Excerpt from Euphoria by Lily King, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

'He's handsome, isn't he, your husband,' Eva said, when no one else could hear. 'I bet he cleans up well.'

The boat slowed, the water glowed salmon pink in the sunset, and they were there. Three dock boys, dressed in white pants, blue shirts, and red caps came running out from the Angoram Club to tie up the boat.

'Lukaut long,' Minton barked at them in pidgin. 'Isi isi.' To each other they spoke in their tribal language, Taway most likely. To the disembarking passengers they said, 'Good evening,' in a crisp British accent. She wondered how far their knowledge of English extended.

'How are you this evening?' she asked the biggest boy.

'Fine, thank you, Madame.' He reminded her of their Anapa shoot boy, with his easy confidence and willingness to smile.

'It's Christmas Eve, I hear.'

'Yes, Madame.'

'Do you celebrate it?'

'Oh yes, Ma'am.'

The missionaries had gotten to them.

'And what are you hoping for?' she asked the second biggest.

'A fishing net, Ma'am.' He tried to keep the sentence brief and dispassionate like the other boy's, but he burst out, 'Like the one my brother has got last year.'

'And the first thing he catched were me!' the littlest cried out.

All three boys laughed, their teeth bright white. At their age most Mumbanyo boys no longer had many teeth, having lost them to rot or fights, and the ones that remained were stained scarlet by the betel nut they chewed.

Just as the big boy began to explain, Fen called to her from the ramp. The white couples, already up on the land, seemed to be laughing at them, at the woman in the filthy men's pajamas, trying to talk to the natives, at the gaunt bearded Aussie, who may or may not clean up well, teetering with their bags, calling for his wife.

She told the boys to have a merry Christmas, which they thought was funny, and they wished her the same. She would have liked to squat on that dock with those boys all night. Fen, she saw, was not mad. He shifted both bags onto his left shoulder and offered her his right arm as if she too were wearing an evening dress. She slipped her left arm through and he clamped down. The lesion she had there stung from the pressure. 'It's Christmas Eve for Christ's sake. Must you always be working?' But his voice was teasing now, almost apologetic. We are here, his arm tight around hers said. It is over with the Mumbanyo. He kissed her and this too made the pain flare but she didn't complain. He didn't like her strong, nor did he like her weak. Many months ago he'd grown tired of sickness and sores. When his fever rose, he took forty-mile hikes. When he had a thick white worm growing beneath the skin of his leg, he cut it out himself with a penknife.

They were given a room on the second story. Music from the club's dining room below vibrated in the floorboards. She touched one of the twin beds. It was made up with stiff white sheets and a fat pillow. She pulled the top sheet from its tight bind and got in. It was just an old narrow army cot but it felt like a cloud, a clean smooth starched cloud. She felt sleep, the old heavy kind, the kind of her childhood, come for her.

'Good idea,' Fen said, taking off his shoes. There was a whole bed for him, too, but he pushed his way in beside her and she had to turn toward him on her side so as not to fall off. 'Time to procreate,' he said in a singsong.

His hands slid down the back of her cotton pants, grabbed the flesh of her bottom, and pressed her groin to his. It reminded her of how she used to smack her paper dolls together after she had outgrown them but had not yet put them away. But it didn't work, so he took her hand and brought it down and once she had gripped him fully, he covered her hand with his own and brought it up and down in a rhythm she knew well but he would never let her try on her own. His breathing quickly became fast and labored, but it took a long time for the penis to show even the slightest sign of stiffness. It flopped beneath their two hands like a jellyfish. It wasn't the right time, anyway. She was about to get her period.

Excerpted from Euphoria by Lily King. Copyright © 2014 by Lily King. Excerpted by permission of Atlantic Monthly Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.