 In flashback we see the miserable marriage of Lemon's parents and the child's eagerness for escape through Dan's stories.Dan is a charismatic, eccentric figure, who tells the girl of her love affairs with women but also of an intense imaginary romance with Henry Kissinger.Dan's worldview is an application of Kissinger's doctrine of "realpolitik" to private life—amoral, ruthless, and seeing all relationships in terms of dominance and submission.