Sugar in My Bowl by Erica Jong

bed. When he finally roused himself, he halfheartedly asked if I wanted to go out for breakfast, and I pleaded a headache. After that, we went back to being friendly office mates. We had tried out a different kind of relationship and found that it didn’t work.
    One-night stands can be nothing more than a few hours of pleasure, or they can be the beginning of something much more important, and it’s impossible to tell until it’s too late. Another man I slept with, never intending anything serious, was married to an acquaintance of mine, but she was far away. It was summer in New York City, when wives and children stayed in the country and all domestic rules seemed breakable. It was too hot to feel guilty as I should have felt. Slowly, with a lot of laughter and in the kind of emotionally woozy state that results from staying up too long, we repaired to my bedroom. The sex wasn’t particularly memorable; we were both tired and quite drunk. I fell into a fitful sleep and woke to find myself sheltered in his arms. His flesh was pleasantly warm. He smelled good. I drifted off again, feeling buoyant and safe.
    When we officially woke up a few hours later we tried to pretend that everything was normal. I made coffee and changed the sheets. He got on the telephone with an editor, then called his wife and checked on his children. It was no use. By the time we wandered out to lunch we both knew something huge had happened. Our connection felt capricious, as if there had been a potion in my nightcap, or as if a rascally little boy had aimed an arrow in our direction. We sat in a bar, holding hands, reveling in our exhilaration at having found each other and in our suffering at having to part. It was as if we had been together forever; I felt an uncanny sense of destiny fulfilled. The world, however, didn’t care. I had to be in Boston for dinner. He had a plane to catch.
    That one-night stand led to a thirty-five-year love affair—the most enduring love of my life. Some kind of deep intimacy between us had been released, an intimacy that remains decades later. After more than fifteen years of obstacles—my guilt, his guilt and pain, limited resources, our own confusion—we eventually married and had a wonderful son. I had no idea what was going to happen when I casually invited him up to my apartment. If I had known, would I have gone home alone?
    That is the real danger of a one-night stand. Not that it will lead to nothing, but that it will lead to everything. In this way, casual sex is excruciatingly hazardous. Those who are not ready to have their life changed should probably abstain.

Everything Must Go
    A Short Story
    Jennifer Weiner
    T he twins were almost ten months old when Lizzie found the lump. She hadn’t been looking for it, she hadn’t been doing a self-exam, she had simply been standing, immobilized, underneath the pounding water, more asleep then awake.
    When Cal came into the bathroom, a towel knotted around his midsection, she blushed like a kid caught cheating, reached for the soap and started soaping herself vigorously, turning her back toward her husband, so that he wouldn’t catch a glimpse of her slack, stretch-marked flesh. Lifting her breasts to wash beneath them, her fingers chanced against the lump, skated over it, then returned again, her skin going instantly icy beneath the warm water.
    She stepped out of the shower with soap still slicked on her body. Cal was peering in the mirror, smoothing shaving cream over his cheeks, and one of the twins (her money was on Logan) was wailing from his ExerSaucer outside the bathroom door.
    “You’re dripping,” he told her.
    “What’s this?” she said, and grabbed his hand. His razor clattered in the sink.
    “What’s what?” Cal looked annoyed. Cal frequently looked annoyed these days. It was the babies, the sleepless nights, the messy house, her own preoccupation. Plus, he was working so hard, doing whatever he did in his suits, at his office