When twenty-year-old Danni Appleyard finds herself deserted by her boyfriend but with two weeks` holiday to take, she longs to do something completely different. A magazine article about a circus school catches her eye and, seized by a fit of daring, she telephones the number.
Thus begins her time at a summer circus school in the heart of Sussex, where she is welcomed by an exotic Frenchwoman, Fauve, and tutore by the flamboyant Ivan. Ivan teaches his willing pupil actrobatics, trapeze, bareback riding and fire-eating, and leads Danni into an unimagined realm of erotic discovery. By the end of the course Danni is more than ready to join in one of the special performances of the Cirque Ertotique