The narrator, a 31-year-old married man, meets a 20-year-old woman who is a part-time model and amateur mime. The two begin an ambiguous relationship (likely sexual) and wind up becoming “pals” (134). The woman’s financial situation is precarious, and she seems largely dependent “on the goodwill of a number of boyfriends” (133). After coming into some inheritance money, the woman takes a trip to Algiers, returning three months later with a Japanese boyfriend she met during her travels. What the man does for a living is ambiguous, but he seems to be wealthy.

One Sunday, the woman calls the narrator and asks if she and her boyfriend can stop at his house to visit. Since his wife is out of town, the narrator agrees. The narrator and the woman’s boyfriend proceed to drink heavily and smoke marijuana. The boyfriend reveals to the narrator in confidence that he burns a barn every few months. The narrator asks him why he does this, and the boyfriend explains that he feels a kind of compulsion to burn barns, choosing them based on certain specific factors. After they leave, the narrator cannot stop thinking about barn burning. He spends the next few days scouting barns nearby that he thinks the boyfriend might burn, narrowing his search down to five barns based on the boyfriend’s criteria.