Kristen Blake DiMera Black (Part2)

As luck would have it, Stefano contacted Kristen begging her to help him get Marlena. Though Kristen hated Stefano, she went along with his plans so that Marlena would be out of her life forever. Marlena and Rachel were due to go to San Francisco to see a specialist that could help Rachel. John had set up an elaborate ruse to keep Stefano from kidnapping Marlena. He prepared four jets so that Stefano wouldn't know which plane Marlena and Rachel were on. However, Kristen told Stefano that they were on the third plane. Stefano took care of the rest. He tied up Rachel and took her place on the plane; once on the plane, he took over and made it appear on the radar as if it crashed. Though Kristen felt a slight remorse for actions, she was more than glad to be rid of Marlena. Not that it mattered. John refused to believe that the plane had crashed and began a large-scale effort to locate Stefano and Marlena.

After some time, John discovered a Jumanji-type of board game in one of Stefano's warehouses and was convinced that it held the key to finding Marlena. Kristen recognized the game but kept quiet about the city it took place in. When Rachel noticed that Kristen was hiding something, she pleaded with her to help John. Finally, Kristen explained the game. It was called "The Queen of the Night," and it was set in Paris. Paris, John believed, was where they'd find Marlena. Kristen, Rachel, and Lexie traveled to Paris to help.

After many tedious weeks in Paris, everyone discovered Stefano's hideout in the tunnels underneath Paris. In the underground, there was a gas explosion that set off a small cave-in. This explosion caused Kristen to miscarry her baby. However, she bribed her doctor to tell John that the baby was fine. Now that Marlena was rescued, Kristen couldn't let her find out that the baby was gone. Kristen decided that the only way to hang on to John was to become pregnant again. She tried to seduce him many times, but he refused to make love to her because of her condition. So, Kristen sought Peter's (who was also in Paris) help. He gave her a hypnotic mirror that would put anyone in a trance, doing whatever the operator of the mirror wished. Night after night, Kristen would hypnotize John into making love to her, but she did not conceive. Soon, she and John returned to Salem. Not knowing what else to do to get pregnant, Kristen began wearing padding to feign a pregnancy.

However, Kristen knew that she couldn't wear pads forever. Sooner or later, people would become suspicious. People such as Marlena. Marlena and John were already wondering what was wrong with Kristen. Kristen constantly canceled and rescheduled appointments with her obstetrician, Dr. Bader. Meanwhile, Stefano contacted Kristen letting her know that he was not dead, and she sought his help. Stefano promised he'd find a way to help her. Kristen stalled all she could until one day, when she found no way out. John forced her to go the hospital to be checked up. Just as the examination was to begin, Dr. Bader had to leave; her house was on fire. Later, Kristen thanked Stefano, but she knew that it was only a temporary victory. Marlena, who was truly concerned for the baby, decided to force Kristen to see another obstetrician, Dr. David Robbins. Again, Kristen canceled & rescheduled until she was forced to see Dr. Robbins. She planned to blackmail the doctor; to her surprise, she didn't have to. When she saw Dr. Robbins, he thanked her for being so patient during their examination. What examination? When Kristen looked into the examination room, she found a pregnant woman who looked identical to her.

This other woman turned out to be Susan Banks, a pregnant simpleton who had been hired by Stefano to take Kristen's place at examinations and during childbirth. Once the baby was born, Susan would give it to Kristen to raise as her own, and Susan would be well-recompensed to never show her face in Salem again. Susan didn't really look like Kristen. She had large teeth, dark hair, and wore glasses. But with the aid of false teeth, a wig, and contacts, she looked strikingly like Kristen. Kristen had been saved, or so she thought. At first, the Susan situation was a miracle. But as the weeks wore on, Kristen noticed slight peculiarities in Susan, such as a bizarre pleasure in using her "Kristen" disguise when she didn't need to. Susan enjoyed pretending to be Kristen and often went out in public wearing her disguise, which obviously put Kristen in sticky situations because it appeared that she was in two places at the same time. However, Kristen managed to explain her ubiquitous nature and tried to keep control over Susan. Unfortunately, one clever person had noticed something odd about Kristen, and that was Vivian Alamain. One day, she confronted Kristen and let her know that she knew everything about Susan and the fake pregnancy; she promised not to tell, as long as Kristen, who had inherited shares of Countess Wilhelmina from Tony, helped her keep from being voted out of Titan Industries. Kristen agreed, on the condition that Vivian help her pull off her pregnancy scheme.

Meanwhile, Kristen was devastated when Peter was shot one night by Jack, who had been convinced that Peter was going to kidnap Jennifer. Peter died soon after he was admitted into the hospital, and Kristen made all efforts possible to have Jack indicted for murder. At the same time, the pregnancy scheme was almost ruined when Laura Horton saw Kristen adjust her pillow at Peter's funeral. Before Laura could say enough to get Kristen in hot water, however, she disappeared. Kristen soon learned that Stefano had kidnapped her and was going to perform a laser surgery on her brain to make her forget what she had seen. Kristen felt sorry for Laura, but her obsession to hang on to John was too strong to risk letting Laura go. At this time, Kristen also got a surprise when she saw that Peter was alive! Stefano had faked Peter's death; Daniel Scott had been buried in place of Peter, wearing a mask that made him look like Peter. After Kristen made sure that both Peter and Laura would be fine, she left Stefano and continued to worry about her pregnancy.

In the following weeks, Kristen, Ivan, and Vivian labored to keep the secret under wraps, though every day Marlena seemed to become more and more suspicious. Finally, the day came when Susan went into labor. This came very suddenly, and another problem arose. John wanted to marry Kristen before the baby was born so it would have a name; that meant pulling a switch in the delivery room so that Kristen could take Susan's place. Such a switch never occurred, however, despite the great efforts of Kristen, Ivan, and Vivian, and Susan (wearing her Kristen disguise, of course) married John. While Kristen's name was on the marriage certificate, it had been Susan who had participated in the ceremony. Meanwhile, Susan delivered a son which was named John Black, Jr. (Susan, however, secretly called her son Elvis after her idol Elvis Presley.) Following the birth, Kristen gave Susan her money and ordered her to leave Salem. Unfortunately, Susan now refused to give up her child. In the end, Kristen gave Susan two options: leave Salem or else face Stefano. Susan chose to leave.

Believing she was now in the clear, Kristen joyfully returned home with her "husband" John and her baby John, Jr. To her surprise, she opened the door one day to find Susan! She had changed her mind and chosen to come back for her baby even if it meant facing Stefano. Needing to keep Susan from blabbing everything to John, Kristen hired her as John Jr.'s new nanny. Though this satisfied Susan, Kristen's plan was still in danger. Unbeknownst to Kristen, Susan was having therapy sessions with Marlena. Marlena didn't know who Susan was, or that the problems she described in therapy involved Kristen and John, but it was only a matter of time before she found out the truth. Unable to contact Stefano, whose help Kristen had come to depend on, she hired a man named Bart to build a secret room in the wine cellar of the mansion. The plan would be to lock Susan in the room until Stefano could return to Salem and take her away. Meanwhile, Kristen oozed with jealousy after word arrived in Salem that Roman Brady had died. In a letters addressed to them, Roman wished John and Marlena a happy life together. Roman's death only brought John and Marlena closer together and drove him away from Kristen. By this time, another problem surged for Kristen. Laura, who had been given drugs for months in order to keep her memory from returning, began to have flashbacks of being kept hostage in the Blake house. Lynn Burke, the nurse hired by Stefano to drug Laura, contacted Kristen to let her know that she needed help controlling Laura. Although Laura came close to finding evidence of having been kept in the Blake house, most people assumed that she was losing her sanity, especially when she insisted that Peter was alive. Nevertheless, Laura would have to be kept on a tight leash from now on.

Finally, the day came when Marlena put two and two together after a therapy session with Susan, where Marlena noticed that Susan was wearing a brooch belonging to Kristen. Marlena confronted Kristen at the mansion and vowed to tell John everything. But while they waited for John to return home, Kristen, Ivan, and Vivian took Marlena captive and locked her in the now-completed secret room! When John arrived, Kristen claimed that Stefano had kidnapped Marlena. John immediately began a massive search effort to find Marlena. Even with Marlena out of the way, Kristen hated the fact that John lived and breathed only to find Marlena. Kristen took comfort in torturing her. The secret room, as well as the entire house, had a video camera. This way, Kristen could watch Marlena in a hand-held monitor, while Marlena could observe everything in the house via a monitor in the room. Through this monitoring system, Kristen allowed Marlena to see her and John in intimate situations, as well as preparing to renew their wedding vows.

However, Laura continued to be a problem. She now claimed vehemently that Peter had not been the one buried and requested the body to be exhumed. Before that could happen, Kristen had Vivian and Ivan dig up the coffin and cremate Daniel Scott's body. When her motives were questioned, Kristen claimed to have discovered a document from Peter requesting that he be cremated. This only drove the unstable Laura off the deep end. At one point, Laura threatened to kill Kristen. With Lynn's aid, Laura was drugged into a coma and silenced. Unfortunately for Kristen, Susan discovered that Marlena was being held captive. One day, Susan pushed Kristen into the secret room and locked her inside with Marlena! Kristen began living her own brand of Hell as she had to share the secret room with the person she most hated (Susan refused to release Marlena because she'd fallen in love with John.) Not only that, but Kristen and Marlena were forced to watch as Susan, wearing her Kristen disguise, slept with John and prepared their upcoming wedding. No one suspected that "Kristen" was really Susan, and both Kristen and Marlena began to lose faith in being rescued. The day of the wedding, Kristen vigorously tried to escape from the room but only succeeded in starting a gas leak. Fortunately, the truth about Susan was discovered just in time to rescue Kristen and Marlena from suffocation. Kristen tried to blame the entire scheme on Susan, but when Marlena awoke she put the whole blame on Kristen. Desperate, Kristen dared to suggest that Marlena might be possessed again! Finally, John accepted the truth and asked Abe to arrest Kristen, Ivan, and Vivian. Before they could do that, Kristen got hold of one of the officer's guns and threatened to kill John and Marlena. However, John got the gun away from Kristen and she was promptly arrested for kidnapping, among other things, all the while hating the fact that John and Marlena were on their way to reuniting.

After a brief time in jail, Kristen was released on bail. Somewhat delusional, Kristen was convinced that John would forgive her and take her back. This delusion was further strengthened when she received an invitation to join a party at the Penthouse Grill hosted by John. Kristen thought it was to welcome her back into his life. To her horror, Kristen arrived at the restaurant only to hear John announce his engagement to Marlena! After a confrontation with John, in which he told Kristen that he loathed her, she decided to jump off the terrace of the Penthouse Grill. John managed to talk her down from the terrace, but Kristen remained adamant about getting John back. She sought Stefano's help once again, but this time he rejected her. Stefano claimed that now it would be impossible for him to have Marlena and placed the blame solely on Kristen for allowing herself to be caught. However, Kristen finally managed to convince Stefano that they could still achieve their respective goals -- Marlena and John -- if they worked together. Stefano accepted the idea, and thought of a way to keep John and Marlena from getting married. On the day of the wedding, Kristen stopped the wedding with a very special gift: Roman. She brought to the Church a sickly wheelchair-bound man covered in bandages, who she claimed was the not-so-dead Roman Brady. Although John and Marlena were somewhat skeptical of the man's identity, they had no choice but to stop the wedding.

As it turned out, the man really was Roman Brady. He had been infected with an incurable synthetic virus during an ISA rescue operation in the Middle East and had asked the ISA to help him fake his death in order to spare his family the pain of watching him die. Kristen believed that with Roman in the mix once again, John would be hers. Roman, who didn't know Kristen's true colors and believed that John and Kristen were married, listened to her advice and tried to tell Marlena that he still loved her. To keep Roman from receiving a potentially-fatal shock, Marlena and John agreed to hide their engagement from Roman and to pretend that Kristen and John were married. Meanwhile, Kristen worried that the plan was just a recipe for failure; once Roman died, Marlena and John would be together again. "Whoever said there wasn't a cure?" said Stefano to Kristen about Roman's virus. During this time, Kristen unwittingly led John and Abe to Stefano's hideout and caused him to be arrested. Once he was in prison, Stefano was brought to trial on charges of kidnapping Laura and framing Jack for murder. Laura still claimed that Peter was alive. Jennifer pleaded to Kristen to tell the truth in court and admit that Peter was alive. But Kristen insisted it was all a lie. As a result, Kristen lost Jennifer's friendship once and for all.

Stefano promised Kristen that John and Marlena would remain apart, and he promised that he'd get out of prison. Not long after this, Stefano proposed a deal to John: if he helped him escape from jail, he could find a cure for Roman. Though it was a hard sell, Stefano got his wish. John went with Stefano to get the cure, and Hope eventually joined them by sneaking aboard Stefano's jet. Kristen came along as well. It was her intention to find the cure, demonstrate her good heart, and win back John. Everyone traveled to a remote tropical island to look for a rare flower that only grew on a steep mountain side. Worse yet, the mountain was in the territory of a dangerous aborigene tribe that hated outsiders because of the damage lumber companies had done to the rain forest. Kristen was doubtful of Stefano's motives. She believed that he didn't plan on getting Roman a cure, that he just wanted to imprison John and brainwash him again. And it looked that way too; as soon as they arrived at Stefano's jungle compound, John and Hope were locked up in a room. They tried to convince Kristen to let them out but she was afraid of going against Stefano's wishes. John and Hope eventually escaped and went searching for the flower. Meanwhile, Kristen discovered that there was something in the compound that Stefano was very cautious of keeping secret; something hidden underneath a tarp that had to do with the period when Stefano had kept Hope prisoner at Maison Blanche. Kristen didn't get to find out what it was (and neither did viewers.) After extremely too much time in the jungle, where among the hardships endured were fierce natives with blow darts, snakes, and plane crashes, the flower was retrieved and the cure was administered. Oh yeah, and Roman was saved.

But alas, Kristen still did not have John. Marlena was growing closer to Roman and determined to marry him in order to keep him alive, but John still wanted nothing to do with Kristen. However, Kristen overheard him planning to kidnap Elvis Banks, who turned out to be his son. She tried to tell John about Stefano's plan but Stefano stopped her. So instead, Kristen resolved to kidnap Elvis before Stefano could get to him. She believed that John would return to her if she raised Elvis. Kristen managed to convince Susan to let her raise the child to keep him away from Stefano and his evil influence. Everything went according to plan, and Kristen even got Susan to sign the papers giving her custody of Elvis by drugging her. However, John and Marlena discovered what Kristen was up to and helped Susan trick Kristen into giving custody of Elvis back to Susan. They filed an appeal to the custody of Elvis. While John distracted Kristen from attending the hearing, Susan used her Kristen disguise to pretend she was Kristen and award custody of Elvis back to herself! By the time Kristen discovered what had happened, Susan and Elvis were far away from Salem in a secret location.

Wanting revenge on John and Marlena, Kristen finally decided to let Roman in on the truth of their relationship. Knowing that John and Marlena were having a romantic tryst aboard the Alamain jet at the airport, Kristen egged Roman on to go to the airport and propose to Marlena! As planned, Roman saw John and Marlena but kept it to himself. Kristen continued to manipulate Roman, forgetting that he was regaining his strength and recovering from his illness. When he finally made a full recovery, Marlena told him the truth about Kristen and why he'd brought Roman to Salem. Now Kristen had lost her last trump card. After losing every possible friend in Salem, and seeing that John and Marlena remained together, Kristen contemplated suicide and turned to drinking. One day, she found a bottle of pills at Salem Place. It was Laura Horton's medication, Placedin. She thought about taking an overdose of the pills, but decided against it for the time being.

Determined that all she had to live for was the one person who'd loved her unconditionally, John Jr. (Elvis), Kristen decided to get him back. To find out where he was, Kristen broke into Marlena's apartment and discovered that Susan was in the English countryside. She devised a plot to bring Susan back to Salem. Finally, she called Susan in England and told her to come to Salem with Elvis because she had kidnapped her sister Mary Moira and wanted to exchange her for the baby. Susan agreed to come and meet her at the Blake house. Before hanging up, Kristen told Susan to wear her "Kristen" disguise and a pink nightgown she'd sent her. Meanwhile, Kristen made arrangements with an Arab-looking man wearing a turban to sell Susan into white slavery. She promised the Turban Man that Susan was as beautiful as her, thus the need for Susan to wear the disguise. While waiting for Susan, Kristen began taking Laura's Placedin pills, and also drank alcohol...a dangerous combination. She got so woozy that she even called John's room at the Salem Inn and left a good-bye message for him, begging for his forgiveness. By the time Susan arrived (without Elvis), Kristen was very relaxed and wearing the same pink nightgown as Susan. She gave Susan a soda to drink; unbeknownst to Susan, Kristen had injected a drug into the soda in order to knock her out. By the end of the night, only one "Kristen" remained at the Blake house, and she was floating motionless in pool (nevermind that it was the middle of winter and the pool should've been either frozen or empty.) Meanwhile, Susan was at the airport trying to leave Salem when she was confronted by John and Roman. What happened?

First of all, the person at the airport was not Susan, but Kristen wearing a Susan disguise! When asked what she was doing in Salem, "Susan" explained that Kristen had wanted to exchange her sister for Elvis and had an argument at the house, but "Susan" claimed innocence. Upon further examination, "Kristen's" death was ruled a suicide as a result of the alcohol and drugs found in her system. Kristen remembered leaving the house while Susan was unconscious, and came to the conclusion that a groggy Susan got up, wandered toward the pool, and accidentally fell in and drowned. Meanwhile, someone named Edmund Crumb came to Salem and doted over "Susan." Kristen was surprised to discover that he was Susan's fiancé from England. So for now, she would have to keep up the appearances, since Edmund revealed that Elvis was back in England being cared for by his mother. He promised that they'd return to England soon, but first he wanted to marry her! Reluctantly, "Susan" accepted. Meanwhile, Kristen attended her own funeral and was shocked at the turnout, and moved most of all by John's and Stefano's genuine sorrow. Some time later, Kristen watched as Stefano visited her grave and vehemently apologized for the way he'd treated her in the past months. Finally, Kristen revealed herself to Stefano and explained everything. After a heartfelt talk, Kristen said good-bye to Stefano, as she planned to go to England and get Elvis. But before she could do that she was shocked to see that Violet Crumb, Edmund's mother, had come to Salem with Elvis to attend "Susan" and Edmund's wedding. With the entire ceremony planned and Elvis in Salem, Kristen had no choice but to marry Edmund. She only hoped to be able to escape from him with Elvis once they left for their honeymoon in Bermuda.

On the way to Bermuda, Edmund confessed something shocking to Kristen: he'd killed "Kristen"! He had arrived in Salem the night she died to protect Susan. When he heard gunshots coming from the Blake house, he'd rushed there and found "Kristen" in the water. Instead of helping her, Edmund had drowned her to avenge the pain "Kristen" had caused Susan! Terrified by this confession, Kristen longed to get away from Edmund before he discovered that she wasn't Susan. But upon arriving in Bermuda, Kristen and Edmund were shocked to come face to face with...the real Susan! Susan explained that she had been kidnapped by the Turban Man, while her quadruplet Penelope Kent had taken her place at the Blake house (see SusanBanks if you're confused, because I bet you are.) So the person who had died in the pool was Penelope Kent. Susan had been taken captive to an island fortress nearby but had managed to escape her captors, though they were chasing after her. Holding a gun to Kristen, Susan forced her to go along with her captors who agreed to take Kristen and let Susan go. Kristen unsuccessfully tried to get away from the captors and wound up in a dungeon at an island fortress.

While in the dungeon, Kristen sought comfort in the fact that she'd left one final revenge in Salem against John and Marlena. Before leaving on the honeymoon, Kristen had left a piece of candy on Marlena's nightstand with note from "Susan" asking her to enjoy it. The candy had been laced with penicillin, a substance Kristen knew that Marlena was allergic to. She hoped that Marlena would eat it and die, thus separating her from John once and for all. Kristen was on cloud nine fantasizing about what was happening in Salem when she received a phone call from Susan. Susan informed her that Belle had eaten the candy, not Marlena, and that she was going to survive (Belle was also allergic.) Best of all, John and Marlena were closer than ever and currently planning to remarry! Oh, another thing: Susan had called Stefano pretending to be Kristen, telling him that she and Elvis had managed to get away from Edmund. What did this mean? That the only person besides Edmund and Susan who knew that Kristen was alive had absolutely no idea that she was being held prisoner. Destined to a life of slavery and knowing that John and Marlena would be together, Kristen cried desperately in her dungeon cell, where she remains to this day.

The character of Kristen Blake was played by Eileen Davidson from 1993-1998

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