6
In the blink of an eye, another two weeks passed. The pain in my left ribs had faded to a dull ache.
Recently, I had been so submissive that my husband couldn’t wait to show me off around the neighborhood every day. So what if he had beaten me into the hospital? I was even more attached to him now.
At night, my husband was excited like he was on drugs. Each time, I endured the nausea and secretly took birth control pills.
“You’re such a good wife. Give me a son soon and I’ll love you even more.”
Afterwards, my husband leaned against the headboard smoking, stroking my hair.
I snuggled up to him and picked up my phone to open Facebook.
“Honey, one of my old friends already has two sons. I have to have at least one!”
”
I pretended to be upset, opening my friend’s Facebook page and saying resentfully, “Hmph, why does she get to have sons and get rich? She’s always showing off her fancy cars and houses on Facebook!”
My husband was intrigued by what I said and snatched the phone from my hand.
“This is your friend?” he asked in surprise.
In the Facebook photos, my “friend” was fair–skinned and beautiful. Even with filters, you could tell she had good features and a curvaceous figure.
“Yeah, her name is Rachel. We grew up in the same village. Hmph, that face is obviously plastic surgery. She made some money and now she’s always bragging on Facebook.”
D
12:27 PM P
<
I had a look of jealousy on my face. My husband muttered, “You never mentioned you had a friend like this before.”
“She even sent us a wedding gift. Don’t you remember?”
My husband thought for a moment but couldn’t recall. He continued scrolling through Rachel’s Facebook.
“We were close friends growing up. Her family also strongly favored boys over girls…” I “casually” added.
My husband’s eyebrows raised. He stared at Rachel’s sexy photos without blinking.
He kept scrolling, looking at photos of Rachel’s overseas vacations, property deeds, luxury cars, and more.
I waited a moment, then changed the subject: “She contacted me yesterday, saying she has connections in Thailand. Durians that sell for
$15-20 per pound here, she can get for just a few dollars a pound. She asked if I wanted to buy some to resell here.”
I opened our chat history to show my husband. He looked it over, then carefully examined Rachel’s Facebook page again.
As an average college graduate with a mediocre job and salary, he had never even traveled abroad.
Suddenly finding out my friend had struck it rich and was traveling the world, with houses and fancy cars to envy.
I could clearly see the jealousy and desire burning red in my husband’s eyes.
“Durians are so expensive. How many people can afford to buy them?” my husband scoffed.
He laughed at me for not understanding anything, too lazy to explain further.
He took my phone, saying he wanted to chat with Rachel about getting some inventory.
A few days later, a large package arrived from overseas at our apartment complex.
My husband eagerly opened it to find five or six golden durians.
We opened one to taste. It was even more fragrant and sweet than domestic durians. They were called Musang King durians. My husband took the remaining durians out to sell at a stall.
He sold all the durians, about 30 pounds total, in one afternoon.
These durians were special samples Rachel had air–shipped for us to try.
The five durians weighed about 30 pounds and sold for a total of $600.
Making $600 in one afternoon excited my husband. He fantasized about how much he could make in a day if he had hundreds of pounds, or
even more.
I watched him constantly chatting with Rachel on his phone. He barely even checked the domestic violence group chat anymore.
Once he was convinced of my friend Rachel’s connections, he prepared money to buy 100 pounds of inventory from her.
Rachel told him 100 pounds was too little to even cover shipping costs. She explained the reason they were so cheap was because the durians were smuggled back into the country.
At this point, my husband believed her even more. The few thousand dollars in his account wasn’t enough, so he tricked his parents into giving him their retirement savings to invest.
