They meet on a beach in Mexico: Alice, a somewhat confused young German woman on holiday with her married lover. And an American woman thirty years her senior, who Alice secretly calls ›the master‹. Because she’s everything that Alice wants to be. Elegant. Confident. Commanding in her relationships with men. And above all – she’s a writer. In order to get ›the master‹ to notice her, Alice has to think of something. A story, for example. And it works – but in a completely different way to how Alice had imagined. And yet, ›the master‹ herself had even warned her: writers suck you dry, they’re nothing but thieves and vampires.