For no reason I can fathom, women have been throwing themselves at me for the last several months. I really don't know why. I am middle-aged. I have a paunch. I'm losing my hair. I am neither rich nor powerful, I'm not ambitious, creative, or passionate. I look forward to making mac n cheese, watching rented DVDs of TV shows from the nineties. I often forget to shave. I work from home. I subscribe to the paper, and usually never get around to reading it.

Louise says the paunch is just bad posture. She solved the hair problem by shaving it all off, and the forgetting to shave problem by dressing me in ripped t-shirts. She won't let me near the mac n cheese, and I haven’t watched TV in weeks. We only ever seem to stop for fast food and motel rooms where we sleep. Usually Louise wants to kiss me, but mostly I won't let her.

We met in Las Vegas, where my second dead wife is buried. I am a two-time widower. My second is buried in Vegas because that's where she was crushed by the slot machine she finally won on, in her excitement grabbing it and shaking it until it toppled over on her. The winnings amounted to some three hundred thousand, which the casino sued me for on behalf of my wife over the damaged machine and the bad publicity. She was on life support for about two weeks, until we pulled the plug, according to the conditions in her living will. And it was a bizarre film. She looked right into the camera, and almost angrily, demanded she be buried as close to possible to the wherever she was left a vegetable, so she could "haunt the place for doing that to me." She seemed very angry on the video, I think because I sort of forced her to make the will. My first wife didn't have one, and she'd lingered for ages.

So I go back to Vegas every now and then to see if they've redeveloped the graveyard and put up a new casino, maybe one themed on England this time, White Chapel, maybe, a Jack the Ripper themed hotel. Bad taste that, Jack killed prostitutes. Well, they're not legal in the city limits. So maybe.

--Louise. You've been to England?

--Bristol. Are you hungry?

--Yeah. Where's Bristol.

--East I think, maybe West. What do you want? I want tacos.

--Anything with onions in it. What was it like.

--What, like onion rings?

--Well, not onion rings. They're all onions. I just want onions in it.

--Oh. Tacos can have onions.

--Yeah.

--It was cold. Freezing.

--What?

--Bristol.

--Oh.

We end up getting fried chicken. Back on the road, after a few miles, I realize we're driving back the way we just came from. I can't tell if Louise notices this, or cares, by the way she's playing air drums to some imaginary song in her head. Maybe one of her hits. She's using my right leg for the snare drum and the windshield where the convertible top would attach for the other drums and cymbals.

I was standing on one of the casinos or another. My wife's grave had been duly visited, and it was still there. I didn't check on her to make sure there wasn't a casino, I checked to see if there was one at last, so she could get on with her haunting. I only ever wanted what was best for her. After the visit, I walked the strip, something difficult to do in stark daylight. The casinos are all a lot bigger than you remember, so you think the next one to walk to is only a few blocks away, and it ends up being a mile. By the time I reached this casino or that, I was drenched in sweat, and all the drinks are free, but you have to be gambling, and you have to want alcohol. Then Louise Lightner Post, lead singer and lead guitarist for Veruca Salt, just walks by me. Then she stops, and looks at me. Of course I'm staring.

--Do I know you?

--Yeah, I was, I think, the ten millionth person who bought your second album.

--Oh, that was you. Hi.

--Yeah, hi. Happy Birthday, by the way. (I have know idea why I said that.)

--Birthday?

--Yeah, uh, whenever it was.

We've been hanging out ever since. Turns out her birthday was nearly 6 months away. She was between things, and I wasn't due back at work for a few weeks, so we decided to share a room and eat at horrible buffets and then she came back to Seattle with me and we decided to rent a car and rive to Miami.

I needed to get out of Seattle because, like I said, the women. My second wife's best friend. I actually knew her before my wife did, and I'm a man, she had breasts, who doesn't fantasize? But I never. And then the second wife happened, and then the friend sort of assumed I needed to be take care of. And I didn't. I just wanted to read my books and wander around malls on occasion. But she was unrelenting in that subtle way, the kind you can never call them on. It was so pervasive, I would wake up, and spend the first ten minutes of the day trying to remember if we had, in fact, had sex. I wasn't the memory of the sex act stuck in my head, it was that sort of back-of-the-head feeling that it had happened. Relationship sex I mean. Hard to explain. I was experiencing the effect without having experienced the cause itself. Like the foregone conclusion was so foregone that it was time to move on.

So Louise came back with me and the friend lost it, but like I said, in that subtle way that I can't explain. And Louise wanted to buy a bikini, and she said the best ones where in Miami. So we rented a car. And got lost.

And those malls. I would walk around them, like you do. But then I got people looking at me. Knowing looks. It's not like I being appraised, sized up, lusted after. It's like lust, but lust mitigated with comfort, like the lust you feel for someone because you've known then so long. None of that new-conquest excitement. I'd walk past the Victoria Secret, and someone between the ages of 29 and 33, just on the verge of losing her youthful hotness and looking to try on some maturity, see how it fits, see if it cups her breasts, is standing there, looking at the lace on a pair of panties, and she'll look up, and we'll make eye contact, and one of those half-smiles, like a wife of 15 years gives you when her hormones are acting up and she's feeling frisky. But comfortable frisky. Make-dinner-feed-the-kids-put-away-the-dishes-get-the-kids-in-bed-watch-some-TV-then-go-to-bed-frisky.

And then 10 minutes later. Macy's. Going to buy a new bathmat. The sale girls. 22 if she's a day. Can't possibly know what 15 years of marriage is like, no matter how many Oprah books she's read. Asking me questions about the colors in my bathroom. And that look. Like she's going to pick up something from Victoria's Secret on the way home, and oh yeah, did I remember to get the oil changed in the car? We have that camping trip with the Furban's this weekend.

--Hey, (Louise says). Turn up there.

--Where?

--That sign said highway 15.

--Alright, which way?

--East.

--The odd highways are North South.

--South.

I can't say it wasn't satisfying. Just weird. Restaurant. Waitress. Slice of pie was a bit bigger than it had to be. Or too small, cause sometimes they think they're helping you watch you weight. Doctor's office, receptionist, 15 minute conversation about my boss before she even hands me the paperwork. Then she shoos me away, like I'm supposed to go watch the game or work a Suduko in my study until she needs me to help her fold the sheets. But it's a doctor's office.

MySpace. My daughter won't e-mail but she'll post comments so, why not, a middle-aged man is almost a zoo exhibit on MySpace. I tell her about all the women who want to be my "friend." She assures me they're just porn merchants, it's all spam, everyone gets it. Well why do mine keep writing back, and we end up having long comment-versations about the books we're reading, how Steve in Finance is an Asshole, or what kinds of shoes she needs to buy for the summer. A few of them got my phone number, called me, and didn't seem to mind that I talked to them while watching and commenting on Law and Order.

I admit it, I gave in when it was Louise. Maybe I'd had enough, maybe I was fed up, maybe I was curious as to what the heck this was all about. But I had to ask her.

--Louise, remember back in Bally's?

--Yes.

--You asked me if I knew you.

--Yep.

--But you must get that all the time. Guys staring at you. Even ones who don't know you from the band.

--Yeah, well, you where different.

--How do you mean?

--Cause you really did look like you knew me.

--Sure, you're famous.

--Not that kind of know me. The other kind.

--What other kind?

--I can't explain it. The kind that knows I have a scratch on my arm from when I slipped getting out of the car. You know, not a scar, just a scratch that'll be gone in a few days, and then forgotten. The kind that knows I like to pepper my eggs but I'll eat 'em even if there isn't any. You know, all the inconsequential stuff that doesn’t matter.

--God is in the details?

--Yeah but these are the details even God doesn't care about. Only somebody's who's been there the whole time knows about it.

--What, like a stalker?

--No. This is going to sound macabre, but someone who could identify me in a morgue. And not get all weepy about. "Yep, that's her." I'm sorry, Mr. Edwards." "Yeah, well."

--That is macabre.

--Yeah, but it's sweet too. Stop here, I gotta pee.

I pull in, we need gas anyway. This thing gets worse gas mileage than an SUV. And the pumps are the old-fashioned kind. You have to pay inside.

The lady behind the register could be my first wife. Dirty blond hair, tired yes, chewing on her bottom lip as she tries to figure out a crossword. She catches me staring, looks up. At first she looks mad, then her glare softens.

--Oh, hey, didn't hear ya come in.

--Just a fill up. I have to force my voice to rise above a whisper.

--Eight ninety two. Where ya headed.

--Miami, I think.

She laughs. It about breaks my heart. --Well, ya better figure it out, buddy, you're a long way off.

--Yeah, I guess so. Thanks.

--Take care now.