Alone in his apartment on a gloomy evening, Henry Strauss drinks and fixates on the emptiness left by Tabitha. Surrounded by her bottle opener and scattered belongings, Henry starts packing her things into a box, but the work feels pointless and suffocating, and he abandons it midstream.

Henry goes to the Merchant, a crowded neighborhood bar, hoping noise will dull his loneliness. Mark, the bartender, unusually prioritizes Henry and pours him tequila “on the house,” telling Henry he looks great in the same oddly warm way Muriel did earlier. Henry drinks quickly, stacking liquor on top of what he has already had.

As the night goes on, Henry notices a disturbing shift: strangers keep locking onto him with a glossy, candle-smoke sheen in their eyes. A woman comes on to him, then her friends pull her away while praising him as a “good guy”; others stop him to recruit him for projects or conversation, and heads turn wherever he moves. Shaken, Henry retreats to the bathroom and connects the pattern to earlier moments that day, then stares at the watch on his wrist and accepts that the man in the rain—and the deal—were real.

In the bathroom, a stranger offers Henry cocaine. Remembering his history with drugs and his craving for quiet more than pleasure, Henry decides he no longer cares about restraint and takes the powder, which makes the world feel intensely vivid. Overstimulated and needing escape, Henry backs out into the hall.

There Henry meets Lucia and Benji, a seductive couple who claim they have been looking for him. Their blatant hunger makes Henry feel desired in a way he has never experienced, and after a moment of incredulous laughter and weak resistance, Henry follows them home, pulled forward by the new, unnerving power of the bargain.