The Sex Tape

(written by bryn_the_human) I don’t know where to begin.

But this happened, and I need to talk about it.

I live in a fairly quiet suburb in the UK, though I don’t want to say where. My house backs onto a small woodland, and beyond that there are plenty of fields. The front of the house is on a quiet street. Nothing much happens round here. I live with two other people, friends from university. We moved here when we finished our degrees and things have been fine. I have a small balcony from my room, and we even have a jacuzzi – it all feels a bit much after university life, but it’s nice. My girlfriend comes over quite a bit and we enjoy each others’ company. But then something happened.

She was over the other night, my girlfriend. I’ll call her M. Anyway, M was over and we were in bed, fooling around. The door was locked and my housemates were out, so we both knew where things were heading. Our clothes were on the floor and our lips on each other, when I asked her about maybe recording ourselves on the webcam... (I should add that this had been brought up before). She gave me an excited smile and I moved the laptop so it was facing us, facing the window. Anyway, I won’t go into details about what happened next, this isn’t really the place for it. It was what happened afterwards that you need to know about.

We had sex, then fell asleep, leaving the webcam recording. It slipped my mind really. I woke up an hour or so later and switched it off.

It’s now almost a week later and I’ve just watched it. I’m away in the US for a month for work (which is why we decided to make the recording in the first place). I started it up - for obvious enough reasons - and began watching. Things looked good, we were definitely putting on a good show. But then I saw it. While we faced towards the laptop, or at each other, there was someone else watching. In the dark, behind the window. Barely visible through the reflection of the glass, there were two sinister eyes. A faint light formed around a man’s face, his features ragged, but I can’t tell much more than that. He just stands there. The most discomforting thing is that he doesn’t seem to be watching us have sex, he just watches the webcam. He stares right into it. He doesn’t stop, and doesn’t flinch even when it looks like we might look around.

Then he disappears. For a short while at least. As we slept, his eyes came back into the light and narrowed. Then the handle of the balcony door slowly starts to turn. A wave of nauseating fear crept over me, realising that I never lock the balcony door. It opens, ever so slowly, his eyes fixed on the webcam, but now twitching between that and our sleeping bodies. He takes a first step in and licks his lips. He enters fully and closes the door again. He stands over us, breathing heavily, his whole body rocking with each inhalation. He’s now staring solely at us, blinking wildly. I move in my sleep and he looks at me with anger, eyes narrowing. Turning his gaze, he focuses on M and lightly touches her hair, moving it from her face. His hands are shaking and he keeps standing like this, for 5, 10 minutes. Just standing, watching.

I was in a cold sweat when watching this and tried ringing my housemates. No answer. Tried ringing M as well. No answer. The paused screen of him holding my girlfriend’s hair stayed on the screen. I ran to the bathroom to be sick.

I came back and carried on watching him standing there. His eyes seem calm as he stands there, but then his face snaps to the camera, a snarl forming on his lips. That close up, you can hear him breathe. He stands straight and looks around. The he crouches down, looking under the bed. Then he disappears from view. He got under the bed.

The remains of the hour carry on with silence. Eventually, I awake from my sleep and turn the laptop off. He never left.

Now I’m thousands of miles away and no-one will pick up their phone. It’s a long shot, but M, if you’re reading this, stay at your place and lock the doors, close the curtains. Call me.