Mesmerised by the punk diva in a Seattle club, Cate Carpenter stumbled into a world of erotic cruelty. Thrilling unexpectedly to their use of instruments of chastisement, she gains admittance to an SM club linked to an ancient fertility rite. However, once recruited to work in their library of arcane fetish erotica, Cate makes enemies of everyone with her ruthless manoeuvrings and vicious canings. With the boot on the other foot, Cate must learn to temper her impulses, and come to understand that a true domina will seek out from time to time the pain that she inflicts on others.