Summary

What Belongs to You: A Novel is related from the first-person point of view of an unnamed narrator.

The narrator meets Mitko in mid-October in a remote and rarely used bathroom at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, Bulgaria. The narrator is a poet and teacher who works at the American College in Sofia. He has learned a small amount of Bulgarian, which he plans to use for the short time he will live in Bulgaria. The narrator has gone in search of sexual pleasure, but, when he finds the men lingering in the public bathroom, he doubts whether or not he truly wants this service. He hesitates so much that the 23-year-old boy he is talking to, Mitko, actually decides to leave the bathroom. This prompts the narrator to quickly change his mind and agree to a transaction...