“Damn thing!” Jerry huffs as he slaps the back of the remote to get the batteries to work. Finally, the remote springs to life and the screen flicks off before I can see anymore, thank God.
But that’s not the end of it. My mom’s boyfriend may be able to hide what’s on the TV, but he can’t keep me from seeing the rest of the basement. This place used to be pretty empty, but now it looks like a hoarder’s taken over for themselves. There are so many boxes that there’s hardly any walking space, and every one of the boxes is filled with so much shit that items are flowing out and spilling into messy piles on the floor.
Plus, the contents of the boxes are unbelievable. I can see that a lot of them are filled with old VHS tapes with pictures with naked women on them. There are aliens, monsters, and also one with what looks like a woman surrounded by a gang of Cthulhus? Is that what those creatures are called? I’ve never been into that stuff but I guess Jerry’s into kinky shit.
Still, the sheer size of his porn collection is crazy. He’s filled up our basement with stacked boxes practically going up to the ceiling in some parts, and I’ll bet that my mom doesn’t know of it at all.
“Hey Janie,” Jerry greets with a shit-eating grin. “Funny you caught me in the middle of a movie.”
I spin on him.
“What the fuck?” I scream, my face red. “What the Hell are you doing down here? What did you do to our basement?!”
Jerry looks unabashed.
“Shh, quiet!” he exclaims. His beady little eyes glance upward before he looks at me again. “Your mom’s still sleeping upstairs, so keep it down okay?”
I merely stare at him some more, my own eyes bugging out now.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I scream again. “I don’t care if Sheena finds out because this is so gross!” I continue, holding back a gag as I look down at a particularly vivid magazine that seems to be from the 70’s. On the cover, there’s a sassy redheaded woman riding a broomstick, but then she appears to get off and use the broomstick to … well, you can guess.
“What the fuck is this stuff?” I demand again. “This basement was practically empty when you moved in, and now you’ve got all your gross junk in here?”
“It isn’t junk!” Jerry immediately corrects in a prim voice. “Most, if not all of the objects in this room are collector’s items and very valuable. They’re one of a kind, not to mention priceless, additions to my collection of vintage porn. Trust me, if I could find a better place to store them than some dingy old basement, I would. But for now, I’m keeping it safe here until I sell these babies off at a steep premium.”
I scoff as I pick up another magazine, but then my eyes widen as I see a woman, completely nude, tied up in a spider web with her legs spread obscenely. Her eyes are wide, and her mouth is hanging open too. She seems to be “scared” as she stares at a huge spider that approaches from the corner of the cover.
Vomit rises in the back of my throat.
“You’re such a fucking sick-o, Jerry! Does my mom know about the fact that you’re keeping your precious vintage porn collection here?” I yell again, rolling my eyes as I throw the magazine down. “Does she know that you’re a fucking pervert who enjoys monster kink and who knows what other freaky shit?”
Jerry gasps and lunges forward to snatch the magazine off the ground.
“Yes, Sheena does know!” he exclaims. “By the way, this is a very expensive first edition of Ms. Spiderman’s Naughty Nights, so watch how you handle my stuff! Even better, don’t touch anything, okay?” The old man sounds annoyed, but what right does he have to be annoyed when I’m the one who’s forced to see this creepy, disgusting alien porn collection?
I glare at him and cross my arms over my chest because I don’t think Sheena knows about this. From what I’ve been forced to hear through the bedroom wall, my mom is pretty freaky in the sack, but I still highly doubt that she’d be okay with her own boyfriend hoarding fetish porn in her basement.
After a few moments of staring like we’re in a Mexican stand-off, Jerry finally throws his hands up and shakes his head.
“Okay, no, Sheena doesn’t know about this, but there’s no need to tell her, okay? It’s not like I’m hurting anyone,” he pouts. “The basement was pretty much empty when I first moved in and you two hardly ever came down here, so I thought it’d be fine to stash my stuff here. No biggie,” he says in a careless tone.