Chapter 1

It was exactly six months after my wedding, and it was also my wife Linda’s 24th birthday.

My name is James, I was 26 then, and I believed that I had the perfect life. I work in a government department in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, dealing with taxes on imports. I had a very easy desk job with a good boss, not a lot of stress, and very nice colleagues, and to be honest the job did not require a lot of effort because all I had to do was follow the regulations that the government had decided and apply them to the goods that should be taxed. I did get busy at times, but work had never overexerted me. In fact, I was able to spend part of my day surfing the net and surreptitiously reading porn. I was always careful not to download any images or videos, but stories could easily be disguised as the latest updates on tax regulations. My favourite stories involved a cheating wife or a wife who had a hidden slutty life, but this weakness was not one that I openly shared with others, not even with Linda.

Every day, I reached work before 9 am and by 4.15 pm I was usually at the train station waiting to get home. Government working hours were a big attraction of the job as 9 – 4 was infinitely better than the hours of jobs in the private sector.

Linda and I met when some mutual friends introduced us in university. We are both Chinese Malaysians, so we had a lot in common. Malaysia is a very racially diverse society with Malays, Chinese, Indians and several other ethnic groups making up the population mix. However, we all work together and we feel united by our Malaysian nationality. Linda and I got engaged just after she graduated by when I had already graduated and joined the tax department.

Linda had studied Computer Science at university, so it was not difficult for her to find a position at a start-up making a new lightweight hard drive using less energy and providing more storage than conventional drives. She was involved in testing new materials for properties that could be used to make the drives even smaller and more lightweight, but with greater storage capacity.

Until Linda graduated, we both continued to live with our parents, which naturally made our sex life a bit difficult. We managed to sneak away for a joint vacation from time to time, and about once a month, I paid for a few hours in a ‘Love Hotel.’ However, we always wanted more sex, but Linda never complained that we were not intimate enough. Like all young couples, we started searching for a flat when Linda graduated, and we found one that we liked and could afford the rent near to Subang Jaya station. This was perfect for my work as I could catch the LRT Kelana Jaya line to Masjid Jamek, which was only a short walk to my office in Pudu Sentral. It was also perfect for Linda’s work because she was able to catch the KMT Port Klang line to her office in the light industrial park at Kepong. So, as soon as possible, we arranged to get married and moved in to our first home together. My friends envied me for having achieved what many of them were still working on.

I had a good job, a beautiful wife who also had a good job in an interesting field, and I had even managed to rent a cheap flat right beside the train station. I felt like the luckiest man alive.

I was looking forward to celebrating Linda’s birthday along with our six-month wedding date, so I had planned for us to go for a dinner at a nice restaurant. However, Linda texted me in the middle of the day, saying that she had a deadline to meet and would not be home until late. She said that she was sorry and that she had been looking forward to us spending a nice romantic evening together, but she promised to make it up to me later. She closed the message with a line of kisses.