After he's fired from the newspaper where he has worked since college as a journalist, he absent-mindedly stumbles into Cruel and Unusual, an S&M boutique in downtown Miltown and begins to think he has found what has been missing from his life.

He meets Karenina, and first they become play-partners in a dark waltz of Dominance and submission. But the dance becomes more torrid as they become lovers.

However, the Dominance and submission dance becomes a consuming passion, not only for the sexually perverse climate and depravity, but it also seems to allow Perry to take control of his life and define it according to his terms rather than those of the mundane world. Then one day the D/s play goes too far, the music stops, the illusions fall away, and Perry is left as the prime suspect in a brutal S&M-style murder.

And Perry learns an enduring lesson: Illusions can change reality. Forever.