This is a novel (potboiler) about a relationship between a middle-aged writer named Alexander Cassidy, and Tosca, a young female student at Santa Barbara City College, which overlooks the harbor. Living on a Chinese junk in the harbor, Cassidy is a disciplined writer who finds himself experiencing the most voluptuous lifestyle imaginable. Central to the story is a Greek restaurant/taberna near the harbor where the proprietor, Satyri Papanikolas, dances with dinner tables clamped in his teeth, sucks up ouzo and retsina, and has a Zorba-like love affair with all of his dancing customers. Lurking in the background is the dark secret of a forbidden past relationship which threatens to destroy Alexander Cassidy and all those around him.