Desire is a burning sickness for Rae (Ricci), a feverish need that eats at her soul, while making her the white-trash sexual target of every man and boy in her small Tennessee town. When her true love Ronnie (Timberlake) leaves for military service, Rae plunges into wild excess. Beaten, left for dead, she's taken in by Laz (Jackson) a reformed bluesman, a private self-contained black man who nurses deep anger of his own. Fiercely committed to his task of keeping her alive, Laz makes Rae his prisoner to give her a chance at freedom, and finds his own way back to the full force of life in the bargain.