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"Cusps" by Jordan Shelbourne (romance) 10, 9, 9
http://search1.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=261372129 (1)


* "Cusps" by Jordan Shelbourne (an624781@anon.penet.fi).
http://search1.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=261372129 (1)

It has been either six or ten months since the man and his wife have
made love, depending on whether they counted the one time when the baby
was six weeks old. He's in the mood, but she isn't. In the middle of
the night he wakes up and finds her depressed, and to liven things up he
tells her about his affair with the one Other True Love of his life.
This story-within-a-story is the real story. It describes the
development of a physical relationship that evolved into love and then
eventually disintegrated, while the man still remained in love. This
story is rich in details, but the plot into which it has been inserted
is not.

Incidentally, my own experience with breastfeeding was almost the
opposite of Gwen's. For example, my husband seemed to like the fact
that my breasts were occasionally engorged to unusual dimensions, and he
didn't mind that someone else was using them as feeding stations. We
had pretty hot sex pretty regularly. Having the kids puke at later ages
was a much more serious disruption than my breastfeeding when they were
young. At that time I attended meetings of a major organization that
advocates breastfeeding but which shall remain anonymous in this review,
and my impression was that my experience was pretty much normal. On the
other hand, I also have a friend whose husband took off for Las Vegas
with his girlfriend while the wife was in the hospital giving birth to
their firstborn, and he continued making those trips monthly for the
next year or so. Different -people simply respond differently to the
same stimuli.

Oh! The title of this story refers to epiphanies or cusps that we
encounter in life. The word has several related meanings, but in
architecture "cusp" refers to the point of intersection of two
ornamental arcs or curves. The idea is that you have to be ready when
you encounter one, or the doorway becomes closed. I understand that
Robert Frost would was going to call his poem "The Cusp Not Taken," but
he had an epiphany and chose "Road" instead, and that has made all the
difference. Some of the things that I say in these Reviews are not
perfectly true.

Ratings for "Cusps"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9