Shape contains two novellas, 'The Yellow Room' and 'Letters to a Lady Friend.' both devoted to flagellation. In 'The Yellow Room,' sweet, innocent Alice is introduced to the discipline, and joys, of the whip by her "uncle," who also "makes a women' of the eighteen-year old beauty. In 'Letters to a Lady Friend,' Rosa Belinda Coote describes to a friend through a series of letters how she was introduced to the pleasure of pain, both as the recipient and the giver, and how she discovered the intense pleasure of a lesbian lifestyle.