Will Marlow, a 40-year-old Columbia University professor of Shakespeare, lives comfortably with his wife, Anne, and their two children in a university apartment overlooking Riverside Park, until his sex life begins to assume curious parallels with that of the Bard. A former student, Christopher Johnson, arrives at his doorstep bleeding from a self-inflicted wound; Marlow is smitten by the youth's neediness and strange feminine beauty. Then a challenging and seductive student in Marlow's Sonnets graduate class, Chantal Mukarjee, enters his life. Anne catches them and, enraged, moves out. Chantal and Will embark on a dangerous, dark affair.Meanwhile, Will has taken in zoned-out Christopher and finds an exhilarating sexual fulfillment with the youth.
