Set in an apocalyptic future where a young man named Torch has been quarantined to a dark, squalid room on the Lower East Side of New York City, after testing positive for a nameless, sexually transmitted disease. In his grimy cell which the locals refer to as “Beirut,” Torch passes the time alone, forbidden from contact with the moral population of the outside world. His uninfected girlfriend, Blue, makes the dangerous journey across the quarantine line to be with him. Torch tries to keep her at room’s length and for the next hour, they argue lovingly, jokingly, fearfully, bravely, and desperately about sex and death. All the while, Torch pleads with Blue to leave before his resistance fails and he infects her. She chooses the possibility of infection: “I can live without sex and feel dead or risk death and feel alive.”