A tourist in California, meets Mary at her bookstore in Venice. Having become fast lovers, Mary asks the narrator to chain her up to his bed, explaining that this kink of hers is something she “had to go into to come out of.” The two spend the weekend together, her chained to his bed, and him navigating the labyrinthine tension of her demanding to be freed from the chains. To distract himself, he unskillfully plays his flute, having taught himself the basics some years ago. At the end of the weekend, and after twenty-four hours of unbroken silence, he and Mary go to dinner.  The man lives in an apartment above a shop owned by George Malone who he often drinks with and gets suggestions from for tourist destinations. On George’s suggestion, the man visits the beach and is entranced by the dreamlike vision all the brown, suntanned people laying serenely on the yellow sand, remarking that he wished he was brown. Returning from the beach, the man meets up with a friend of his he met in England, Terrence Latterly, a “compulsive monologuist” and fabulist who “regularly became infatuate women whom he drove away.” Terrance shares with the man the story of his latest flop with a restaurant owner, Sylvie. On the date with Sylvie, a desperate (and drunk) Terrance tries to convince her that he would do anything for her. She asks him to urinate on himself right then and there in the restaurant, and in a bizarre effort, Terrance does so just as Sylvie’s parents approach their table. The man is incredulous of Terrance’s story. Some time later, he ambles aimlessly around his apartment, staring at the walls, fiddling with a can opener, and perfecting his bed sheets’ ‘hospital corners.’ He picks up his flute and rehearses Bach’s Sonata No. 1, fumbling over notes, making the same mistakes without progress. He stops playing the flute and continues to roam around the apartment, listening to the clock tick, finger drumming on the back of a book, and sitting on the toilet for two hours staring at his knees “till they lost their meaning as limbs.” George later takes the man to a club where a disheveled man relates the tragic details of his day—losing his girlfriend, contemplating suicide—to an apathetic audience. Later, before the man is due to leave Los Angeles for New York, George invites him to his houses for small farewell party and to hear the man play the flute. At the party, George introduces Mary, Terrence, and the man to his children, and they all sit down to charged conversation about parental discipline, guns, and most electrically, Christianity, the latter of which sends Mary into a feminist tirade about how women are presented as the brunt of evil in the Bible. As the evening wanes, the man plays his flute (as unskilled as ever) and receives a few “Bravos!” and a kiss from Mary.