Sexual jolts disrupt Manhattan physician Bill Harfords equilibrium. At an elegant Christmas party, two [/img]models[/img] hit on him, he watches a Lothario try to pick up his tipsy wife, he aids a woman sprawled naked in a bathroom after an overdose. The next night, his wife reveals sexual fantasies with a stranger; a dead patient[/img]s daughter throws herself at him; as he walks, brooding, six teen boys hurl homophobic insults at him; a streetwalker takes him to her flat; he interrupts men having a sex party with a girl barely in her teens. His odyssey, which next takes him into a world of wealthy sex play at a masked ball of hedonism, threatens his life, his self-respect, and his marriage.
A doctor (Tom Cruise) becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter after his wife (Nicole Kidman) admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met and chastising him for dishonesty in not admitting to his own fantasies. This sets him off into unfilled encounters with a dead patient[/img]s daughter and a hooker. But when he visits a nightclub, where a pianist friend Nick Nightingale (Todd Field) is playing, he learns about a secret sexual group and decides to attend one of their congregations. However, he quickly learns he is in well over his head and finds he and his family are threatened.