In December 1970, an Oxford don named Horley invites a collector called Grinstead to his college rooms to see two art objects that have mysteriously gravitated together throughout history: a portrait of a beautiful young woman and a bronze monkey sculpture of savage menace. Grinstead reveals he knows the woman in the painting - Marisa van Zee, from another world - and speaks of parallel universes, daemons, and breaches between realities, while Horley grows increasingly ill. As the evening unfolds in the overheated college rooms, the true nature of both the artwork and their collector becomes disturbingly clear, and the ancient objects continue their pattern of drawing misfortune to those who possess them.