After dumping a bucket of water on a beautiful young woman from the window of a train car, wealthy Frenchman Mathieu, regales his fellow passengers with the story of the dysfunctional relationship between himself and the young woman in question, a fiery 19-year-old flamenco dancer named Conchita. What follows is a tale of cruelty, depravity and lies -- the very building blocks of love. Recounted in flashback are the romantic perils of Mathieu, a middle-aged French sophisticate as he falls for his nineteen-year-old former chambermaid Conchita.