Dominick Spence is a psychiatric survivor who has started his own progressive newspaper, a potential rival to an already-established paper called The Harbinger. Freya Boulanger is a journalist who writes for the latter paper. She is being shadowed by a Peeping Tom across the street the first time she appears in the film, unbeknownst to her. Then in the laundry she meets Nanette, an upstairs neighbor. In their exchange we learn that Nanette has a very abusive boyfriend, while Freya has a "peach". This "peach", named Austin, appears in a later scene in which Freya has taken Nanette into her apartment after she's had a fight with her partner. The three of them discuss her situation over dinner and try to figure out what to do. Then Erin, editor of The Harbinger, discovers Dominick's paper and is concerned about its being potential competition. She discusses this with Freya (who has started writing a piece about battered women inspired by Nanette), and they ponder the possible meaning of the paper's curious title, South of the Press. So, as an eerie shadow is cast over Freya's life by the presence of a stalker, so also Dominick's looming and faintly sexual presence raises some intriguing questions. Does he have some kind of a grudge against Erin and/or Freya? Could he possibly be the stalker himself? Could he somehow be dangerous to them? He is a former mental patient, after all. In a later scene, as Erin ruminates on these possibilities at her desk, she is quite surprised and disarmed when Dominick himself walks into the office and invites her out to lunch. Thus begins an interesting gender dance between the two "rival" editors. As Freya continues to get disconcerting reminders that she is being stalked by an unknown "admirer", the story takes a few more surprising twists. Nanette becomes a vendor hawking Dominick's paper on the street. The Harbinger now features a rather smutty singles column, a compromise Erin never would have made before. Then Freya suddenly realizes that Erin and Dominick have fallen in love! This leads to much speculation between Freya and Austin about what Dominick is "up to." Is he brainwashing Erin, forcing her to make degrading compromises with her paper that she now thinks are all right? And the question is still unanswered as to whether he might be Freya's stalker. After a couple more surprises, Erin and Dominick finally have it out in a climactic showdown when they have dinner together in a tavern. Then Nanette plays detective and finds a clever way to help Freya expose the stalker. In the final scene the truth is all revealed.