My husband, Steve Malone, thinks of himself as a highly-educated person. Not only that, but he's also very uninterested in physical intimacy.

When we go to bed every night, we have to sleep with a bowl of water between us. In fact, Steve refuses to let me touch him at all.

But on the day he returns from the volunteer teaching program in the countryside, I discover a pair of pantyhose all tangled up in his clothes.

Upon hearing my question, Steve maintains his cool facade as he explains, "This is contraband that I've confiscated from a student."

I never respond to Steve. Instead, I get in contact with the female teacher, Rebecca Cramer, who has gone teaching with Steve earlier.

From the other end of the line, Rebecca's sarcastic voice drifts over.

"Your husband sure is unstoppable, Audrey. He couldn't resist kneeling in the pig sty while licking the dead skin off that Paige widow's feet. No one could stop him at all.

"I heard that Paige even intends to give birth to a child for him. They went at it once per day, you know. I think you should head over here and witness everything for yourself."

As soon as I end the call, I contact my lawyer right away and prepare to file for a divorce.

This time, I'm hell-bent on ending things with Steve.

Early the next morning, I drove straight to that impoverished mountain village area. At the entrance, Rebecca Cramer stopped me with an awkward look on her face.

"Maybe you shouldn't go in," she said. "It's a pretty rough sight, to be honest."

I brushed her hand aside and walked straight ahead. But before I could get close, a pungent smell of fermenting pig manure hit my nose.

Inside the dilapidated pigsty, several black pigs were grunting as they fed. And kneeling right in the middle of the pen was Steve Malone. The same Steve who would lecture me for three days if I went to bed without showering was now holding a pig dung-covered foot with a reverent look on his face.

The foot belonged to a woman built like a water tank who was chewing on half a raw sweet potato.

"Professor Malone," she said, "there's chicken manure on my foot, so how can you smell it with such delight?"

Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Paige, you don't understand. This is the scent of the earth, the antidote that liberates the soul from the hypocrisy of the city."

Stomach churning violently, I stormed forward and kicked over a nearby trough. I thought Steve would panic or at least pull up his zipper, but he didn't.

Instead, he merely pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses coolly. "Audrey? What are you doing here?"

I stared fixedly at the glob of pig manure dripping from his collar.

"If I hadn't come, how could I witness your dedication to education?" I spat out, slamming the divorce papers I'd brought right into his face. "Sign it. Don't you dare bring AIDS home to me."

Beside him, Paige sized me up before suddenly breaking into a grin.

"Well, well. So, this is your wife. The one who only knows how to spray perfume? She looks like a plastic doll. No wonder you said you can't get it up looking at her."

She puffed out her chest provocatively, the neckline of her top gaping open, revealing a stretch of tanned skin.

"Sweetheart, Professor Malone says I'm full of boundless acceptance like Mother Earth. A city woman like you is just too skinny."

I was so furious I laughed. Even though I wasn't a top supermodel, I worked out regularly and had all the right curves. To think I would lose to a pig farmer who didn't even bathe?

I pointed at Paige and asked, my voice trembling," Steve, is this what you call your spiritual cleanliness? You refused to share a bed with me for three years because of…. this?"

Steve frowned. "Audrey, watch your language. Can you try not to be so shallow? Paige and I share a deep spiritual connection."

"Spiritual connection?" I scoffed. "Looks more like a hormonal one to me."

Steve sighed wearily, then wrapped an arm around Paige's thick waist. Stroking the layer of fat there, he said, "My parents have always wanted a grandson."

He gazed at Paige's slightly rounded belly with a strange look of pride. "And Paige is pregnant with my baby. Plus, she conceived in a vibrant, life-filled environment such as this, so this child is destined for greatness."

In that moment, it struck me that even the pigsty in front of me seemed cleaner than Steve. I turned and walked away. If I stayed a second longer, I was sure I'd throw up.

Behind me, Paige called out cheerfully, "Have a safe trip back, sweetheart! Feel free to come back here anytime. This old pigsty has great energy—puts the color right back in your cheeks."

Back in the city, I went straight to the hospital for a full check-up. Only after confirming I hadn't picked up any nasty diseases did I finally let myself breathe a sigh of relief.

Steve later tore up the divorce papers and said, "I'm in a critical period of my promotion to associate dean. A family scandal would ruin it. If you play along quietly until the review is over, I'll consider giving you some compensation."

Since he chose to be heartless, I couldn't be blamed for playing dirty.

I arrived home, a place that was saturated with Steve's rules—hands must be sanitized upon entry, the couch must remain perfectly unwrinkled, and the smell of cooking oil was absolutely forbidden.

He had treated me like nothing more than a live-in cleaning lady.

I walked into the kitchen and filled a bucket with water. Then, I took his prized collection of books and dropped them in, one by one.

But that wasn't enough.

I dug out a few bottles of cheap air freshener from the cabinet and sprayed them wildly throughout the house. This was the smell Steve hated the most. In fact, he called it the stench of the lower class.

Once I was done, I sat on the couch and waited quietly.

At 2:00 am, the door opened. The overpowering stench of pigsty and foot odor flooded the living room.

Steve sauntered in hand-in-hand with Paige, brazen and unapologetic.

Seeing the mess in the house, he froze for a moment. But soon, an expression of pure enjoyment spread across his face. With a deep inhale, he savored Paige's scent.

"That's more like it," he said as he pushed up his glasses, his eyes gleaming with feverish excitement. "Audrey, you've finally shattered that fake veneer of refinement. This chaos and this cheap scent—that's real life. This is the deconstruction of postmodernism."

I almost choked on his shamelessness.

He led Paige over to the leather couch, the one I had carefully picked out.

Paige, with her feet covered in dead skin, plopped right down and rubbed herself back and forth against it.

"Oh wow, this couch is really soft. It's even softer than a pig's belly back home," she announced loudly, throwing the banana peel onto the carpet.

Steve looked on adoringly. "I'm glad you like it. This is going to be your home from now on."

He then turned to me. "Paige's hungry, so go cook. She wants beef stew. Use plenty of oil, and don't cook it too long. The meat should still be chewy."

I didn't move from my seat. "I'm not your maid. If she wants beef stew, make it yourself."

Instead of getting angry, Steve rolled up his sleeves. "Fine, I'll do it myself. Your cooking never had any soul anyway."

Half an hour later, he actually emerged from the kitchen carrying a large bowl of greasy beef stew. Not even bothering with utensils, he and Paige just dug in with their hands.

They ate noisily, smacking their lips and feeding each other chunks of meat. It was a truly nauseating sight.

Unable to take it any longer, I rushed into the bathroom and dry-heaved.

All these years, if I so much as ate something slightly greasy, Steve would scold me for smelling like rotten meat. He forced a strictly plant-based diet on me for three years, where eggs weren't even allowed.

Now it seemed, it wasn't that he was a vegan, he just wanted to eat meat with someone like Paige.

The next day, the school suspended my classes, citing family issues that supposedly affected my teaching quality. There was no doubt that it had to be Steve's doing.

With his extensive connections in the faculty, a few twisted remarks from him were enough to land me under investigation.

I didn't make a scene. Instead, I packed up and went straight home.

The moment I walked in, I saw Paige sitting at my dressing table. She had dumped all my cosmetics—each bottle worth thousands of dollars—onto the floor.

As she poured them out, she cursed, "What a load of nonsense. These cosmetics are nothing but capitalist poison. Professor Malone says if you put on too much of this stuff, it'll make your face thick and make you unlucky!"

Instead of panicking when she saw me return, she patted her stomach smugly.

"Sweetheart, you're back! Perfect timing—I'm hungry. Make some chicken soup for me. Professor Malone says this baby is going to be really bright. A future valedictorian for sure."

Her baby bump wasn't even showing yet, but she made a point of sticking it out. However, this just made her look like a bloated toad.

"Since you can't get pregnant, you should just step aside. Can't blame me for stepping in to bear the child for you."

I went into the kitchen and took a few strong laxative pills from my bag, then put them in a supplement bottle. Of course, I had no intention of inducing a miscarriage. As long as she didn't take too much, the most she would experience was diarrhea.

I walked out holding the bottle. Then, forcing a stiff smile onto my face, I said, "You're right, the baby comes first. These are precious prenatal supplements I had someone buy. It's said to support the baby's development and even boost intelligence."

Paige's eyes lit up, and she immediately reached for the bottle of supplements.

"Well, aren't you thoughtful! Looks like you know what's good for you."

Just as her hand was about to touch the bottle, the study door burst open, and Steve stormed out.

"Stop!"

Without even asking what the pills were, he shoved me hard. Caught completely off guard, the back of my head slammed into the corner of the table. A burst of blinding pain shot through me, and everything went dark for a moment.

Steve didn't even spare me a glance. He snatched the bottle from my hand and shouted, "Audrey Stafford, have you lost your mind? This is my child, my bloodline!"

His face twisted with rage. "How could you be so vile? I can't believe you're actually trying to harm an innocent life!"

I clutched the back of my bleeding head and struggled to sit up. As I watched him put on an act as a devoted father, I suddenly laughed.

"Innocent life? Steve, how dare you even talk about harming an innocent life!" I screamed, three years of suppressed agony finally tearing me apart. "When I was pregnant during the first year of our marriage, you called my morning sickness a noisy excretion machine and a pollution to your inner world.

"In order to force me into an abortion, you went on a three-day hunger strike and burned every baby item in the house. I was in excruciating pain on the operating table, while you sat at home reading your so-called literary works.

"You said it was to purify our lives, and now you tell me you want to protect a life?"

Steve adjusted his glasses, his face shifting into an expression of cold indifference.

"I was immature back then and hadn't yet grasped the true meaning of life. Besides…" He swept a disdainful glance over me. "You were born into privilege. Soft, pampered genes like yours are bound to produce someone useless. Paige, on the other hand, is different."

He turned to look at Paige, who still reeked of the pigsty. "Her genes are primitive, wild, and resilient. That's the hope of humanity, the kind of species that can survive in this rotting world."

As I listened to his deranged monologue, I picked up a shard of glass from the floor. In that moment, I truly wanted to slit Steve's throat.

A hypocritical piece of trash like him would be just a waste of space.

But I clenched the shard tightly, letting it cut into my palm. I couldn't turn myself into trash just to deal with him.

I threw the bloodied glass to the floor. "Steve, karma will get you."

He scoffed dismissively. "Karma is consolation for the weak. The strong believe only in will."

Then he helped Paige back to their room. "Ignore this lunatic. Don't let her upset you and risk harming the baby."

I sat on the floor, blood matted in my hair, completely ignored.

A long time passed before Steve emerged from the bedroom.

He walked over and stood before me. Looking down from above, he said, "Alright, enough drama. Since things have reached this point, let's talk business.

"The doctor said your previous abortion damaged your uterus, so you'll never get pregnant again. Paige may have good genes, but she's uneducated and truly incapable of raising a child properly."

He paused, then laid out what he clearly thought was a perfect plan. "You will take care of the baby once it's born.

"We'll tell everyone you've been on bed rest these past few months, and that Paige is just the hired nanny. After she gives birth, we'll give her some money and send her back to the village.

"Not only will your reputation stay intact this way, but I'll also have an heir, and the child will receive an elite education. It's a win-win, Audrey. In fact, you should thank me for giving you this chance to be a mother."

He said it all with absolute conviction, as if he were bestowing a great favor upon me.

I laughed in bitter rage. Blood trickled into my eyes, turning my vision dark and red.

"And if I refuse? Do you plan to keep the child and discard the mother? Steve, do you really think every woman in this world exists to revolve around you?"

Steve sighed. "Isn't Maurice currently being reviewed for the Academy of Sciences fellowship?"

My heart lurched to a stop. He had found my weakness.

My father, Maurice Stafford, valued his academic reputation more than life itself. If a scandal erupted at this critical moment, it could kill him.

"If word gets out that the daughter of an academician is jealous, infertile, and abuses a pregnant rural woman… how do you think his competitors will spin it? Could Maurice still hold onto that fellowship title?"

I clenched my fists so tightly my nails dug into my palms, yet I felt no pain. For my father's sake, I had no choice but to put up with all this—even if it meant grinding my teeth to dust and swallowing it down.

"Fine." I lowered my head. "We'll do it your way."

A satisfied smile graced Steve's lips, and he reached out to pat my head. But I turned away to avoid his touch.

"That's my good wife. In a few days, we need to make a joint appearance at the academic conference to clear up the rumors. Do try to act a little more affectionate, and don't wear that dead expression all the time."

He stood up, humming a tune as he headed back to the room.

Paige called from inside, "I want grilled ribs! Two racks of them!"

"Alright, I'll buy them for you right away," Steve replied gently.

I remained seated on the cold floor, the blood on my face already dried.

After what felt like an eternity, I took my phone from my pocket and dialed a long-forgotten number.

The call connected almost instantly. "Addie? Is that you?"

"Ian Doyle," I whispered, tears finally spilling over. "I have a video of Steve in a pigsty. Can you help me spread it?"

There was a second of silence on the line, followed by the flick of a lighter.

"Just say the word, and I'll move mountains for you. And don't cry, Addie. It hurts me to hear it."