An orientalist professor researching Delacroix's North African work becomes entangled in an S&M waking dream in Morocco.

John Locke is a Brit in Marrakech exploring Delacroix's seminal visit there. He's in an isolated villa with Belkis, his enigmatic servant and concubine. He receives slides of erotic drawings that could be by Delacroix; an antique dealer, who's a doctor and may be a white slave trader, says there are two such sketchbooks. By now, Locke's dreams have become intense: they include sado-masochism with compliant young women and visions of a woman in white, who may be a nineteenth century woman executed for an affair with a Frenchman. She looks like a local actress. Against Belkis's advice, Locke accepts various invitations. Aside from dreams and tableaux, will anything real happen?—<[email protected]>