Jazz painist Bent lives in squalor in Observatory. After a gig one night, the enigmatic Leonard Fry offers him a vast sum of money to play at a private party.

Bent accepts and duly plays the piano. After the guests have departed, Leonard Fry makes him a Faustian proposition: he, Leonard Fry, his appetites jaded by the pleasures his enormous wealth has afforded him, wants to undertake an experiment: he wants to lock himself in a bare room, containing only the most basic essentials, for a year. Bent’s role in this endeavour would be to live in Fry’s mansion for the year, passing Fry three meals a day through a slot in the door, without any other interaction, even – especially – if he begs to be released. When Bent locks Fry in the room, the strange trip begins.

But there’s a mysterious stranger lurking outside the house, and Bent soon begins to wonder who the real subject of Fry’s bizarre experiment is.