Gordon is a listless, chain-smoking asthmatic with a rather insipid libido. Cynthia is a slightly pudgy nymphomaniac with a bad case of eczema. After quitting his job at a Brisbane liquor store, Gordon makes a decision that will mark his life forever: becoming involved in Cynthia's manic parlor games of chemical and sexual excess. As the pair combust in warmth and madness, Gordon willingly enters Cynthia's web of indulgence, progressively losing himself in a woman who's ironically lost to herself. Fueled by their rabid diet of sex, stimulants, and Scrabble, the lovers shore themselves away in Gordon's flea-bitten boarding house, temporarily staving off loneliness and imminent self-destruction. But as the months pass, Gordon's deficiencies and Cynthia's intensity begin to wear on the relationship.