Excerpt from The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"We're like a couple of clueless teenagers here," he complained. "This is . . ."

She laid her hand on his face, covering his mouth.

"We're you and me," she said. "You and me. Man and wife. Everything's fine."

She was naked now except for the wristwatch on her thin wrist and the pearl necklace around her throat. In the torchlight, the necklace was no longer an elegant wedding anniversary gift but became a primitive erotic adornment. Her breasts shook with the force of her heartbeat.

"Come on," she said. "Do it."

And so they began. Pressed close together, they could no longer see each other; the torchlight's purpose was over. Their mouths were joined, their eyes clasped shut, their bodies could have been anyone's bodies since the world was created.

"Harder," Beatrice gasped after a while. Her voice had a harsh edge to it, a brute tenacity he'd never heard in her before. Their lovemaking had always been decorous, friendly, impeccably considerate. Sometimes serene, sometimes energetic, sometimes athletic, even—but never desperate. "Harder!"

Confined and uncomfortable, with his toes knocking against the window and his knees chafing on the furry viscose of the car seat, he did his best, but the rhythm and angle weren't right and he misjudged how much longer she needed and how long he could last.

"Don't stop! Go on! Go on!"

But it was over.

"It's OK," she finally said, and wriggled from under him, clammy with sweat. "It's OK."

They were at Heathrow in plenty of time. The check-in lady gave Peter's passport the once-over. "Traveling one-way to Orlando, Florida, yes?" she said. "Yes," he said. She asked him if he had any suitcases to check in. He swung a sports bag and a rucksack onto the belt. It came across as dodgy somehow. But the logistics of his journey were too complicated and uncertain for a return booking. He wished Beatrice weren't standing next to him, listening to these confirmations of his imminent departure into thin air; wished she'd been spared hearing the word "one-way."

And then, of course, once he was handed his boarding pass, there was more time to fill before he would actually be allowed on the plane. Side by side, he and Beatrice meandered away from the check-in desks, a little dazzled by the excessive light and monstrous scale of the terminal. Was it the fluorescent glare that made Beatrice's face look drawn and anxious? Peter put his arm around the small of her back. She smiled up at him reassuringly, but he was not reassured. WHY NOT START YOUR HOLIDAY UPSTAIRS? the billboards leered. WITH OUR EVER-EXPANDING SHOPPING OPPORTUNITIES, YOU MAY NOT WANT TO LEAVE!

At this hour of evening, the airport was not too crowded, but there were still plenty of people trundling luggage and browsing in the shops. Peter and Beatrice took their seats near an information screen, to await the number of his departure gate. They joined hands, not looking at each other, looking instead at the dozens of would-be passengers filing past. A gaggle of pretty young girls, dressed like pole dancers at the start of a shift, emerged from a duty-free store burdened with shopping bags. They tottered along in high heels, scarcely able to carry their multiple prizes. Peter leaned toward Beatrice's face and murmured: "Why would anybody want to go on a flight so heavily laden? And then when they get to wherever they're going, they'll buy even more stuff. And look: they can barely walk."

"Uh-huh."

"But maybe that's the whole point. Maybe this is a display put on specially for us. The sheer impracticality of it all—right down to the ridiculous shoes. It lets everyone know these girls are so rich they don't have to worry about the real world. Their wealth makes them like a different creature, an exotic thing that doesn't have to function like a human."

Excerpted from The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber. Copyright © 2014 by Michel Faber. Excerpted by permission of Hogarth Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.