Used to being ignored as if invisible, and refusing to accept any longer their status as sexless and therefore boring, five women of a certain age cross paths at their hometown luxury spa called the Pearl. Slowly through the attentive care they receive, four of the women begin to restore their power and reclaim their identity as fully sensual and sexual beings. They begin to come to life again. They are four of the five shades of gray. The fifth is the spa's founder and owner.One's the wife of a state senator who's been seduced by the power he loves in politics and has grown distant in his relationship with his wife. "Sometimes we don't even kiss each other good-night!" she rails to her long-time friend. This friend lost her own sexual partner when her husband's surgery for prostate cancer leaves him cancer-free but impotent. Struggling to live in a relationship that no longer includes sex, she begins to realize that sex is more than intercourse. Once she realizes that she doesn't have to depend on anyone else to make her feel whole again, she urges her husband to explore their possibilities.Another is the widow of a professor who loved sex and whose manic erotic joyfulness thrilled her. Following his suicide, she feels she's dying, too. The fourth is a single woman, a retired academic whose life has long been asexual but whose first experiences of being cared for physically, awaken her to the possibility of a life more fully lived.The spa where these women meet is the brainchild of the fifth in this band of older women. She's the ex-wife of a bullying husband who was prone to violent outbursts of jealousy. that she ends the night she leaves him-also the night she's celebrating her admission to the bar. He's a judge and, now a lawyer herself, she finally calls it quits and begins to fulfill a life-long dream of establishing a center where women can find refuge from abusive relationships and learn skills to take over their lives. At the same time, the angry resentment felt by the husbands of other women whose lives have also been restored through the counseling services they've received at the Pearl, explodes. The men march in a loud and destructive demonstration in front of the spa, Shouting slogans like, "Take Back our Wives!" and "Men's Lives Matter," the band of furious ex-boyfriends and spouses claim the Pearl has wrecked their families. They want the spa shut down. Through the persuasive powers of the senator, they come to create a men's center instead-a place to learn more about the women they've lost and, most importantly, about themselves.