"Uhhhhh"

           He turned the radio up louder, sipped timidly from his freshly brewed cup of gas station coffee and lit a cigarette as he cut across three lanes of traffic, causing many headlights to flash and horns to blare.

           He put his middle finger up, right there by his rearview mirror for all the miserable commuters to see.

           "Yeah, oh yeah!" moaned a voice from his radio.

           There was a rhythmic slapping of bodies in some strange concert with more feminine moaning.

           "Just spank me baby, spank me!"

           And then the loud and distinct sound of flesh being struck.

           He couldn't help himself. He held his cigarette and steering wheel with his left hand and found his hardened-self underneath the folds of his nearly obese stomach with his right hand.

           And then his cell phone rang.

           He turned the radio down and answered.

           It was his wife.

           "You didn't kiss me good-bye this morning."

           He grunted. He rolled his eyes.

           "Sorry."

           "We've been married sixteen years and you never ran out of the house like that before. Something wrong?"

           "No. You know. Stuff at work. Had somethin' needin' taken care of first thing, still thinkin' about it, new client, big deal, don't want it to fall, gotta have my ducks in a row. You know."

           "I guess… but you owe me mister."

           "Okay. Love you. Bye."

           And he hung up with a certain measure of shame. There was a new client at work, but it wasn't his account. He didn't have to hurry to the office, in fact, he wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of notice on his desk: "Last Chance LaChance, You haven't sold shit in six months. You're fired you fat piece of shit." Signed, "The Boss."

           But he was in a hurry.

           There was this new radio station, a station revealed to him on this morning via a pop-up ad on his computer. He had a morning routine, a secret and shameful routine that he enjoyed while his wife still slept. He always woke up before the dawn and fired up his computer and a succession of cigarettes and surfed for porn, going through the menu of his favorite sites.

           He was thrilled when he saw the ad for Detroit's new station, there at the bottom of the dial. 86.9.

           He couldn't wait to listen, and hurried out of the house…

           He turned the radio back up and there was now a commercial, some jingly add for erectile dysfunction supplements. He wanted a prescription for them. Sex wasn't the way it used to be when he and his wife first got married. He remembered making love for hours and hours way back when.

           Now, he was good for about a minute and a half, and it was often a nearly joyless experience.
But his wife didn't seem to mind.

           "We're older now," she said to him, "we have kids. It's different."

           His body agreed; it was different, but his mind was stuck in the past, reeling memories like dirty movies over and over and over.

           Another commercial followed. This one was a political ad for the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, as the 2012 elections were just around the corner.

           He snickered at that and sipped more coffee. A Republican? On this station?

           The programming resumed, a little different than before. He could distinctly hear two female voices.

           "You want me to lick you where?"

           Silence.

           "But I've never done that before, this is my first time…"

           Silence.

           The other woman: "Oh yeah, that's it, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah!"

           "Am I doing it right?" the first woman said, sounding almost like a young girl.

           "Just shut up and lick me you stupid bitch."

           He reached for himself underneath his folded-over stomach.

           The phone rang again.

           It was his wife.

           "Yeah?"

           "What are you listening to?"

           He quickly turned the radio down. "You know that morning show on the oldies station, they get a little wacky sometimes."

           "Oh," she said, sort of innocently. "You sure everything's okay? You practically hung up on me, and what's a girl to think…"

           "Fine. Fine. Everything's fine."

           "Are you sure?"

           "Yup. Right as rain. See you tonight. Maybe we can go out, you know, that new place by the mall."

           "To celebrate?"

           "Celebrate what?"

           "Your new client?"

           "Oh, yeah, right. No, I was thinking of just celebrating us."

           "Aren't you sweet," his wife cooed.

           "Okay. Love you. Bye."

           And he turned the radio back up again and found another commercial, this one was for a gentleman's club out by the airport. He had been there before, a few years back while his wife and kids were out of town visiting her sister. He went damn near broke; eight bucks a beer or something crazy like that.

           Sadly, he saw his office building looming ahead, like an ominous castle glowing in the twilight. He found his parking spot and sadly, sadly, turned the radio off.

***

           The new radio station, billing itself as "Detroit's Adult Talk and Then Some" became his sole companion during each commute during the next several weeks and months, and he was always quick to volunteer to go the store whenever something was needed at home.

           He wanted any excuse to drive and listen to the radio.

           And his wife became a little troubled by his recent changes. He started to look slightly rumpled when he came home from work; his shirt would be nearly untucked and his tie was loosened at the collar and his face was a bit flush. And he also became sort of touchy-feely, but in a decidedly non-intimate way; he would grab her on the behind while she stood at the kitchen sink, or brush against her breast as they passed each other in the hallway or in the bedroom.

           And sex. He wanted sex every night when before he had previously been satisfied once a week or even less. She would acquiesce, even if she wasn't in the mood, and she wasn't in the mood with her husband groping her all the time.

           The sex was the same; short-lived and furious and she couldn't understand why he was so angry when it was over. It was like he was expecting something more, more than she could give him, or more than he could give her.

           She was worried about him, maybe he was drinking or something. He now had this glazed and addictive look in his eyes and god-forbid, was her not-quite-loving husband taking drugs?
She soon had her answers.

           The radio station had seemed to get a little bit more personal with Mr. LaChance. He was starting to hear his name, albeit very faintly, intermingled with the incessant and feminine moans and groans that surrounded him in his car.

           "Oh, Chancy, Chancy, Chancy, Chancy…" said a voice that sounded not too dissimilar to his wife's.

           And then a few days later, while taking the long way home from work: "Do me Chance, just do me do me do me do me do me. DO ME!"

           He felt his face redden and he became a little frightened. Why was he hearing his name over the radio? Maybe it was a coincidence. He changed the station, back to his old and reliable oldies station. It would do him good to hear Roy Orbison or The Everly Brothers.

           But his radio seemed to be malfunctioning. Even though it was tuned to his oldies station, he could still hear the porn station reverberating in his ears. He angrily hit the dashboard, as if that would fix the radio. It didn't. He pounded it again, causing a cloud of charcoal dust to explode from his overstuffed ashtray.

           He tried to turn the radio off, but the power button seemed to be impotent. He pressed it and pressed it vainly and still, the radio remained on. He tried turning the volume down but the volume increased instead of decreasing and by the time he rolled into his driveway the sound of his name being tauntingly called was more than deafening.

           He ran into the house, scared but aroused.

           He forced himself on his wife, right there in the kitchen as she was preparing dinner out of a collection of boxes and packets. He bent her over the stove and…. She clubbed
him over the head with a skillet that was just starting to sizzle.

           "What has happened to you?" she cried, placing her hands on her aproned hips.

           He rubbed his head and felt stunned and thought his wife looked kind of sexy, with her hands on her hips like that.

           But it was time to come clean.

           He turned on the radio in the kitchen, a high-tech unit mounted underneath the cabinets. He tuned it to 86.9.

           There was nothing but static and dead noise.

           He grabbed her by the wrist and led her outside to his car. He turned the key on and found the radio, expecting a tawdry eruption of sound.

           But no, the radio was apparently tuned to a Spanish station; a Mariachi band blared loudly, the sounds of guitars and slow trumpets blaring through their tidy and bland suburban neighborhood.

           "I'm going to my sister's for a while," his wife said, removing her apron and running back into the house.

           Chance sat in the driver's seat, his forehead collapsed against the steering wheel.

           The music stopped.

           "Oh Chancy, how about a real woman?"