Lionel has a way with women. His sexual exploits make his friends jealous. One of them, Alain, challenges him to seduce a beautiful woman picked at random, fall in love with her and spend a night with her — but abstain from making love. Claire is the chosen victim. Behind Claire’s prim and proper façade there lurks a vigorous, demanding sexuality in full bloom. The self-control that Lionel struggles to maintain to win his bet begins to intrigue her. She decides to take the offensive. As Alain tells it to young Sophie on a café terrace three years later, the cautionary tale of Lionel affably gives the lie to a range of popular prejudices about virility and male sexuality.