The moment 19yearold Simone Paris walks into Otto Guests art class she knows that she must have him Old enough to be her father Otto is everything her ascetic willfully outoftouch parents are not worldly sensual gregarious at ease with modernism a risktaker In short an artist She sets out to seduce him and succeeds He will be her mentor her lever into the larger world beyond the sedate boundaries of home When he invites her to travel in Mexico with him she readily agrees Soon she finds herself in an unfamiliar world of heat and grit immersed in an intensely erotic relationship thirsty for all that Otto can teach her yet struggling to maintain her claim on his emotional life As they stalk dodge and confront one another within the confines of a tiny Mexican village one reaching toward the future the other grappling with the past Otto begins to teach Simone lessons she never wanted to learn that love is not the force that drives every affair and that knowing theories about art is not the same as understanding how to live