Roman Carruthers wakes in his Atlanta penthouse from a dream of his missing mother, beside a woman named Saffire whom he barely remembers from the previous night's release party for rapper Lil Glock 9, one of his wealth management clients. His friend Khalil, a tattooed security professional with a darker past, is in the living room with another woman, Genesis. The morning is interrupted by a phone call from Roman's sister Neveah, telling him their father has been in an accident and is in a coma, urging him to come home.

Roman heads to the offices of Carruthers and Associates, his wealth management firm, and rapidly delegates and reschedules his client meetings—involving Falcons players, Real Housewives, Lil Glock 9, and Morehouse's president—through his assistant Keisha. He tells her he'll be gone long enough to ensure his father survives.

With time before his 8:00 P.M. flight to Virginia, Roman keeps a standing appointment with Miss Delicate, a high-end dominatrix in Buckhead. The narration reveals that Roman uses these BDSM sessions not primarily for sex but as ritualized penance for failing to stop his mother from disappearing nineteen years earlier. During the session, Miss Delicate role-plays as his mother, demanding to know if he is sorry for being a worthless son, and whips him with a cat-o'-nine-tails.

Afterward, Roman tells Miss Delicate he must cancel next week's session because of his father's accident. She rebukes him for visiting her before flying to his father's bedside, observing that he engineers situations requiring punishment, and firmly orders him to go.

On the first-class flight to Virginia, Roman drinks Jameson and reflects on tragedy and the universe. He recalls a former lover, a theoretical physicist, who described the universe as terrifyingly indifferent. Roman concludes the universe is both evil and indifferent, and envisions both his missing mother and his comatose father fading into dust as he flies home.