One Night with Sadako

One Night with Sadako

Thump thump

I open my apartment door to find Chad standing there, a small stack of tapes in one hand and a bag of weed in the other.

“You ready to do this, broski?”

I resist the urge to sigh. If Chad didn’t have the best source for weed and always paid, I would have found a way to get out of this little ritual a long time ago. Now that it’s legal, I can always just buy my own, but getting high by yourself seems lowkey pathetic. Besides, Chad can be very persuasive.

Stepping aside to let Chad pass, I ask, “Are we not waiting for Brian?”

“Brian bailed,” Chad says, “Some shit about going on Mike and Chris’ podcast.”

I mirror Chad’s eye-roll. Just what the world needs, another podcast with two white dudes talking about movies and shit. Of course, Brian’s absence makes our evening plans even more sus. “So, what,” I say, “We’re just gonna watch skin flicks, just the two of us?”

“Don’t be like that, dude. It’s not gay or anything; I brought some of that big tiddy stuff you like.” He pauses for a moment before adding, “Not that anything’s wrong with being gay…”

I can’t stop my sigh this time. “Whatever… My gear’s on the table.”

Chad grinds some of the flower and gets the bong set up while I grab bags of snacks and a bottle of whiskey from the kitchen. It’s always the same, Chad “borrows” porn tapes people drop off at the thrift store where he works, then he, Brian, and I get crossfaded and watch them together. We do it every other Friday, and it’s honestly not as bad as I’m making it sound. Actual, normal porn does almost nothing for me, so it’s not like a circle-jerk or anything. Mostly, we just make fun of the acting and the “plot.” The only reason I even have a VHS player is because Chad brought me one from the thrift store. Which, of course, means we always do this at my place, making it even harder for me to get out of it.

I drop onto the couch a comfortable distance away from Chad and ask, “What are we watching tonight?”

“Bro, you’re gonna love it. Cheer Squad Lock-in III, just seventy minutes of hot girl-on-girl action.”

“High school cheerleaders? That’s messed up, dude.”

Chad rolls his eyes, “They’re not really high-schoolers. Mel was twenty-two when this was made, and the other girls are even older.”

“Still… they’re playing high-schoolers…”

Chad shrugs. “What do you want? It was the seventies.”

He lights up my bong and takes a long rip, then passes it to me. I do the same before pouring some whiskey into a coffee mug.

Chad says, “Alright, man, fire it up,” as he hands me the first tape on the stack. I check to make sure it’s rewound and slide it into the player. We sit through an hour and ten minutes of some of the worst acting you’ve ever seen. After the first twenty minutes, I’m too busy laughing at the absurd script and dialogue to even care that I’m watching adult women pretend to be teenagers making out and groping each other. The lead, Melanie Melons, has a lovely face with natural F-cups that were pretty rare back in the seventies, but none of it really moves the dial for me. Between anime and fanfiction, I’ve always found my own imagination far more “effective” than actual porn. There’s just too much stuff in videos like this that takes me out of it. Besides, it wasn’t like either of us was going to whip it out with another dude sitting two feet away.

We’re good and blazed by the time Cheer Squad Lock-in III is over. It’s always a toss-up whether the guys (or just Chad in this case) will be up for a second “film” or just head home. Tonight appears to be one of the former.

“That was great,” Chad says, “Let’s check out the next one. I think it’s some kinda King Kong parody.”

As I crouch in front of the TV, sliding the black plastic cassette out of its sleeve, I see a label sticker on the end.

“I’m not sure this is the right tape, Chad. It’s got a handwritten label.”

“Huh?”

I hold the tape up for him. Whatever was written on the label is scribbled out with permanent marker. “Do you think someone taped over it?” I ask.

“Hmm, maybe. Stick it in, anyway; it might be even better than Lock-in III.”

I press play on the remote, and static fills the screen. The first shot is a gloomy forest, with an old well in the middle of a clearing.

“Oh god,” I say, “Is this some porn parody of that Japanese horror movie?”

“Which one?”

“Ringo or whatever…”

“I think it’s Ringu,” Chad says.

“I think I might be too baked for horror, parody or not.”

“Don’t be a pussy, I’ll bet it’s hilarious.”

With no response to his sound intellectual argument, I take another hit from the bong and settle in. As expected, a girl with absurdly long black hair crawls out of the well. She’s wearing a white nightgown covered in grime and mud and crawls toward the camera on her hands and knees.

I say, “This is another one about minors, you sick fuck.”

“Fuck you, dude,” Chad says, “Does that look like a little girl to you?”

Chad’s right; the long-haired woman crawling toward us is even more stacked than Mel, the cheer captain. Her nightgown stretches across a pair of tits as big as her head. And I can tell by the way they dangle and bounce that they’re not implants, either.

She drops out of the frame as she gets too close to the camera, and a few seconds pass before her head pops up super close; the whole screen is filled with one dark blue eye, dropped to her lower eyelid and surrounded by white as her head tilts back.

“Jesus!” Chad yells.

“Chill out, dude; it’s just a movie.”

Yet, as the woman backs up a bit and we can see her whole head, her hands come up to the bottom of the screen, and the picture ripples as her pale fingertips slide through the glass.

“Holy shit, holy shit, HOLY SHIT!” Chad is in full meltdown.

I’m so shocked I can’t move or speak. The woman is beautiful, and if she weren’t trying to crawl out of my old tube TV, I’d say this is the best stupid movie Chad has ever made me watch.

“Turn it off, dude, turn it off!!”

Snapping out of my trance, I grab the remote. The antique VCR is totally unresponsive. By the time I get up and try to stop it by hand, the woman’s head is starting to push through the glass, her hands gripping the bottom edge of the TV.

In a panic, I push her head back into the screen. Her fingers lose their grip, and she stumbles back onto the forest floor. Her expression is more surprised and hurt than anything scary, but Chad is losing his mind, so I try the VCR buttons. Play/pause does nothing, nor does stop. When I hit eject, the machine makes an unfortunate grinding noise.

But the woman is getting back to her feet, advancing on us again, so I reach behind the TV and hit the switch on the power strip everything is plugged into.

The screen goes black. We’re safe from whatever the fuck that was. Chad sighs loudly. “Whoo, that was messed up.”

“The fuck was that?”

“Fuck if I know. I think I’m done for the night,” Chad says, gathering the other tapes and packing up his shit.

“What about this one? It didn’t eject.”

“I’ll tell my boss it was broken; just throw it away. I’ll get you another VCR for next time. I need to go home, take a hot shower, and rub one out.”

“TMI, dude.”

“Whatever, bro. I’ll see you later.”

After Chad leaves, I sit on the floor for a while, thinking about what I just experienced.

***

Between the weed and the whiskey, I’m more curious than scared. That woman in the video was pretty hot, and her tits were gigantic. I want to see her again, and now I know I can just cut the power if things get too freaky.

I reach behind and switch the surge protector back on. Everything is powered off, so I hit the power buttons on both the TV and the VCR. Then I play the tape again.

The woman is sitting on her knees in the moss and leaves of the forest clearing. I see tracks down her smooth cheeks; she’s been crying. She looks up at me, and her expression brightens. She really is beautiful.

She starts to speak, but her voice comes out in a croak. I guess she hasn’t talked in a while. She clears her throat and tries again. “Please… don’t go. I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

“Who are you?”

She turns to sit facing me, her ridiculous hair slides to both sides of her chest, giving me a direct view of the snug buttons on her nightgown. “My name is Julia,” she says, “I’m an actress. Or at least, I was…”

“What happened to you?”

Julia gives me a sparknotes version of her life story. Born in the US to a Japanese father and white mother, she was bullied by other kids in school and never made any real friends. She hit her growth spurt early and was the tallest girl in her class, which made things worse. Then, puberty hit, and she got even more envy and hate from her classmates. She had a passion for acting, but because of her body, she couldn’t get any parts for child actors. She kept growing into adulthood; her family and people around her joked that everything she ate went straight to her chest. She didn’t stoop so far as making adult films, but she eventually started getting parts in campy parodies and what I would call softcore stuff. She claimed she only got acting jobs because of her body, but she always gave her all to the work, no matter how cheap and dumb the scripts were. Eventually, her frustrating breasts betrayed her for the last time. While making this campy parody of The Ring, she lost her balance and fell headfirst into the real well they were using because the movie was too cheap to make a prop. She’d been stuck in this cursed tape ever since.

She finally winds down, and I can’t think of anything to say except, “That sucks.”

Julia says, “Thanks for listening to my pathetic story. Is it alright if I come out there?”

She seems safe enough, just a normal young woman who went through hell in life. I nod, scooting back from the TV to give her space to crawl out. She grabs the edge of the screen, and her head slides out through the rippling glass. But once her shoulders are out, she stops. It’s painfully obvious to both of us what’s wrong. She can’t fit.

The TV is another one of Chad’s thrift store specials. It’s not tiny—I’m pretty sure I could have fit through the screen—but Julia’s chest is too big. The buttons on her nightgown strain, and she reaches both arms out toward me.

“H-help?”

I stand and take both her hands in mine. Her skin is so pale it’s almost blue, but her hands are as warm as mine. Even with my help, we can’t fit Julia’s voluptuous body through my TV screen.

“Ow ow ow! Stop!”

She drops back to the forest floor, a fresh set of quiet tears rolling down her smooth cheeks. “Damnit!” She thumps a fist on the ground. “Don’t you have a bigger TV?”

“Sorry,” I say, “I only have this one because it has ports for the VCR. I mostly watch stuff on my laptop.”

I watch Julia compose herself; then she smiles at me. The expression transforms her pretty face into heartbreaking gorgeousness. “Thanks for talking to me, anyway. Instead of just running away…”

“Sure.” At a loss, I ask, “Do you want some snacks? Can you eat food?”

“I think so, though no one’s ever offered me any before.” She lets out a little laugh.

I can’t believe I’m falling for… whatever she is. A ghost? A poltergeist? Whatever, I can’t really bring myself to care. She’s pretty and sweet, and I want to do whatever I can to make her smile again. I grab a bag of cookies from the coffee table and offer it to her. It stops hard against the glass of the screen, but Julia sticks her hand out to take it from me. I sit back down while she pulls out a cookie and takes a bite.

“Ohmygosh, so good… I can’t remember the last time I tasted food.”

Her simple pleasure at the cheap cookies makes me warm inside, and I smile back at her. She continues to munch on them while we talk. We figure she’s been trapped in the video for at least ten years, so I catch her up on some of what’s happened in the world. She asks all about me and my life, and I lose track of time as we talk. Despite all the differences between us, the vibe is effortless. There’s nothing I’d rather do than stay here chatting with this amazing woman all night.

Julia finishes the cookies, looking disappointed when her hand comes out of the bag with nothing but crumbs. “Do you have anything else?” She asks. “I was constantly dieting when I was ali—an actress, but I guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore…”

She chuckles again, and I reach for a bag of chips. When she moves to take them, I notice something odd. Her nightgown, which had always been snug across her chest, now looks really tight. The buttons are stretching across her enormous boobs. Dumbly, I say, “Um…”

“What?”

I can’t think of any way to describe what I’m seeing that doesn’t sound stupid, so I just point at her chest. Julia looks down and makes a frustrated sound.

“Seriously?”

She grabs herself then, squeezing and lifting her tits in each hand. I realize I’m staring and look away, shifting in my seat and praying she doesn’t notice my body’s reaction to the show she’s putting on.

“They got even bigger!” She says, “Don’t give me any more food, or I’ll never fit through the TV.”

Julia looks up at me again and seems to realize what she’s doing. Her hands drop to her sides, and her cheeks turn pink. It’s the most color I’ve seen on her pale face.

“Sorry…”

She looks thoughtful for a moment, glancing around my living room. “Though, maybe this is what you and your friend were hoping to see when you put on my tape…”

I cough and sputter in protest. “No! That’s not… I don’t really… that whole thing was Chad’s idea, and I just…”

Julia raises an eyebrow and shifts a little closer to the screen. “You just… what?”

“You’ve been through so much. I wish I could give you a hug.”

She smiles again, but then her lips curl into a pout. “Well… I have been all alone for a very long time, so a hug would be nice. But I was hoping for… maybe… a little more?”

I can hardly believe my ears. Is she saying what I think she’s saying?

Julia’s head and arms slide through the screen again. Her face is barely a foot away from mine. She crooks a finger, beckoning me closer. I shift on my knees, and she brushes a knuckle down my jaw. Her lips purse into a plump bow; I glance down at them and then back at her eyes.

If this whole thing has been a trap to lure me into whatever other world she’s trapped in or just straight-up murder me, kissing her would probably seal my fate.

Fuck it.

Her lips are warm and soft; her hands on my head pull us closer together. I thread my fingers into the impossibly long strands of her hair. When her tongue meets mine, she moves my hands down to her chest. They feel even bigger than they look, soft and firm and gloriously full. I curse the tiny TV screen keeping me from touching more than the tops of them.

Finally, we come up for air, and I drop back to my knees, regretfully releasing her incredible body. Julia is grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary. She glances down at my lap, licking her lips.

“If you get me out of here, we can do whatever. You. Want.”

I scramble for my phone and start looking for the biggest TV I can afford without maxing out my emergency credit card.