyes light up; she gives Shell a wee nudge and nods toward him. I watch her sidle up next to him, making eye contact before pulling him into a hug—a proper happy-to-see-you hug. He buys the round, and they drift back to our table.
Laine pulls Dexi down beside her. Shell cackles loud and plants herself right between me and Spike.
“Come on, boys, let’s break up the manosphere a wee bit here. Make room for some ragged chick energy.”
“Where’s Tia… and Fan?” Spike asks, way too fast.
“Ach, lover boy, I’m afraid they’re not coming to play with us this evening.”
“What are they up to?”
“Fan’s ex is exhibiting at Archaos Gallery in town,” Shell says. “They’ll be making posh people cry into their sparkling wines as we speak. Where’s Milo?”
“Home with the missus,” Spike says. “He can’t just piss about like the rest of us. Needs to play by the rules… sometimes.”
“Well, I’m celebrating my re-entry into singledom and intend to get absolutely rinsed. Who’s with me?” Shell declares.
“I’m on the early shift tomorrow, unfortunately,” I say. “But I’ll drink with you until last orders.”
“Same,” Spike adds.
“Let’s rack up the tequilas, then, lads,” Shell demands.
Spike disappears toward the bar. Shell barrels after him, grabbing his arse playfully. “I’ll help you.”
If Spike sleeps with Shell, I’ll have to kneecap the bastard. I fancy her. When they return with the tray, she turns to me. “I was studying your technique at the Box, Wullie.”
“Oh.” I lean back. “So that’s what you were doing. And here I was telling myself you were flirting with me. Shite. Wrong again.”
Her mouth curves. It’s the kind of smile that could mean you weren’t wrong—or don’t push it.
“Listen dude, I’m on a mantox at the moment, but I’ll keep you in mind for when I’m off the wagon again.”
“A mantox.” I chuckle. “Good luck with that. And aye, definitely put me on the waiting list—if you don’t mind.”
She leans over and plants a big, sloppy kiss on my cheek. I don’t mind. It’s hot-chick slaver.
The conversation turns to band stuff after that—neutral, safe territory. Spike tells them about our London gig next month.
“That’s brilliant. How’d you land that?” Shell asks.
“Sent our demo to the venue, phoned to make sure it arrived, then the promoter emailed back.”
“Proactive. I’m impressed.”
I glance over at Dexi and Laine. She’s showing him something on her phone, their shoulders touching. He’s leaning in, listening, his face beaming—soft and engaged. Shell catches me looking. Her knee brushes mine under the table, and she leans in to whisper, “They’re cute, aren’t they?”
I nod and smile. She lifts her empty shot glass.
“Right, more drinks. My round. Who’s having what? Wullie, come on—you’re my bar donkey.”
We stick it out at the Doghouse until they kick us out. Before the girls bail for Laine’s flat, she leans in and presses a kiss to Dexi’s mouth. Heat crawls up his neck, a raw flush bleeds right to his ears. He just stands there like a statue, watching her disappear into the night, smiling like he’s won a prize. She still has some prick of a boyfriend, but it’s obvious that she’s carrying a torch for our Dexi too.
