Beautiful World, Where Are You

On Wednesday night, Alice meets Felix and his friends for drinks at a bar, The Sailor’s Friend. “At midnight they walked back together from the bar to his house. Upstairs in bed Alice lay flat on her back, and Felix was on top of her. Her eyelids were fluttering and she was breathing rapidly, noisily” (215). The next day, Felix goes to work at the warehouse, and Alice has a long phone call with her agent. Felix plans on returning to Alice for dinner but opts to go for drinks with work friends that evening. After getting very drunk and vomiting, he texts Alice for a hookup. When Felix returns to the rectory, as Alice accuses him of embarrassing her and thinking she’s “a complete fucking idiot” (221). Felix denies that and says she’s intelligent, but he insults her by saying that if she were “a little bit stupider [she] might have an easier life” (221). The two bicker and start to kiss, but Felix pauses, contemplating his physical experience; he struggles to reconcile his two bodies—the body that works at the warehouse, and the body that touches Alice.

After passionate sex, Felix asks her how much money she has, since she keeps saying she’s rich.