Everything is over for leading actor Simon Axler. Now in his sixties, he has lost his magic, his talent, and his confidence. His wife has gone, his audience has left him, and his agent can't persuade him to make a comeback. Into this shattering account of inexplicable and terrifying self-evacuation bursts a counterplot of unusual erotic desire, a consolation for the bereft life so risky and aberrant that it points not toward comfort and gratification but to a darker and more shocking end.