“Norma,” Roberts said, “I think it’s time I bought you a beer. I owe you a beer, collectable when you’re discharged.”

What she had succeeded in doing was getting sex separated from love, she told Leland. She had had to do that so she could finally put them together again in a meaningful way. Dr. Roberts didn’t think it was necessary for her to know precisely why she was willing to endure a variety of abuses for the sake of maintaining an emotional attachment; it would be enough for her to remember that she was liable to do it. She saw that sex was only a device in her relationships; her enjoyment of it only promoted her desire to get into and stay inside a basically secure relationship, regardless of other penalties. Roberts asked her to try to enjoy sex without becoming entangled emotionally with the men she chose. She wanted to make a ground rule: never the same man on successive weekends. If she thought she needed a ground rule, he said, all right. He gave her his home telephone number to use if she thought she was going to slip. His wife could always locate him if he was out. He would call Norma and they would see if they could not talk their way through it.

She called him once, on a Saturday night at three in the morning. He sat up with her, via the telephone, for two hours, until she was too tired to call the fellow she had wanted to see. She heard Mrs. Roberts bringing him coffee and turning on the radio for herself. She had to compare it with what she could expect if she did make the other call: eventually, a hysterical argument. When she hung up she went to sleep, and when she reported on Monday evening, she could report that there had been no accidents.