The writer and transvestite Vera Sackcloth-Vest and her bosom chum, the novelist Ginny Fox, go down to St Ives in search of the writer of very naughty books Mr D.H. Lollipop. Their husbands, Henry and Lionel, accompany them, hoping to prevent their wives from succumbing to the dangerous animal magnetism of Lollipop, whose book Lady Hattersley's Plover has scandalised and unsettled them all.

Vera's persistent and flamboyant admirer Venus Traduces arrives, desperate to re-kindle their Sapphic passion. However she is distracted when, on the cliff path, she meets a thin man with a red beard who exudes animal magnetism. He informs her that his wife is away in London being painted by Augustus John, invites Venus to call him Dave, and ravishes her in the brambles.

Meanwhile, though Vera and Ginny seem to search in vain for Lollipop, he is always much closer than they think.