Cathal sits distracted at his office desk on what should have been his wedding day.

Cathal's sympathetic boss offers him the rest of the day off, but Cathal refuses to leave work.

Cathal arrives home and discovers his cat Mathilde accidentally locked inside the bathroom.

Cathal microwaves one of Sabine's Weight Watchers meals rather than eating the bachelor party cake.

Cathal recalls meeting Sabine at a professional conference and being drawn to her confident appearance.

Cathal recalls impulsively proposing marriage to Sabine while she baked a cherry tart in his kitchen.

Sabine breaks off the engagement shortly before the wedding, telling Cathal she has no wish to marry him.

Cathal falls asleep on the couch, consumed by regret over the money wasted on the canceled wedding.

A woman writer arrives alone at Böll House on Achill Island late at night to begin her writing residency.

A German man calls the house phone and insists the woman allow him inside to tour the space.

The woman at Böll House strips off her clothes at a cove and swims naked in the sea.

The German man arrives that evening, pushes carelessly through the house, and insults the woman's right to the residency.

The woman forces the German man to leave and stays up all night writing a story in which he dies of cancer.

A married woman with children decides she wants an affair and travels by train to the city for the weekend.

The man handcuffs the woman naked to his headboard, then leaves for work while she remains trapped and gagged.

Across three separate stories, the collection follows Cathal through his would-be wedding day as he gradually reveals his misogynistic character. Cathal refuses to leave work early, returns home to his empty apartment, and spends the evening adrift between memories of Sabine and resentment at her departure. A second story follows an unnamed woman writer who arrives at Böll House on Achill Island to work alone, only to be interrupted by a demanding German man who insults her right to the residency. After forcing him out, she reclaims her voice by staying up all night writing a story in which he dies slowly of cancer. The final story introduces a married woman who travels to the city seeking an affair, initially finding freedom and pleasure with a man she meets in a pub. That freedom collapses when the man handcuffs her naked to his bed and leaves for work, leaving her trapped and facing death.

The essential story beats across all three tales.

A chatty woman on the bus tries to engage Cathal in conversation; he does his best to ignore her.

Cathal searches the fridge and discovers the penis-shaped bachelor party cake but does not eat it immediately.

Cathal clicks through television channels and settles on a documentary about Lady Diana.

Cathal reads a message from his brother insisting he is better off without Sabine anyway.

Cathal recalls a gallery visit where he disliked Sabine's favorite Vermeer paintings of idle-looking women.

Cathal recalls the two of them arguing bitterly over the high cost of Sabine's chosen antique engagement ring.

Cathal curses Sabine, his coworker Cynthia, and office cleaner Monika before stumbling upstairs to bed.

The woman at Böll House lights a fire, makes up the couch as a bed, and reads Chekhov before sleeping.

The woman drives into the village for coffee and cake supplies on her birthday morning.

The woman stops her car and discovers a group of hens joyfully clucking and scratching in the dirt below the road.

The woman at Böll House reads a Chekhov story about a woman who leaves her fiancé to study and live independently.

A woman in the city meets a man at a local pub; they drink together and he quickly shares his life story.

The man invites the woman back to his sparsely furnished house on the outskirts of the city.

The man cooks fish for dinner while the woman watches an Antarctica documentary on television and drinks wine.

The woman wakes early, dresses quietly, and walks back to her hotel in the city without saying goodbye.

This pool captures the supporting moments that give each story its texture and depth. In Cathal's story, a chatty woman on the bus, a penis-shaped cake in the fridge, a Lady Diana documentary, and a brother's dismissive text fill in the idle hours of his ruined wedding day. Two key flashbacks reveal the petty resentments at the heart of his relationship with Sabine, including a bitter argument over her expensive antique engagement ring. At Böll House, the woman's birthday morning unfolds through small pleasures: a drive to the village, a chance encounter with hens, and a Chekhov story about a woman who abandons her fiancé to live freely. In the final story, the woman finds a man at a pub, follows him to his sparsely furnished house, shares a meal and a night with him, and then slips away early the next morning. These moments show how character reveals itself gradually, through accumulated detail and daily life.

The telling details and secondary moments that build each story.

Cathal recalls Sabine moving her many belongings into his apartment, which overwhelms and deeply irritates him.

After meeting Cynthia for drinks, Sabine confronts Cathal directly for being cold, controlling, and misogynistic.

Cathal vaguely recalls insulting Sabine's appearance during their argument but immediately dismisses the thought.

Cathal recalls his brother pulling their mother's chair out from under her while the men in the family laughed.

Cathal lies awake in bed, unable to stop noticing the wedding shirt in the closet and Sabine's ring on the nightstand.

The woman sunbathing naked on warm cove rocks senses a presence watching her from the cliff and scrambles to dress.

In the bathtub at Böll House, the woman recalls an ex who promised everything but refused to give her his land.

While preparing for the German man's visit, the woman quietly registers that today is her 39th birthday.

The German man takes the woman's fireside chair without asking and implies repeatedly she doesn't deserve the residency.

Alone after the German man's visit, the woman feels relieved she never married any of her former partners.

Over dinner, the woman and the man each describe their personal visions of hell; hers is a frozen, empty, watched place.

The man reveals the rubber plant belonged to his wife and that he has been waiting years for it to die.

During a walk in the woods, the man grabs the woman's hand too tightly and pushes her against a tree to kiss her.

The woman cannot object quickly enough when the man suddenly produces handcuffs and binds her wrists to the headboard.

Chained and gagged with a draft coming through the open window, the woman realizes she may never see her family again.

This pool traces the emotional and psychological turning points that define each story's arc. In Cathal's narrative, Sabine's direct confrontation about his misogyny and a disturbing childhood memory—in which he laughed as his brother knocked his mother to the floor—reveal the deep roots of his cruelty, while the sight of the wedding shirt and ring keep him awake at night. At Böll House, the woman experiences quieter revelations: she senses a watcher on the cliff above, reflects in the bathtub on a past relationship's failures, and feels triumphant realizing the German man's contempt has not shaken her certainty that she was right to leave all her past partners. In the final story, warning signs accumulate—a gun cartridge on the nightstand, the man's story of a rubber plant he cannot kill, an aggressive kiss in the woods—building toward the violent confrontation at the story's end. When the man handcuffs the woman to the bed without warning, tension resolves into horror. Chained, gagged, and alone, she faces what the narrative frames as a death at the hands of a man who calls his violence love.