Two women live alone in a huge, ornate Edwardian mansion, each wrapped in the dream world she has created to protect her from the real world outside. Cenci is a beautiful, waif-like orphan with the body of a 22-year-old woman, and the mind of a child. Leonora is an aging prostitute whom Cenci has brought in from the streets to play the part of her own dead mother. Their world is shattered by the arrival of Cenci's stepfather Albert. Cenci, cowering in the corner of her bathroom, claims he has raped her. Is it true - or is this the beginning of a new fantasy which must be played out in deadly earnest until it destroys the lives of those who take part?