Cate Carpenter stumbles into a world of erotic cruelty and 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 maneuverings and vicious canings. 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.