Scandalous rumors of half-clothed women and good opium drew good Victorian society to Chi Ki's opium den. To here Alison escapes, sneaking out every night after her drunken, abusive husband sleeps, fleeing into the arms of other men, and into atrap that has been laid. What happenswhen her fate is tied to an author, who coldly manipulates lives to stimulate his art, a self-absorbed, playboy criminal, and an apparently good woman who secretly loathes her?