Chapter 14 Facade
Homecoming
As Darren headed home from work, he felt very agitated. It had not been a good day. He had hoped this secret would never have to come out. “Ahh! Why did I give her that data?” he said out loud. What was he going to tell her when he got home?
The whole Amy thing had been quite a roller coaster ride. He thought any public records about that had been destroyed or at least hidden. What were they still doing out on the Line? He had a few paper records, but they were hidden. He thought this nightmare had been long behind him. Now he was going to have to do a lot of explaining to Amber or she may never trust him again.
A little over four years earlier, on his eighteenth birthday, Darren had received quite the birthday present from his A class father. As Darren watched a new movie on the Hologramic Image Display (HID), his father came into the living room holding up a palm screen and projected a file with about a dozen holograms of pretty girls with descriptions. Darren paused the HID.
“This is going to be the best birthday present you ever get. Here it is.” He brought up one of the holograms to life size right in the middle of the room. “If you could have any one of these girls, which one would you pick?” He started flipped through the images, one by one. All stunningly pretty girls.
“Are you kidding? What do you mean by have?”
“You can have one of these girls for as long as you want,” his father said. “They live in a commune now. But whichever one you pick will be free to come live with you. There are some rules for keeping her, but we can talk about that after she gets here.”
“Live with me for how long?” Darren asked.
“Forever, or for as long as you want her to. It’s the Marriage to Freedom program.”
His father left Darren to study the profiles of pictures, descriptions, ages, and voice samples. After about ten minutes, Darren called to his father and projected his favorite into the room.
“This one,” he said. “Amy Fortin.” Amy was a beautiful, sixteen year old brunette.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” said Darren.
Within the week, Amy was delivered to the house in a State truck, just like a package ordered on the Line. Darren was stunned when he opened the door. With Darren’s father standing beside him, nodding his approval to sign the marriage forms, Darren signed several document screens that the driver presented to him. And that was that. Darren’s father said, “Happy birthday, son,” and left the room.
There she was, standing in front of Darren holding a small bag of personal belongings. She looked like she had been crying, unsure of the situation. Her clothes looked like hand me downs from last decade. Yet she looked even more stunning than the hologram images he’d seen.
“Hi, I’m Darren.” He held out his hand.
“Amy,” she said, weakly shaking his hand.
“So, I guess we’re married now.”
“Guess so,” she said. A tear rolled from one of her eyes.
“It’ll be okay,” Darren reassured her. “I know this must seem so awkward and strange to all of a sudden be brought here. Did you know what was going to happen today?”
Amy was quiet for a few moments. “Three days ago, I was told by the Ward mother that I was chosen for the Marriage to Freedom program. Everyone knows about this program. For most of my life I’ve heard about how pretty girls leave the labor commune to gain their freedom. But all the stories weren’t so glamorous.” She paused.
“What do you mean?” Darren asked.
“Surely you’re not that dense.” She looked at him, took a deep breath and sighed heavily. “The biggest rumor is that the girls end up as sex slaves to mostly ugly, dirty old rich men. Can you imagine what’s been going through my head the last three days?”
“Those were the longest most dreadful three days of my life, waiting to find out where I was going. They don’t give you any information beforehand about who bought you. I wanted to kill myself. And I might have, except they immediately put me on 4M treatments.”
“The treatments made me feel pretty good and instead of worrying I started fantasizing about my prince. I had some hope that this might actually be a good thing. But I knew I might be disappointed. I had to just accept whatever might happen. If it turned out that I went to some ugly old shit then I had Plan B.”
She smiled slightly. “I was very relieved to see you and your father today and then find out it was you that I was marrying.”
Smiling at her reassuringly, he said, “I think you lucked out pretty good.” Arrogance was one of Darren’s strong personas. “So, what was Plan B?”
“That doesn’t matter, because now it’s obvious I don’t need it.” Amy was beginning to look a little more relaxed. “So, what do you do? Where do you live? Oh, and happy birthday I guess.”
Darren told her a little about his life and how he still lived at home.
“Are your parents rich?” she asked. “They must be.” She looked a little intrigued.
“I guess they must be. My father bought you for my eighteenth birthday present,” he said, with a big grin.
She seemed really concerned all of a sudden. “So I’m some kind of birthday toy. Are you sure you won’t outgrow me like some birthday pony?”
“I’m not a kid anymore,” he said.
“Am I just going to be your play toy for sex until you get tired of me? Or were you planning a real marriage?”
“Ah, well, I only just saw your hologram a week ago and...”
She cut him off. “What? You probably picked me out of a lineup because you liked how I look and thought I’d be good in bed. You probably never have really thought of marriage before, have you? And probably only now because that’s just part of the deal.”
“Just how much did you pay for me anyhow? And what do you expect me to do now? Jump into bed with you because you own me? Well, it’s not going to be that easy.” She crossed her arms and stared at him.
As she stood there waiting for an answer, Darren saw what a rare beauty Amy was. This was a side of her that was impossible to see from the Line profile. He was awestruck. What a rocket! Such attitude. If he didn’t already think she was a knock out, he sure would now. He could tell she was pretty dang smart and not a pushover by any means. That was a big turn on. And a challenge.
Darren didn’t want to blow it with her right from their very first meeting, so he thought carefully before answering. “Honestly, I didn’t quit know what to think about this whole marriage thing. But there was something about you that made me want to try. And now that I’ve met you, I want to make it work even more.”
Amy was surprised by his answer and didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t argue with his reply. It was reassuring to know that he was willing to work on some kind of relationship with her and not just expect her to be his sex slave.
She also knew that the Marriage to Freedom program was a non-refundable, non-returnable deal. Even though she could have been totally screwed over by being purchased by some bastard, Darren could have just as easily picked some psycho-chick too.
What people on the outside didn’t realize was that the pretty girls with emotional and psychological issues were quite often intentionally put in the Marriage to Freedom program to farm out to unwitting buyers.
So Darren was lucky he didn’t get screwed too. At least not yet. And definitely not tonight, Amy thought to herself.
Amy felt so relieved. She was safe for now. She’d wait until later to drop the bombshell on him.
“What do you have to eat here?” she asked. “I’m starving.”
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤