The White Lady of the 3rd Floor

Author's Notes: As is usual to state on Literotica, in case it is not clear enough from the story itself, all characters participating in sexual acts occurring in this story are at least 18 years of age.

The idea for this story came from me, months ago, once again falling in love with J-horror, binging some movies of the genre, and deciding to write my version of a J-horror story, with all the stuff I typically put into my stories and all the tropes I love. It kinda stalled at times, ended up longer than I've thought it would, almost got forgotten about when my newfound interest in J-horror evaporated, but now, after once again starting to love the genre, I'm happy to present to you my first Erotic Horror story, after months spent more or less working on it. Enjoy.

Please, don't forget to comment, rate and if you like it, favorite the story. Constructive critique and feedback are always welcomed.

***

"Man, I love Japan," Christopher "Chris" Lee casually stated as he watched the city streets passing by.

It was exactly that type of an innocuous, positive comment that was meant to start at least some conversation when the silence had become too unbearable. In his case, it was so much so that he tried to start a conversation even knowing that his taxi driver had only limited English skills.

"Yes sir, very good, very good," the middle-aged driver replied, without even looking at his talkative passenger. "We reach final soon."

"Great to hear that," Chris replied. "Never let anyone tell you that you shouldn't love your country, or be happy about its success. Too many young people here seem to not realize that, unfortunately."

"Yes, good, very good sir," the driver replied, leaving the amount of attention he had afforded to his foreign passenger questionable.

Chris just smirked and returned to staring out of the window at the moonlit trees passing by.

In his, so far, eleven-year-long career as a porn producer who liked to play in his movies whenever he could, he had the opportunity to visit well over a dozen countries. He liked most of them, but Japan, he loved. He wasn't lying about what he had told the taxi driver.

Being Zainichi Koreans who fled this country to avoid discrimination, his parents didn't exactly share his love for their homeland, to say the least, but, he didn't care. He loved the unique culture, the architecture, the nature, well, everything.

And people. He loved the country because of its demographics, and wouldn't be afraid to admit that to anyone who would've asked him about that. Being an Asian-American man in his mid-thirties who had grown up in a small Midwest town, although he couldn't complain about the childhood he had, it was still a great feeling to see people on the street who looked like him without them being related to him.

Now, it was the previously ubiquitous Caucasians who stuck out like sore thumbs from miles away.

That was why she had caught his eye.

Walking, hell, seemingly levitating, by a glassless window on the third floor of an aged, seemingly abandoned school building, she was impossible not to notice. Her pale skin, long, pale blonde hair, and shiny, white kimono shone into the dark night with an almost ethereal creepiness, something which was only amplified by the isolation and desolation of the building she seemed to be the only person in.

Both she, and the building itself, seemed like they simply didn't belong to the environment they were in. Like they were paper cut-outs that someone had decided to paste and glue onto an obscenely different background.

In a sea of relatively new and modern-looking buildings, almost unfortunately so if someone had asked him, given how much he loved the traditional and, in his eyes, true Japan, the apparent school building resembled an elderly man trying to hide among preschoolers. No window on the upper floors was left unshattered, and its decayed, colorless walls seemed to consist entirely of holes and scratches.

He often heard people talk about schools having a timeless feeling to them, but this was the first time he had truly felt the meaning of such a statement.

It was only a couple of seconds until the taxi had taken him past the ominous, possibly even century-old building and its sole, shiny occupant, whose body and clothes shone eerily as they reflected every bit of light sent their way from any source, from the distant street lamps to the moon above, and whose eyes he could feel following him all the while, but it could as well have been hours to him.

"Wow," he mumbled to himself absentmindedly, "well, that was pretty creepy."

"Yes, very good, very good," the taxi driver replied, equal parts not understanding what his passenger was suddenly mumbling to himself after the two of them passed some old school building that looked like it was about to be demolished tomorrow, and simply not caring about that.

Realizing his hired driver's disinterest, Chris kept shut about how he had felt about the bizarre sight this city had suddenly offered to him, but it lingered on his mind for the next dozen minutes until they reached their destination. That was a somewhat secluded, but still obviously frequently-visited restaurant on the city's outskirts.

Chris just sighed to himself at the sight of it. One would need only a basic understanding of how the world of back-room deals worked in Japan to realize that, in a place like this, it could quite easily end up being impossible to spend a day without encountering an older, tattooed gentleman with one less finger than usual. He wasn't the first porn producer summoned to a nightly meeting at a place like this, with men who, if they weren't a part of the pinky-missing crowd, definitely at least regularly did business with them. That much was clear to him, as was the fact that no matter what they may have pretended was true, very few of those producers truly liked those invitations, and he very much didn't plan to be an exception to this rule.

Looking backward to gauge his chances, only to see the middle-aged man start his taxi and embark on his journey to the next client, an oblivious smile flashed in his direction the only reply his internal deliberations received... he realized that there was, predictably, only one way for him to go.

With yet another sigh, he went that way.

"Mr. Lee! What a pleasure to meet you!" was the greeting, spoken in surprisingly good and non-accented English, with which he was greeted by a jovial man in his mid-fifties a couple of moments after entering the restaurant. "Please, have a sit with us, we have a lot to discuss today," the man added, pointing to his two companions, a man in his late forties who, apart from the age, looked like he could be Chris' brother, and a rather serious-looking man in his late-seventies, who was undoubtedly their leader.

"The pleasure is all mine, you can be sure of that," he replied, as he sat by their table.

"I would believe so," the elderly man suddenly spoke, the power of his voice surprising Chris. "Very well, Mister Lee, let's drink and get to the issues at hand."

He just nodded with a smile which, when he took a good look at the liquor prepared for him and the others, quickly turned into a truly genuine one.

He had hoped for a truly Japanese reception and experience, and he wasn't disappointed. Instead of any import like vodka or champagne, what was laying there, waiting for him to pour it down his throat, were bowls of sake. Sitting by the table, he eagerly took one and drank it, after noticing that all of his companions had already done so and were waiting for him to follow them in putting this quintessentially Japanese liquor to its age-old use.

He thought about asking them about what they were going to eat, but with the bowls of sake disappearing down their throats one by one, when the ramen and sushi finally started arriving, he didn't even care about that anymore.

What he cared about now were the men he was drinking and eating with. The awkward atmosphere from before, mostly created and sustained by him, had very quickly dissipated as their brains were washed clean of it by the alcohol. As they happened to share a surname, the two younger men used their full names to introduce themselves to him.

The man who resembled him so much was Kimura Tatsuo, who was, deepening the similarities between them, also a porn producer largely unaffiliated with the company their two acquaintances were representing, except as a business partner who was invited to explore the possibilities of cooperation between all of them.

Kimura Daichi, meanwhile, was very much an ordinary Japanese businessman. Loyal to his company, which he had joined when it was still relatively big in the world of erotica, he never even entertained the thought of quitting when its star started to fade. That was why, when he fell out of favor with his superiors, he was subjected to that common Japanese punishment of being banished to an isolated position where he had nothing to do, leaving him to either accept nothing except some occasional meaningless menial tasks interrupting the endless wall-staring or leave on his own.

He didn't. A natural social butterfly, he instead managed to use his unlimited free time to get into the Kaichō-san's good graces and, once his ideas started bearing fruit and their previously-declining company was returning into the big boys' league, it was eventually the schemers who had plotted his downfall who were ruthlessly terminated in his place.

Kaichō-san himself, meanwhile, was perfectly content with being addressed by that title. As courteous as he was, he wasn't just about to start speaking with any random prospective business partner like they were long-time friends the first time they'd met. Nevertheless, he was probably the most pleasant of the three to talk to, not dismissing any of Chris' ideas no matter how expensive and out-of-character for his company they might've been, and even encouraging him to dream bigger.

Hours passed by as they debated. Idea after idea was proposed, of what they could do so that Kaichō-san's company would continue regaining its former glories, if not surpassing them, and drag the two porn producers along.

Perhaps inevitably given that a U.S.-born foreigner was among them, the idea of using locations and actors from the States was proposed. Specifically, to possibly shoot scenes and movies starring Japanese men and American women, and try to corner this particular niche market.

When this was said, the image of the mysterious, ethereal woman standing in the window of that strange, antique building flashed once again in his mind, after being almost completely forgotten previously.

"I don't think we'd even need to move the production to the States. You already have some weird ESLs in here," Chris said, unable to resist sarcasm, before scooping up the last rice he had left in the bowl with a spoon. Before any of his partners could ask what he meant, he added, "Saw some weird blonde chick on the way here. My taxi passed by, some, really old building, and she was just randomly walking in there, you know, then she looked at me. Just realized, hah, that it was probably some ESL chick who forgot to switch her clock to Japanese time, and had to Google translate where she was supposed to be. Those types would agree quickly if you showed them the cash."

The two Kimuras just laughed, in that typical drunken way people do when their drinking buddy randomly says something they don't get, but know that it's supposed to be humorous, and don't even really have to fake that laughter because with so much alcohol in them, basically everything is funny anyway.

Kaichō-san's reaction, however, quickly silenced them. The elderly man, for the very first few moments, just stared blankly at Chris. When he understood what the young man had just said, his eyes widened in shock and surprise, with just the barest hints of fear and pity, before finally settling into quiet, but obvious amusement.

Before Chris could ask the old man what was wrong, he got the answer.

"I wouldn't talk about the White Lady of the Third Floor that way if I were you," he said, looking at the empty bowl of sake in his hand. "But that's you. Youngsters. Not afraid of what gave us goosebumps when we were your age or children."

Chris, along with the two Kimuras, looked at him, puzzled.

"If I may ask, Sir, what did you mean?" Tatsuo asked, as surprised by the older man's reply as the one who had prompted it in the first place.

The chairman put the empty bowl down on the table in an, most likely unintentional, but still almost dramatic manner.

"It is an old legend of this town," the elderly man spoke. "So, as it is now said, I believe it is an urban legend. The old, antique building you saw her in... it had three floors, right?"

Chris just nodded. In response, the old man laughed.

"That was a novelty when it was built," he explained. "At the time, at the end of the 19th century, it was the best and biggest school in town. A high school, specifically. Maybe even the first high school there, but some people would dispute that."

"So, it's still used, or?" Chris inquired.

"No. Not as a school, anyway," the chairman explained. "Small businesses with no other choice sometimes rent out the lower floors, but they never stay for too long. And nobody dares to enter the third one."

Confused and intrigued by the man's words, Chris looked at Daichi, hoping for him to expand on what his boss was saying.

"Yes, many people have noticed strange sounds and sights there, but, for better or worse, the city council sees the building as something of a cultural heritage. Or a relic. They aren't going to destroy it just because people feel uncomfortable there, and, even though they usually quickly leave, there's always at least someone using it at a time," the middle-aged man happily explained when he caught Chris' confused gaze.

"Strange sounds and sights!" the septuagenarian repeated, amused by his underling's words. "If only you people knew what was really wrong with that place. Ah, but I guess I can't blame you youngsters for forgetting, it is such an old story after all. I was told it by my grandmother when I was small, and even for her, it was a tale from her childhood. Even she was forgetting about it. Even for their generation, who were youngsters and children when it happened, when people talked about it, it was an old story."

"That must've been..." Chris replied, lost in thoughts.

"Before the First World War," the old man confirmed, surprising the three of them. "If legends, urban legends are a family, then this is the grandmother of Hanako-san of the toilet, which was talked about when I was young. Just as it was my grandmother who told me this story from her youth."

"So, what is the story?" Chris finally asked.

He was the reason this was even talked about. Him seeing some chick most likely trespassing into an old building and mentioning it now brought some story from his childhood back into the inebriated old man's mind. Or, maybe the chairman was just making it all up. He couldn't deny, though, that the man had a storytelling talent, as well as keeping a surprisingly-good command of his second language despite his age and the amount of alcohol he had drank. He hoped to still have such a sharp mind one day when he'll be the man's age.

The two Kimuras, likewise, were intrigued by his words, and had Chris not spoken first, those two would've surely demanded to know what the old man was talking about.

"Then, at the beginning of the century, before the war, it was one of the newest and most prestigious schools in the prefecture, if not all of Japan. Everyone wanted to put their children there. Including foreign dignitaries," he explained, before slipping into a dramatic pause, as the lightbulbs started lighting up in their brains at his words. "And so, it happened that the daughter of some European diplomat enrolled there. To help strengthen the relationships between our countries, and, it wasn't like there was another choice for her.

"No one really knows what country she was from. Either Russia, Austria-Hungary, or another such country. She was some kind of a Slav, but no one's sure about the exact country, or what the country would be now. Either way, it happened that this Eastern European diplomat's daughter got thrown to spend the few last years as a teenager with hundreds of rich students from prominent local families. She stuck out like a sore thumb. She was probably the only foreigner there and she was also already approaching twenty, so, that was yet another reason why she didn't fit in. And we all know what happens to those types."

"She got bullied?" Chris asked, already knowing the answer. He could, more or less, sympathize with that. He was in a similar position a few times. Though it was gender, ethnicity, and geography flipped, but still, pretty much the same situation.

"Predictably," was the reply. "Apparently, there were a lot of quite vicious rumors floating about her. And she likely wasn't safe physically either. She got painted as a dangerous predator, almost a monster, really, from what I've heard, until the predictable tragedy happened."

"Suicide," Tatsuo stated, as he put his empty bowl of sake on the table, in a similarly-dramatic fashion to how the chairman did it before.

"In the school bathroom, as could be predicted," he affirmed. "They somehow managed to hush it. Nobody ever mentioned it, but I believe it was because of the war with Russia then, nobody wanted to give the enemy propaganda to use."

"Sad but understandable," Daichi commented, as he downed another bowl of sake. "But, I believe that this is just the beginning of the story."

"As it always is in those stories, those urban legends," he replied, snickering as he said the term. "Her body died, but her ghost lingered, haunting the school ever since. Angry at the injustice she had suffered. Now, she is the White Lady of the Third Floor. European countries all have stories of white ladies haunting castles there, so, we have our own right here, a European ghost in Japan. Of course, it's also because of her race. It's a title that fits her on many levels," the eldest man there explained.

"So, the title is a pun?" Chris asked with a snicker.

Kaichō-san just continued.

"If you so much as enter the third floor of the school, you'll meet her, in one way or the other. Maybe she'll just scare you. An unexpected gust of wind, a glass suddenly breaking, or an unseen force shoving you. But if she takes a special interest in you, as had happened with our friend here when she showed herself to him, that's when you know you're doomed."

"So, what can I expect to look forward to?" the young porn producer asked, eager to get back to business negotiations.

"No one knows. All that is known is that some people are chosen by her to be tormented for as long as she wants," the old man said, almost apologetically. "It is said that she is invincible, and once she chooses you, you will not escape your eventual fate. When she imprisons you, eventually, on that third floor, you will disappear from this world. All exits will lead straight to hell, and you will only get back when she chooses to let you go."

"An interesting legend," Tatsuo admitted. "But I can already see inconsistencies. It could be a good plot for one of the movies we'll make together, where people won't think too much about the plot," he added with a snicker.

"Well, there are reasons why it was forgotten already," Kaichō-san admitted. "But only our friend here will be the ultimate judge, in the end."

All four of them laughed at the old man's words and drank some more sake, before getting back to talking about business and their plans for the future. For another hour until their meeting slowly came to an end, they talked about possible projects, confirmed that they must do some of the best ideas that came up, and, of course, just flat-out enjoyed getting drunk.