Performance artist, Carmelita Tropicana, lives in Manhattan's East Village, by Hamilton Fish Park. After a performance one night, she's mugged by a knife-wielding thief. The next day, in a clash with anti-abortion protesters in front of a woman's health clinic, Carmelita is arrested, along with her lively friend Orchida and her sort-of up-tight and wannabe-wealthy sister, Sophia. They're placed in a cell with another woman, who turns out to be last night's mugger, a down-and-out young woman named Cordelia (Dee). Relationships between each pair of women and among the four of them go through changes as the afternoon passes.

Slim and her husband Joe live in a posh Manhattan apartment building. One of their neighbors is Jessop, a hermit whom Slim can't wait to integrate into her circle of friends and her swinging lifestyle. Jessop isn't interested, so Slim goes to great lengths to change his mind. The question is if she finally reels him in, will she just as easily spit him back out?