An exerpt:
Week 0
Foster remembered, exactly, when it was he got it into his head to get married.
It was the time he leaned over his cubicle to see Donovan taking a bite out of a dripping, overstuffed roast beef on rye too big, too thick, and too appetizing to have come from the cafeteria.
“New restaurant?” he asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. He had a weakness for roast beef on rye. Heck, he had a weakness for food in general, especially when they looked like they had come straight out of Bon Appetit, the bread just the right shade of brown, the beef sliced in equal thinness.
“Nope,” Donovan said. “My wife made it.”
Donovan took a big, sloppy bite, getting a bit of gravy on his cheek. Foster found himself in the act of wiping his own cheek but catching drool on the back of his hand instead. He wasn’t distracted enough though to remember what Donovan had just said. That was news to him.
“Since when have you been married?” Foster asked.
“Officially? Two weeks ago,” he said, mouth half full.
Foster was surprised. Donovan had always struck him as the perpetual bachelor type. Receding hairline, puppy-dog eyes, cheeks that were slowly turning into jowls, and the carefree manner of a frat boy, he was forever sending the receptionists into giggling fits over one thing or another. As a cubicle neighbor, he was okay, never bothering Foster except for the occasional paper clip or a little of the small talk that was essential to corporate survival.
“Congratulations,” Foster said. He would have shook one of Donovan’s hands, but they were currently busy with the sandwich.
“Thanks,” he said.
“So what’s it like?” Foster asked, “Being married?”
“It’s great! Donovan exclaimed, spewing out pieces of roast beef. “It’s like a vacation. I wake up, the wife’s made breakfast and packed my lunch. I eat, she kisses me off, I go to work. I get home, the house is sparkling, the wife’s made dinner, and has a Bud chilling in the fridge for me. Some nights, we chill and watch TV, but most of the time—” he paused, then said, with eyes closed as if remembering, “We fuck like rabbits. It’s a really sweet deal.”
Foster stared at him. “Did you just step out of the 50s?” he asked incredulously. Either he was making it up, or he had found the most perfect, most gullible woman in the world.
“Wanna see her picture?” Donovan asked, popping the last of the sandwich in his mouth and licking his fingers.
This was the longest conversation Foster had ever had with his neighbor, and now he knew why: the man was a self-centered misogynist. But he had piqued his curiosity, him and his goddamned sandwich. Foster didn’t even realize that lunch hour was almost over, and he hadn’t gone out to eat, focused as he was on Donovan.
“No, found. She’s a mail order bride from the Philippines. You know how hot those third-world chicks are to marry white guys. I picked her out, paid for her to come over, married her, and now I live like a king.”
Donovan wiped his fingers on the napkin (that his wife, no doubt, had packed for him) then, out of habit, on his pants before fishing out his wallet from his back pocket. He flipped it open, and Foster found himself staring at a photograph of Donovan with his arms around the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was either Filipino or Thai, with long black hair, big expressive eyes, milk chocolatey brown skin, and lips you could lose yourself in. She was wearing a satin spaghetti-strapped blouse and no bra, her nipples hard through the fabric. Foster could imagine Donovan’s swarthy hands groping her even as she smiled devotedly at him, and he could tell that it would be very easy indeed to “fuck like rabbits” with her. That she could also cook almost blew his mind.
“She’s hot,” he exclaimed before he could stop himself.
“Isn’t she?” Donovan agreed. “She’s perfect.”
“How did you get her to marry you?” Foster asked. “No offense, Don, but she seems way out of your league.”
“Found her on the Internet,” Donovan said.
“You mean you met her on the Internet.”
“No, found. She’s a mail order bride from the Philippines. You know how hot those third-world chicks are to marry white guys. I picked her out, paid for her to come over, married her, and now I live like a king.”
His statement didn’t sit well with Foster. How pathetic did you have to be to buy a bride online? Yet as one side condemned the practice as subhuman, another part of him was thinking about what a good deal it was.
“What’s the URL?” Foster asked.
“Siquijorbrides.com.”
Read the rest here.
This is the same story that Gilda Cordero Fernando mentioned as one of her rainy day reads. And just so you know I'm not making it up, here's a link.
