A man receives a call in the middle of the night. It is from the husband of the man's ex-girlfriend, and the husband informs the man that his wife — the man's ex-girlfriend — has killed herself. The call ends abruptly, and the man returns to bed and tells his own wife that it was just a wrong number. Referring to her as "M," the man reflects on the woman who has died and his past relationship with her. Though the man and M did not meet until far past their teenage years, the man likes to think of M as a woman he met when they were both fourteen. The innocence of that kind of encounter appeals to the man. After they dated for two years, M left the man. She was a world-traveller, and the man never saw her again. He is astonished she would take her own life. The man reflects that M's death has brought about the death of his fourteen-year-old self. He feels he must be the second-loneliest man on the planet (the loneliest man on the planet must be M's husband). The man reflects that one day, you become "Men Without Women," which is an incredibly lonely and painful identity. It is easy to become "Men Without Women," the man thinks, because all it takes is to love a woman deeply and for that woman to leave you. The man hopes that M is in heaven now, listening to elevator music, which she loved.