The dreary world of Ellen Laurey blooms under the spell of a mysterious stranger. He takes her in a dark passageway behind the bar where they first meet-then disappears. In the weeks that follow, he appears out of nowhere, taking her again and again into dangerous sexual territory, into the kinky extremes of bondage and discipline, then he vanishes without a trace. This quiet college professor on the brink of divorce becomes like clay in the hands of a practiced master, consumed by passions she cannot defend herself against.