I have no idea how we got tangled up in this mess. Well, that’s not true—I know how we got tangled up in it. I just don’t know how it started is all. Maybe an archaeologist destroyed a sacred statue somewhere in Peru, or a satanist messed with dark forces they knew nothing about. Either way, it’s irrelevant at this point. Like I said, I can’t tell you how it started. Only how it’ll end.

My wife and I were like a lot of couples, living in a tiny house with a big mortgage. It was more a marriage of convenience. We were a pair of hopeless dreamers, which is another way to say neither of us had laid down any meaningful roots by our mid-thirties.

We met through our respective vocations. One night, as I strummed my guitar for a bar filled with disinterested patrons a decade younger than me, a lady with chestnut hair began snapping photos. After my set, Christie wandered up to introduce herself, then one thing led to another…

We had six good years, during which she didn’t become an award-winning travel photographer, nor did I headline that international tour. And in a way, I think we blamed each other for our respective failings.

Our marriage quickly became hopeless, trudging work. Then, out of the blue one morning, she told me she planned to attend a yoga retreat.

When she returned, there was something different about her. And I don’t mean she seemed re-energized—she started having these nightmares, at least one a night, from which she’d wake up screaming, her neck covered with bruises. Said she dreamed about shadow creatures strangling her.

I thought she just wanted attention. Until my birthday, that is. That’s right, our relationship became so toxic sex was limited to three or four times a year.

Afterward, I had the nightmare while Christie slept like a baby. Through intercourse, she’d passed her ‘condition’ onto me. Already suspicious, I kept my marks hidden.

Through a little sleuthing, I discovered her yoga instructor had suffered a similar affliction, before ‘shedding’ it after the yoga retreat. Apparently, the curse hoped from person to person, getting passed on by sexual relations.

I was conflicted. Oh sure, I could pick up some drunken admirer at one of my gigs, or simply hire a sex worker, but that would only perpetuate the curse. I wanted to end it.

So for our anniversary, I’m surprising Christie with a hiking trip. She’s on cloud nine now that her nightmares are gone, her neck completely healed. And after our compulsory intercourse, I’ll lead her up to a remote mountain ledge, so she can snap that picture she’s been after—the one that’ll land her on the cover of National Geographic.

You may think I’m a heartless bastard, but if you ask me, she has this coming.

Like I said, I have no idea how this curse started.

I only know how it’s going to end…