- Anne Bowers' life is as perfect as she can make it: She has a loving husband whose genius for divorce cases has made them wealthy, a son who is bright and well-adjusted, and a big, beautiful house in Los Angeles. At the age of thirty-something, Anne has retained her youthful good looks and body. She is everyone's ideal of success and happiness in a modern world. And she's wholly, totally miserable. Trying to figure out her dissatisfaction with her life thrusts a normally cautious and introspective Anne into a world of S&M where she finds an intoxicating freedom she never imagined.—NB
- Anne Bowers' life is as perfect as she can make it: She has a loving husband whose genius for divorce cases has made them wealthy, a son who is bright and well-adjusted, and a big, beautiful house in Los Angeles. And at the age of thirty-something, Anne has retained her youthful good looks and body. She is everyone's ideal of success and happiness in a modern world. And she's wholly, totally miserable. Trying to figure out her dissatisfaction with her life thrusts a normally cautious and introspective Anne into a world of S&M where she finds an intoxicating freedom she never imagined. She somehow disables the logical parts of her mind and allows herself to be sexually assaulted by strange men in order to achieve an excitement she hasn't felt in years. While this seems a bizarre and self-destructive way to cope with a life crises, Anne's behavior is also being propped up by her personal trainer and friend, Carmi. The plain fact is that the dangerous sex makes Anne feel things she hasn't felt - perhaps ever. You don't know the taste of something until you actually put it on your tongue. This taste is instantly compelling and addictive to Anne. Life seems less oppressive when she engages in this deviant and dangerous behavior. The world isn't as bleak. Although the logical Anne struggles to understand this addiction, the aroused Anne refuse to let it go despite the danger it could present to her perfect world. The funny thing is that the more entrenched she becomes in S&M the more she values her husband, Bill, and their life together and finds renewed interest in their relationship. She seems to have it all yet again. That newly-minted, perfect world is shattered when Anne attends an S&M swap party with Carmi and ends up having sex with her husband's law firm partner, Josh, who is both younger and more aggressive than Anne's husband. Because of the required masks at the party, Anne isn't aware that she is having sex with Josh until it is too late. Josh has never stopped trying to interest Anne in an affair and he's never been all that secret about it, pushing into Anne at parties, making disagreeable comments, and in general pursuing any opportunity that gets him closer to his goal. Josh's approach, while distasteful to Anne, does attract her sexually and it is, after all, flattering to have a man Josh's age interested, so Anne has never told Bill of his partner's inappropriate behavior or remarks, choosing instead to spar with him and keep him dangling. Now she's going to pay dearly for that decision because Josh is blackmailing her into continuing the S&M sex or he will tell Bill of Anne's deviant indiscretions. Anne continues to be Josh's sex slave. She rails against it but there is little she can do. Then, Anne's life is whipsawed again when she discovers that her loving, faithful, churchgoing husband is having an affair - with her supposed friend and personal trainer, Carmi. To make things worse, it appears that Carmi used Josh and was used by him to trap Anne into the sexual blackmail. Carmi's motivation appears to be that she wants Anne's life - all of it. Anne's instincts for survival are instantly ignited. While Josh was a disgusting problem, he was at least somewhat controllable because he wanted Anne's body, not her life. Carmi is a different story - she wants Anne out of the picture so she can have Bill and everything he represents. Tired of having a leering and abusive Josh treat her like a prostitute, seeing her perfect world threatened in ways she never imagined, Anne concocts a dangerous plan to solve both problems. She carefully arranges a situation where Carmi and Josh will be brought together with her. She allows Carmi to believe that she will be killing Josh but switches things at the last minute to get Carmi to do the actual shooting. This leads to Carmi being arrested for the murder of Josh. Both problems solved. In the end, Josh is dead, Carmi is on trial for murder, and Anne and Bill will continue their lives in another state, not referring back to or talking about the "unfortunate" incident. Who will be the next victim to be trapped in Anne and Bill's perfection? By: NB
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content