The tagline for this story could be: How do you get an essentially good guy to kill for you?

Robert is a "good guy" in the sense that, like most of us, he's just not a "bad" guy. Like most of us, he tries to get through life as best he can, and, like most of us, he is not equipped to do a very good job.

Robert is searching for some purpose in his life, and after a few art classes in college, travels across the American Midwest trying to find and capture the "soul" of America in his art. This was not going well, and he ends up in Chicago, illustrating porn stories and contemplating suicide.

The only silver lining he sees is that he is living as an "artist in residence" on an estate owned by his employer, Sam Gallo. Here he meets Kellie, the owner's step-daughter. Depression gives way to lust as Kellie leads Robert along a sensuous path. Kellie takes Robert into eroticism he has never experienced before.

The path takes him away from any direction his life may have had, and the silver lining is the silken thread of a spider's web. Kellie convinces Robert that Sam and her mother are going to murder her. To save herself, they must be killed first. Robert is to be their killer.