The story is told by an unnamed narrator whose gender is not revealed either. The narrator recalls his love life and talks about clichés of love, marriage and gender. From previous relationships can be gathered that the narrator has a difficult time settling down with one person, inability to maintain the love connection after some time has passed.
Everything changed after meeting Louise who is an embodiment of womanly beauty and strength intertwined. Louise is married to a cancer-obsessed doctor Elgin, but that doesn't stop her from having an intense passionate relationship with the narrator, who is at the time in a vague relationship with Jacqueline. After discovering about the affair, Jacqueline wrecks the narrator's apartment and leaves with everything that she could fit in her car. The narrator is afraid of committing to the relationship with Louise, because of previous experiences. Louise wants to leave Elgin to commit to the relationship.
One day, Elgin visits the narrator to talk about Louise, to talk about her cancer to be precise, which the narrator didn't previously know about. Elgin convinces the narrator that he will be able to take care of Louise, to cure her and persuades the narrator to make a heroic step of leaving Louise for her own good. After being asked, Louise tries to convince that it is not serious, that she will look for another doctor's opinion, but the narrator has already fallen down the hole of fear and making the difficult decision to leave Louise for her own good.
The narrator settles to live in an old cottage and have a job at the local bar, far away from Louise. At this point begins the grief and doubt in the made decision and exploration of the body anatomy as a way to remember and worship the lost lover.
The narrator meets Gail at work - an overweight middle-aged woman who makes her advances and ends up in the cottage. Eventually, Gail convinces the narrator to go look for Louise and make up for the made mistake of letting her go. Louise is nowhere to be found, neither in the old apartment nor with Elgin, whom the narrator catches with his new fiancée and takes out frustration of not finding Louise on him. Unable to find her, not knowing if she is well or not, the narrator has no other choice but to return to the new home, the cottage.
Nearing the cottage, the lights are on and entering it, there are new curtains and signs of someone living there-Gail. The narrator has come to terms to this being the life, Gail and the cottage, when suddenly someone comes out of the back room. It is Louise, slightly thinner and paler, but alive and well. Our cynical narrator gets what could be considered a cliché happy ending after all.
