| Director | Barbet Schroeder |
|---|
In West Germany in the late 1960s, Stefan finishes his mathematics studies and decides to experience life. He hitchhikes to Paris and befriends a petty criminal called Charlie after gambling at a bar. Charlie takes him to a party where he is fascinated by an American girl named Estelle, nicknamed the pussycat. Though Charlie warns him that she is a drug user and dangerous, he goes to her hotel room, where she introduces him to marijuana and they make love.
She is leaving for Ibiza and invites Stefan to follow her there. When he arrives, he finds she is involved with a wealthy Spanish ex-Nazi, Dr. Ernesto Wolf, as told by a drug dealer he befriends at a bar. Later, she introduces him to her friends at a hippie party, including her best friend Cathy. Stefan persuades her to join him in an isolated villa and she secretly brings both money and a huge quantity of heroin she has stolen from Wolf. After an idyllic time swimming, sunbathing, and making love, she is itching for the horse drug and introduces him to it as well. After asking a visiting Cathy, she tells Stefan what horse is: heroin.
Soon the two are on a downward spiral of addiction. Wolf demands the return of the rest of the heroin and money and, as payment for what they have used, Stefan has to work in his bar while Estelle has to share his bed. She disappears from Stefan one night, worrying him for a while. Charlie comes looking for Stefan and urges him to return to Paris. Angered by Stefan being with Estelle despite his warnings, Charlie informs him that she had already destroyed two very nice men; he doesn't want Stefan to be the third.
On the night he's supposed to leave for Paris, Stefan demands to know what Estelle did the other night and hits her. After begging for heroin, Estelle reveals to Stefan that she's been sleeping with Wolf the whole time; she didn't like it but was forced to in the deal she made after her theft. After much abuse from Stefan, Estelle runs away, making him panic. He fruitlessly searches for her and hurts a worried Charlie after he tries convincing him it isn't worth it. The next morning, Stefan begs for two packets of heroin from the same dealer he befriended his first day in Ibiza the following morning and overdoses as a suicide, despite the dealer warning him of the drug's intensity. He is buried in the open country and Charlie, very upset, watches.