Sloane, an amoral and bisexual nineteen-year old comes to lodge in house now surrounded by a rubbish dump. He immediately becomes the object of desire of both Kath, a sexually frustrated, middle-aged woman with absurd pretensions to refinement and her brother Ed, a homosexual, shady businessman who also has designs on Mr. Sloane. Sloane is very much resented by Kath's bad-tempered, puritanical father, Kemp, who, as the play unfolds, links Sloane with an unsolved murder mystery.
Sloane allows himself to be seduced by Kath and plays at being both her son and lover. He keeps Ed at arms length pretending virginity in order to extract the most capital from the situation.
When Kemp threatens to reveal that Sloane is the man who killed a photographer who had been interested in Sloane for pornographic purposes, Sloane kills him. This situation, however, now puts Sloane in a situation where he is blackmailed by, the now pregnant, Kath and by Ed. The tables are turned, now Sloane is in their power: Instead of handing Sloane over to the police, Kath and Ed agree to share him, each having him for six months a year.