The Marriage Persona

1979, on no particular day. Duncan Monday was smitten with her the first time he saw her. She was the most beautiful girl his eyes had ever seen. Her father, his best friend, invited him to a cookout, saw the look in his eyes and thought, “Great, what have I done?” He was very protective of his daughter and at 16, he knew “she” was not ready for a grown man to ogle her the way Duncan did. “He” was not ready for any man to ogle her that way, especially his best friend and someone12 years her senior.

But dad was no fool. He had fallen for his share of pretties and knew that talking Duncan out of making a move would be hopeless. He and his wife sat their daughter, Lorin, down after dinner that evening and revisited the story of the birds and the bees. Her non-verbal feedback made crystal clear the endeavor was a total waste of time. She had seen how Duncan looked at her and she liked it. She wanted more, much more. Mom and dad strapped in for a ride they knew would be wild. But hey had no idea just how wild.

Duncan knew his friend had concerns and assured him he had nothing but honorable intentions. He assured him he wouldn’t touch her until she came of age. His words set his friend at ease. They had been friends since childhood and he had no reason to doubt Duncan would not stay true to his word. With that, he gave him his blessing with a caveat that if he went back on his word, he would beat him to death with a sledgehammer.

On Lorin’s 18th birthday, Duncan did the whole down on one knee thing and asked if she would make him the happiest man in the world, followed by a proposal of marriage. She had waited to hear those words from the first time she caught his stare and happily accepted. They were married two months later. Sort of.

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Kaitlin Caren was a problem child, incapable of accepting or giving love. Her parents tried as hard as they could, but Kaitlin simply couldn’t get right. From an early age, her parents knew that eventually they would have to have her put away. It would be for her own good, her own safety. Her violent outbursts got progressively worse as she reached puberty. Nothing they tried could reach her. It would be only a matter of time before she did the unthinkable. 

When the men in the white uniforms showed up, they knew of her condition. They’d been called out before. This time was different. They were there for an actual extraction. Everyone braced for what would surely be a difficult endeavor. Through teary eyes, her parents could only watch in horror as the men did what they had to in order to subdue their daughter. It was a dark day for the Caren family, a day they would never forget, a day they would ultimately regret.

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1981, on a Saturday. Duncan and Lorin moved away soon after they were married. He took a lucrative job in a nearby city. It gave them a fresh start to their own lives, yet allowed for Lorin to visit her parents whenever she wanted. They were genuinely happy together. The discussion of kids took place early, and both were relieved that neither wanted them. It worked out especially well for Lorin, since she knew she couldn’t have any, a little tidbit she kept from Duncan. They had been married for about five years when something strange happened.

The guy from the mailroom came to Duncan’s office bright and early one morning and handed him an envelope. 

“I tried to deliver this yesterday, but you had already left,” he said. “A lady gave it to me and said to deliver it personally.”

Duncan thanked him and shoved it into his center desk drawer. When he went home that evening, he forgot about it, but made a mental note to take a gander at it the next morning.

When Duncan got to the office the following morning, he pulled the envelope out of the drawer and opened it. Inside was only a single photograph. In the picture was a woman in a nightgown, blindfolded, gagged, and strapped to a chair. She was in a dark room with what appeared to be a flood lamp shone directly on her. It looked as though she was inside a makeshift jail cell inside the room. It was a strange photo, and he wondered what it had to do with him. Assuming it was a prank, he put the photo in the envelope and placed it back in the drawer.

A couple of weeks went by before he received another envelope. He opened it and saw what appeared to be the same woman strapped to the same chair, blindfolded, and gagged. The only difference was a noticeable amount of blood that had drenched the front of her nightgown. Suddenly, he was concerned about why he received the photos, who sent them, and why. He put the photo back into the envelope and placed it beside the other in the drawer.

The next envelope arrived about a week after the second one. The picture showed the same woman in the same setting, but someone was in the room with her. That person had on a long, heavy coat and a hood. He couldn’t tell whether it was a man or woman, but he had a butcher’s knife raised as if ready to plunge into the woman in the chair. Duncan could no longer ignore the photos. He gathered them up and took them to the police.

The police opened an investigation and farted around for a couple of weeks before admitting there wasn’t enough evidence to continue. Duncan took things into his own hands and hired a private investigator. Convinced that Duncan must know one of the people in the photos, he asked him to concentrate on who the woman in the chair might be. He also suggested paying close attention to anything in the photos that was visible to see if he recognized anything. Duncan drew blanks on all.

The next envelope to arrive was different. It contained just the words, “Help Me,” scribbled on a piece of unruled paper. It appeared as though someone wrote it in blood. Things had just turned personal, and Duncan was more than concerned. Desperate for answers, he showed Lorin the photos and asked if she recognized anything. She did not.

Until that point, the photos had been grainy, almost as if the photographer purposely took them under exposed. It was hard to make out details. The next one to show up was vastly different and as soon as Duncan looked at it, he gasped, put a hand to his mouth and muttered, “Oh my God,” under his breath. He immediately called his private detective and told him he no longer required his services. Duncan had just received a personal invite to the game.

⁂

She awoke to find that someone had strapped her to a chair in a dark, cold room. She was terrified by what was happening, yet powerless to stop it. Blindfolded, she frantically pleaded with her captor to let her go. Her pleas were met with silence. Suddenly, she felt someone grab both sides of her head and positioned it facing forward. The person grunted, as if to tell her to sit still. She then heard a click sound, which she associated with a camera. Someone took pictures of her. She soon heard the scuffling of feet and a door close. The sound was like hard steel, like a cage or something similar. The next sound she heard was the latch of a lock engaging and then silence. She was trapped.

⁂

The latest photo Duncan received clearly showed something that couldn’t possibly be true. He stayed up late that night and stood at the foot of the bed, watching Lorin as she slept. She had gotten a small tattoo above her right ankle shortly before they married. That tattoo was visible in the last photo. He stood at the foot of the bed and saw that exact tattoo on the woman who was asleep in his bed.

“What the heck is going on?” he thought.

The photos began coming in more frequently. Each one was more upsetting than the last. Someone was torturing the woman in the chair and, for whatever reason, trying to convince Duncan that the lady was his wife. It made no sense, and he became distraught as he tried to figure out what the photos actually meant.

“Why are you looking at me like that, honey? What’s wrong?”

At the breakfast table that morning, Duncan didn’t realize he was staring at Lorin. She told him it made her feel very uncomfortable, that he looked as though he no longer loved her. Her words jolted him back to reality. He had allowed his mind to wander as he tried desperately to figure out who was sending the photos and why. The last photo would come later that morning. It would be the most telling.

⁂

The woman in the chair realized she may know who it was that tormented her. She couldn’t be sure, so she calmed down and played along. After all, she had so far suffered no physical abuse, and she firmly believed it would remain that way. At that moment, her captor removed the ropes that bound her. She could hear someone leave the room and close and lock the door. She removed the gag and the blindfold. Total shock followed.

She was in a room with one bare incandescent lightbulb. The walls were all gray and smooth, like concrete. It made the room like eerie and cold. She was in a cage of sorts, like a jail cell. She went into a panic.

“Hello,” she shouted.

“Is anyone there?”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“Hello, please answer me,” she begged.

No one responded, but she heard shuffling beyond the room. Someone was there and just not answering her. Fear set in as she realized she may very well never leave that room. Just then, the door opened and someone came in.

“Oh my God! Kaitlin, is that you?”

Kaitlin stood in front of the cell door, staring at her.

“C’mon, Kaitlin, hurry, find the key and get me out of here. Hurry,” she said frantically.

Kaitlin just stood there, staring at her twin sister, Lorin. It was as if she was in a trance. At that moment, Lorin realized what was happening. Kaitlin had escaped from the hospital, and she was there to make their parents pay for having her committed. Suddenly, Kaitlin got an evil look on her face, a look which Lorin had seen many times before. Fear set in, as she knew what Kaitlin was capable of.

“Dear sister Lorin,” Kaitlin said in a low, evil voice.

“All those years, dear sister. You knew what they were doing to me and you never said a word. You never tried to help me. Why?” Kaitlin asked, as she tilted her head slightly to the right.

“Why?” she repeated, her voice crackling as she cried.

Before Lorin could answer, Kaitlin stopped crying and got the evil in her eyes again.

“I’m going to make them pay for ruining my life and I’m going to make you pay for saying nothing all those years. You’ll see, I’ll make you all pay for making me this way.”

Kaitlin turned to leave and as she reached the doorway, she turned and showed an evil smile to Lorin.

“By the way, dear sister, I married Duncan last week. He thinks I’m you,” she laughed. “You’ll never get out of here, dear sister. You’ll die a slow death in that cell. I’ll get mom and dad too. Just you wait. Just you wait and see, dear sister.”

Lorin listened as Kaitlin began laughing loudly. Laughing as she closed and then locked another door. All went silent after that.

A couple of days later. Kaitlin returned to the cell and gave Lorin some food and drink. She never said a word as she slid two photos across the floor of the cell. One showed a picture of what appeared to be the bodies of their parents and the other, the body of Duncan. Kaitlin laughed as she again walked out and locked the outer door. Lorin could hear her laughing as the sound slowly faded away.

K.R. Eaton - The Marriage Persona

Short Stories by K.R Eaton