This melodramatic Brazilian tale examines the lurid and sick relationship between a young working-class Sao Paulo woman and her brutish, gun-wielding ex-lover. She is Dalva, and after having just won a trip to compete in a Miami hairdressing contest, she is ecstatic. The trouble is that she has not figured out how to tell her mother. She is just about to when her former boyfriend Victor burst in brandishing a big gun and threatening Dalva's mother. The weapon's Freudian implications inflame Dalva who accosts Victor in the hall and engages him in wild sex on the spot. Afterward, the gun accidentally fires and Dalva's mother dies. More inflamed than ever, Dalva and Victor again do a vigorous horizontal tango until the light finally dawns, and Dalva realizes that she has maneuvered herself into a corner. By that time, the cops and the ever-nosy press have arrived to record the event.