The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

Peter was stunned, of course, but he seemed strong somehow. I couldnt get through to Arthur, but Peter said that they had talked and that Arthur seemed to be doing all right. So you wont be leaving? Xavier asked with a trace of anxiety. No, she said, Ill stay. I doubt if I could get a flight even if I wanted to leave. All planes in the United States have been grounded. He held her arm where they stood, quietly, for a long moment before joining the others in front of the flickering television set. The early estimates of numbers killed instantly ran into many thousands. The crash came at the beginning of the workday, when most employees had already arrived. Later, when Xavier and Ruth retired to Ruths hut, they talked until dawn about what happened, why it had happened, and what might come next. At first, it seemed that their work, like every thing else in the world, would be disrupted, but within a few days of 9/11, life in a place far from Manhattan mostly returned to what it had been. During the remainder of the year, Xavier collected several dozen more vials of love potion, and they worked on their independent tasks. But they spent most dinners together in fruitful conversation. To their surprise, there was no return to Love Two. That part of their lives was, thankfully, in the past. Life revolved around the work, and around discussion of the changes that were occurring on the other side of the globe.

Chapter XIV Donna and Scott

He had spent many years doing mundane biochemical analysis of food additives. Then he had worked for the government on bio-warfare projects, and with anthrax research during the scare. Later he joined the massive anti-botulism effort, after having tried unsuccessfully to get into the more crowded field of small pox research. But as threat after threat consumed the public imagination, his own work, important as he knew it was, became less and less satisfying. He wanted to get closer to the real problems, and he knew that they were in the human brain, not in micro-organisms. He applied for work with Marcus Raichle, who had been relating brain imaging to emotions at the University of Washington. Many were, like Raichle, trying to relate brain substances to aggression and the impulse to violence. But at that time, they had not yet seen the need for biochemistry. Scotts application for a position with the CDC was still pending when he read a Carol Eisman article on the effects on the behavior of small rodents of a substance called Brew-2 that she had synthesized. Prairie voles were one of the few mammalian monogamous species. According to the Eisman article, juvenile voles that had not yet found a partner could be induced to mate with another mole when injected with the substance in the presence of the intended partner. Furthermore, and this is what really excited Scott, Eisman reported that Brew-2 could sometimes affect ordinarily non-monogamous rodents rats, mice, and guinea pigs, although cross-species attractions were not obtained. With the planet in a fury over

t 44, Scott Brigham was still having a hard time deciding just where to go, as far as his research was concerned. His degree was in biochemistry, but his interests, fanned by political concerns in a time of social and geopolitical upheaval, were difficult to tie down.

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

terrorism and counter-terrorism concerns, Scott saw the Eisman approach as a step, however minute, toward approaching the larger effort to create a safer world. He had also paid attention to the affiliation studies of primatologist Frans de Waal, who contended that mutual affection among primates was not uncommon, provided one knew where to look. Unfortunately, Scotts correspondence with de Waal had not yielded any job offers. With wild and imaginative objectives, Scott scoured the Internet, searching for a possible way to aid progress toward diverting human nature from what he was convinced was an ever more maddening dash toward self-destruction. However, his interests were also more closely personal. His wife, Clare, had left him for another man soon after the birth of their third child, taking his three daughters with her. How he wished he had a pill that would have made Clare fall back in love with him! Carol Eisman was at Westport University, which did not appear to be a very promising place for the kind of groundbreaking biochemical research for which Scott thirsted. Furthermore, the employment situation at all levels, and in virtually all fields, was dismal and becoming more so in all fields and at all levels by the day. All fields, that is, except those closely involved with things nuclear. Young people who, in former ages would have tried to evade military service, were now clamoring to gain acceptance into a life that afforded three meals a day and a place to sleep at night. The government had responded slowly to the increased social distress, first by deporting noncitizens and attempting to close borders to further immigration, and then by establishing what were called work placement and training relocations (WPTRs), but which were actually internment camps with menial labor by day and nightly curfews that many compared with the concentrations camps of Germany, from which release came only at the end of WWII. It wasnt an entirely fair comparison, however, since permission to leave was usually granted so long as the domestic surveillance teams had not found anything suspicious on the persons record. Efforts were also made to keep families together. Family size was limited by voluntary sterilization, a process that was rewarded by improved living conditions. The standard was two children per couple. The WPTRs were viewed as a kind of final solution to the unemployment problem. Government infringements on civil liberties had progressed to the point of reduced domestic mobility. Dissension was dangerous. Maybe, thought Scott (who had, since college, been careful to keep his political ideas to himself), if he could find a job of any kind to provide subsistence, he could carry on pro bono research that really interested him for its social promise. Fortunately, Clares beauty, even in maturity, had bought her a new love from the among wealthy, so she had asked nothing of Scott except that he fulfill his responsibility to his girls by visiting them during holidays and the winter vacations. Of course it had to be done at their immense fortress of a compound in which a special building, a kind of carriage house, was made available to him, where he was afforded every convenience and in which the girls could spend their days with him. At these times, which were carefully organized, he was permitted to leave the grounds between the hours of 5 PM, when his daughters returned to the main house, and midnight, when the gates were locked up until 6 AM the next morning. He was barred from other buildings in the compound, and never saw Clare or her husband during his visits. Altogether it was a humiliating situation, and, as time passed, he took advantage of it less and less frequently. For one thing, as the girls got older, they became more distant. They were being tightly educated in the arts and sciences by tutors, but were painfully ignorant about life in the outside world. When they left the compound to travel or to visit other families in similar luxury, aside from scenery, their journeys were Potemkinized that is, their itinerary was designed to prevented them from seeing the poverty and property destruction that dotted the landscape. Needless to say, all electronic inputs were highly controlled. Although Scott tried to tell them what was going on beyond the walls of their little world, his tales increasingly met with nave disbelief. They had been well indoctrinated until they internalized their resistance to the truth. Once, having firmly decided that he would try to make them aware of conditions beyond the fairy-tale land in which they lived, he opened the conversation with an innocent-enough question. As they were finishing a meal that had, as usual, been

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

brought in by a woman accompanied by an armed guard, Scott asked which of the books by Charles Dickens was their favorite. Muriel, the oldest, replied, Daddy, weve heard of Dickens, of course, but thats not the kind of thing we like to read. What do you read? he asked, stunned by her comment. Mostly books like the King Arthur stories and stories about girls like us who have strange and wonderful adventures, she replied. And, Betsy, the youngest, who was ten at the time, added, and we read about science and animals and all kinds of things like that. Id love to see some of your wonderful books. Would you bring one to show me tomorrow? he asked. We cant. Theyre in the electronic library, and we get them into our readers as needed, Muriel replied. Well, than, I guess youll just have to bring the readers, Scott said. Betsy giggled. We cant take them out of the building. They only work in certain places. Well, then, Scott said, I guess Ill just have to go there to see them. At this, the girls looked puzzled, even a little frightened. Muriel explained in the tone a parent uses when explaining something very simple to a child, Daddy, you know the rules. We are always glad to see you, but mother and our other daddy have explained the dangers of contamination. We are always decontaminated in a special room when we leave here. Theres nothing anyone can do about it. Its for the protection of everyone. It was useless. Scott was helpless. He knew that the whole contamination thing was a ruse, that his work with microorganisms in no way endangered anyone, and that, if it did, he would not be permitted to see his daughters at all. It was a carefully engineered ploy to keep him and his influence out of their lives, and it was working. His visits after that became even more exasperating. He concluded that Clare and his childrens other daddy controlled forces he could not match. Furthermore, much as he had tried, he had been unable to find employment within a thousand miles of them, thereby making him endure the rigors and expense of travel at each visit. Going from one coast to the other used to be easy; but it had become virtually impossible for people who, like himself, were considered security risks due to their occupations. There was no implication of disloyalty, only that people so categorized had some form of specialized knowledge. The land of the free was less so all the time as Right Wing ideology captured more and more political ground for the military-industrial powers. As his relationship with his daughters deteriorated, he began to rethink his earlier decision against emigrating to Europe, as many scientists had done in the years following George W. Bushs outlawing of stem cell and cloning research. Life in the United States had come to range from miserably poor to exceedingly affluent, with little between the two extremes. Despite his qualifications, his yearly income had declined, since salaries for scientists were lowered as part of the general economic slump, which seemed to affect all but the ruling elite. Some years earlier, Scott had been forced to watch his mother suffer final and unnecessary agonies that could have been avoided in Europe or Japan, but former Attorney General John Ashcrofts religious fervor, no less cruel in its way than that of Osama bin Ladens al Qaeda, had instituted practices supposedly for economic reasons, but actually for ideological reasons that prevented the dying from receiving adequate pain relief. A substance that would reduce the kind of religiosity that had turned democracy into vengeful mob rule would be worth working for, Scott thought bitterly. Could Brew-2 be a step in that direction? It seemed unlikely in the extreme, but Scott decided to contact Carol Eisman.

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

Dear Dr. Eisman, he wrote, I am a mature biochemist who has, up to now, worked mainly in fields concerned with our unending fight against biological terrorist attacks. Such work is important, but it is an increasingly crowded field, and I have been intrigued by the possibility that your kind of research might bring the world closer to solution of its more basic problems. But he tore up that first draft. There was no point in so blatant an exposure of his motivations, not in a first letter. Instead he wrote, I am interested in your work on the behavioral effects of with Brew-2 and wonder whether you would grant me the opportunity to visit your laboratory. He would sound her out before revealing more of his aims. So that short note, accompanied by his resume, was all he sent to her.

arol had begun her first tentative experiments with Brew-2 back in the mid 1990s. To Ruth, her friends possible ability to extract the active substance from the vial and then to synthesize it in order produce an effective dosage was nothing short of miraculous. Were they really going to accomplish the aim of fairy tales and folklore? Was it really possible to find the substance that Tristan and Isolde unwittingly drank during their boat ride? Their findings with animals had seemed promising, but by no means conclusive, and, in any case, they got consistent results only with the very small number of species who were monogamous. Frans de Waal had seen little evidence of anything resembling Love Two in monkeys and apes. But the new substance derived from the second set of vials, called Brew-3, had already brought results with ordinarily non-monogamous rats that were strong and apparently reliable. Positive results had been even obtained with dogs and cats. The long-enduring, so-called drug war had become a major weapon of the increasingly repressive federal government, which was quick to brand as dissident virtually any finding suggestive of substances that affected experience. In this political climate, Carol had been hesitant about publishing her more recent and stronger results. Fortunately, she and Ruth had been cautious from the beginning, and now they were even more so. Love Two was powerful. A substance that could induce it was ripe for misuse and, therefore, likely to be rendered illegal before there was a chance to find a way to exploit its uses for positive social ends. From time to time, other scientists who wanted to know the Brew-2 formula, which, out of caution, had not been published, would contact Carol. When asked about it, she had developed a habit of putting them off by responding that she was having some problems but would communicate with them further when she had worked them out. But the time was getting closer when Ruth and Carol would want to find out how the new Brew-3, would affect human beings. Furthermore, they both knew, although they had not discussed it explicitly, that the first test would have to be done on one of them; nothing else was feasible. Nothing else was ethical. Ruth considered that it might be nice to fall in love with Peter, but he was changing and, in any case, may not yet have recovered from his Love Two attraction to Nancy Mackintosh. While his life was still in a state of upheaval, Ruth decided that it was not the time to risk it. And she certainly didnt want to develop that kind of passion for anyone else. Maybe later. No, Ruth had no interest in being distracted from her work by another Love Two experience. Indeed, no rational person would voluntarily get himself or herself into the state, not until an antidote was also found, or unless two consenting people took it together. But it was tempting. Ruth knew from experience that Love Two was the source of the most intense pleasure imaginable. If only it could be turned off and on at will, it could be the best of both worlds. She thought of Xavier and how close they had seemed to come to another natural Love Two episode at their last meeting. But they had deliberately and, it seemed, successfully, inhibited its development. At least she had. She could not be entirely sure about him. In New Guinea, following that moment of closeness following news of the World Trade Center attack, Ruth and Xavier had held long discussions in which each declared lack of Love Two, but very much Love One for the other, and it seemed to have worked. They were friends. They would always be friends,

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

and, should Brew-2, or Brew-3, ever be not only effective, but able to be turned off again through an antidote, they might indulge together in another glorious period like they had enjoyed when they were young. But neither wished to risk again the long and disruptive after-effects that would only disturb their lives and their work. That they could again enjoy a close working partnership through electronic communication without Love Two was not only a certainty, but it was also a scientific finding. It meant that recovery from Love Two did not necessarily mean the end of Love One and friendship. It was a question that Alan Browne reported having being asked repeatedly. What happens after the honeymoon? The high divorce rate in societies in which divorce was permitted suggested that Love One did not necessarily take the place of Love Two when Love Two ended. Did it ever? How could one tell? Maybe, some people wondered, a more successful marriage was one like Ruths and Peters, that had never involved the madness of the Love Two. According to Browne, and to Ruths own research, what remained after Love Two ended was not necessarily a happy situation. It, therefore, was important to understand what were the conditions would be required, in order that, when Love Two died, Love One could remain. Ruth liked Xavier very much. She cared for him. But the kind of sexual yearning she had experienced at twenty-three was no longer there. Was she too old? No, that clearly was not it. Browne had cited numerous cases of Love Two in later life, sometimes for the first time in middle age. Xavier himself would later write that he had fallen into it again, to his combined joy and possible regret. The woman was the widowed mother of one of his sons school friends. As she was unmarried, it would not involve the breaking up of a home, and it might mean establishing a new family. In his mid fifties, he was not too old to become a father again, and, he said, he rather enjoyed the companionship of married living. His only concern was that he might be misperceiving her, that Love Two might have distorted his vision of her qualities. And her of his. Family values. Ruth and Carol discussed the value of families. Ruth said, Of all social customs and institutions, the one in which the new generation is born and reared is primary in its importance. Which is, Carol noted, the reason why Love Two has held our attention for so long. It is important. No doubt, Ruth said in agreement. Donna, who used to consider my research interest in Love Two to be dabbling with the trivial, said during our semi-annual get-together in the city last week that she had completely turned around on that score. What changed her? Is she getting married? Carol asked. No marriage in sight. Its seeing the divorces among the families she worked with especially the consequences to the children. She now sees my work, our work, as of enormous importance, and she hopes to get here next month to learn more about Brew-2. You told her? I had sent her some reprints of your research with animals. Donna immediately wondered whether it might lead to something effective in solving human problems of falling in and out of love. What, Carol asked, exactly is Donna doing now? She used to work for Community Service Society, CSS, in Manhattan. Its a good agency, one of the best, but her activism instincts led her to want to work with younger people, to prevent problems instead of functioning only as a clean-up operation. So last month she joined the Hollander Hosts, a privately funded halfway house caring mainly for runaway teens who have turned to prostitution and crime. Most of their cases involve court referrals. And Donna has found that, in almost all cases including, but not limited to poverty cases the problem starts in the family. Im surprised. It sounds like going backward toward Freud. I thought the trend was to look to the genes and to re-engineer them where possible.

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

It has surprised many to find that, although genes play far more important roles, in ways no one previously expected in schizophrenia, in autism, in Alzheimer, and even in heart conditions there are also situational factors. Situations can be caused by genes, Carol noted. Yes, they can, and maybe usually are to some degree, anyway. But there is also learning. It sounds like the old pendulum swing. Theres some of that, but Donna finds that restructuring the persons situation, as she calls it, can turn things around. Like training and finding a job? And even things like hair styling and clothes. That doesnt sound like the Donna I know. I know. My little sister has taken a few turns. But they are not political changes. Shes still the activist with a website. And you have seen that shes become more of a scientist. Shes less sure of what really works and more ready to try to find out what works. Do you think she and Peter will find common ground that they never had before? Well see. Donna is going to spend two weeks here, next month. And one of her top priorities is to get to know more about our work with Love Two. Carol was surprised. Do you know why? Not entirely, but I think its part of her change toward science. She is interested in the potential of our work for solving some of the problems she encounters in her work. I see. The love potion to strengthen marriage and prevent divorce. And improve situations, Ruth added. But shes ahead of the game, Carol objected. We arent ready yet. Without an antidote, chemically-inducing Love Two could easily get out of hand. Incidentally, didnt Donna play some kind of role in Peters trial? Only indirectly. She consulted with Peters attorney, Nigel Ward, regarding the distinction she makes between psychotherapy and counseling. She would have been glad to commend Peter as an upstanding citizen, honorable man, etc., but she didnt try to hide her misgivings about his strong allegiance to what she considered to be a basically dishonest profession. She told Ward that she believed the whole structure with its attempt to be medical, or semi-medical, with being called doctor and making diagnoses, etc. was bogus at its core. Her own profession, I assume she said, was honest. At least, Ruth went on, most social work doesnt risk damaging its clients reputations by implying something it isnt. Which was exactly the point Price made in his Ragtag articles, Carol noted. Yes, Peters sister-in-law had a real, although non-public, effect on the course of the trial. Ward didnt let her testify, nor did she want to express her views in public, but the information she gave prevented him from trying to defend the profession. She convinced him it would be a losing battle. Which it certainly was. Incidentally, weve been so caught up in Brew-3 matters, based on the new set of love potion vials, that we havent talked much about Peter. How is he doing now? What is he doing? Hes changing, but its not over. For one thing, he was and is very disturbed over the frightening things that have been happening since the twin towers tragedy. The whole change has given him a role, and he has poured himself into it. Just when people began again to call to try to become his patients, he has completely given up being a psychotherapist. Instead, hes organizing a walk-in counseling center in town where he plans to work several days a week as a volunteer.

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

Ive read that depression and anxiety has hit an all-time high since the terror began, Carol said. Deena Harris, a psychiatrist at Columbia Universitys College of Physicians and Surgeons noted one positive effect of the upsurge in the many people who became depressed following the New York City and other terrorist disasters: it reduced the stigma of applying for psychiatric help. But Peter carries the idea further, Ruth said. Hes like a convert. He no longer works with patients. The people he works with mostly by telephone until the center opens call him Peter. But he makes referrals. He sends those who are truly ill to one of the towns psychiatrists. It him took a while, but hes completely turning around. How about science? No, Ruth responded, he hasnt become a scientist, but he has become more receptive to scientific ideas. Hes becoming a different person, Carol. Sometimes the fast pace of it frightens me. He has become concerned about things he had hardly thought of before. Instead of reading journals, as he used to do, he now spends a lot of time with television and the Internet, keeping up with national and world events. He was very distressed, as were we all, as the Bush administration moved toward what he considered dictatorship. You mean the executive orders suspending legal protections of the accused? Carol asked. That was only the beginning, Ruth said, There was also the Administrations secrecy especially prohibiting the publics access to Presidential papers. It hit Peter really hard. Hes a changed person; at least his interests and concerns have changed radically. And something else is happening along with it, something I have always wanted, but Im not sure Im entirely comfortable about now that it is happening. I think I know what you are going to say. Really? Ruth asked. Like any convert, hes turned against practitioners of his former faith, Carol responded. Hes written letters to Member of Congress opposing, actually opposing, what he had formerly supported: health insurance coverage for psychotherapy. What about his Love Two? Do you think that is influencing him? It looks like hes adopting Nancy Mackintoshs positions. Has he seen her in the years since the trial? It might be partly that, Ruth answered, but Ive heard little from Peter about Nancy Mackintosh. Incidentally, she sent me an unsigned post card from Brazil. If it was unsigned, how did you know it was from Nancy? Carol inquired. Who else would say, Our one evening together set me in several new directions. Im covering serious things. Did Peter see it? Did he ask about it? I had a cover story prepared about one of my students, but I dont think he even saw it. When Peter began to get all those people trying to relieve their anxieties about the terrible things that were happening the bombings, the small pox outbreaks, the unemployment, the increase in crime especially the increases psychological consequences, he discovered that his precious profession was completely unprepared. The anti-psychotherapy witnesses at the trial were right. And yet, Carol observed, there he was, a psychotherapist, suddenly called upon to help people with their anxieties and fears. Yes, and his experiences in Staten Island supported two ideas: one, that he really could help people, but, two, that the help he and others gave had nothing to do with anything the profession had stood for. He somehow knew how to make people feel better, but so did other people, people who had never taken a psychology course. Professional training had nothing to do with helping. In order to help, he sometimes had to go against what he had been taught. It was really brought home to him as he watched other professionals. They might have been genuinely trying to help, but many of them completely failed, and some made matters worse with their clinical approaches.

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

It looks like Carol noted, the trial, being exposed to the stories of people who really had been harmed by psychotherapy, and, especially, being forced to recognize his own failure might have been the best thing that ever happened to him. Do you talk about it? Not directly. Its still too sensitive an issue. Hes not ready, and Im not eager for it. But he does talk about his work and, this is really new, he talks about his clients. Not his patients? He doesnt call them patients. He doesnt even call them clients. He uses their names. And his treatments are mostly listening, getting information for them, and sometimes serving coffee. He is no longer a doctor and certainly not a psychotherapist; hes a volunteer. Most of his early work in Staten Island was helping people find out what had happened to family members. He had a lot of bad news to deliver. How does he feel about the fact that hes not bringing in any money, and how do you feel about it? We were always too busy to be anything but frugal. We didnt have time to invest in stocks, so when the crash came, it largely missed us. Arthur is in the National Service now that college is over, and my salary, even with the reductions that the university administration has imposed, is, in this deflated era, adequate. And Peter contributes by doing things around the house that we used to pay others to do. Hes really become quite wonderful about using the Internet to get information. He does plumbing, gardening, and all kinds of things that save money. Those tomatoes you gave me last summer were fantastic. But you didnt answer my question about his feelings about Nancy Mackintosh. I dont really know, Carol. As we know, Love Two can, and often is, hidden. We also know that it lasts a long time. Given all the circumstances, I wouldnt expect him to say anything about it. But hes more affectionate toward me than he has ever been. We even have sex occasionally.

arol wrote a polite response to Scott Brigham. She would be happy to meet him if he wished to visit. She said that she had had some familiarity with his work on botulism.

It was April. The Brew-3 research had progressed, and they were close to the critical test, which was planned for the next month. She suggested that Brigham wait a few weeks until classes were over. With animals, Carol had solved the problem of determining just when, after the drug is consumed, she had to be certain that the animal that receives the drug is in the presence of the one chosen to be the object of the attraction. The effect seemed to occur the way it did in Shakespeares Midsummer Nights Dream. Whatever animal was the first to appear following ingestion was the one to which the bonding response, as she called it in her published articles, became attached. Carol had run many trials to confirm that point. Now she was almost ready to do the human experiment. And she, herself, would have to be the first guinea pig. Nothing else made any sense. Ruth was reluctant, what with Peters condition unclear. If it really worked, then maybe some day Ruth and Peter would take it together. But the time for that had not yet come. Conveniently, Carol had a male friend, Chico, for whom she held much respect, and she knew that he more than liked her. She was to be with him during the next weekend. She would take it on Friday afternoon just before he arrived at the lab to pick her up, and she would be sure to remain in his presence. On Fridays there would be no one else in the building. Chico was a good choice, because she really wished that she liked him more as a man. Ruth, who had been working with Carol that day, and who knew and approved of the plan, although not without some trepidation, said goodbye, wishing Carol luck. As soon as Ruth left, Carol injected herself and stood at the window watching for Chicos car. As Ruth walked across the parking lot, she waved. Ruth could hardly wait until she received Carols report the following week.

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

When Carol called Ruth on Tuesday evening, she reported that the drug had been completely effective. But, smitten as she was, Carol was also a scientist, a very fine one. Like Xavier before her, she took copious notes, including blood pressure and temperature readings, percentage of time lost to those intruding daydreams, and brief categorizations of interaction between her and the object of her Love Two condition. The marvel was that Carols condition, unlike Xaviers, or anyone elses, had been brought on entirely by the love potion, Brew-3. She explained to Ruth that she was also experimenting with the ability to keep the condition secret, especially from the person who was its object. The only thing Carol told Ruth was that she was having a classic Love Two experience. She would supply data, but not additional detail. Meanwhile, she would also continue her search for an antidote.

t was by the sheerest coincidence that Donna Payne and Scott Brigham were spending time in Carols lab during the same week, and, like other coincidences in history, this one was to have profound and penetrating effects on many lives, including their own. With school out, both time and space were available, so Carol arranged a series of meetings in which she could present the to him research and they could discuss what he saw. Although Brigham had enough scientific sophistication to better understand the more technical parts of the story, Carol decided that it would be a good opportunity to explain her procedures and findings in a way that Ruth and Donna could also appreciate. At first, Ruth had been surprised that Carol would expose her work to a stranger. But Carol had been favorably impressed with Scott through emailing, which they had done a lot of during the preceding week. And, Carol explained, it would have to come eventually. Ive been cautious in my publications because, if it really works, as I now know it will, it will be socially and politically explosive, but science isnt science if it is secretive. I remember well the note from your anonymous student who saw Love Two theory as contrary to religious ideas about free will. I think the topic will explode once it starts. So, this is the right time to bring trusted others into it. Besides, judging by both his knowledge and his enthusiasm, I think he might be able to help. Im going to tell the whole story, from the beginning. I know that you are aware of most of it, and Donna knows some, but this way well bring everyone up to date in a way that will surely help us know where to go from here. The situation has changed since you took Brew-3, Ruth said. Youve changed. Well, of course Ive changed, Donna admitted. I now know the Love Two experience from the inside. It makes a difference. You know what I wish? Ruth said thoughtfully. I do know. You wish Xavier could also participate. I really do, Ruth admitted. Hes the missing component. I didnt say anything before. Partly I wanted to surprise you. I also felt certain you wouldnt object. Furthermore, you were still out of town, I couldnt get through to you electronically, and I wanted to make definite plans What are you saying? What do you mean? Ruth. Xavier will arrive on Wednesday. Donna is meeting him at the alternative metropolitan airport in Atlantic City. Theyll drive in together. I hope you dont feel that Ive done something terrible in going behind your back, but, as I said, you were at the convention when it all came up, and I thought youd want it if you knew. Im shocked. It seems unlike you. But Im pleased, although I hope that keeping me out of the loop will not become a habit,

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

In her pleased excitement, Ruth walked around the desk to give Carol a reassuring hug. It was one of the few times that the two had actually come into physical contact. It was brief. Carol was a little embarrassed, but greatly relieved by Ruths reaction. Ruth exulted in happy anticipation. Now that Xaviers Love Two had fallen on to someone else, she was all the more eager to see her friend, since he posed no danger. Theres just one thing that bothers me, Ruth said after she had resumed her seat across from Carol. Its Scott Brigham. I dont know him. So they arranged for Ruth to meet Scott at Carols the next night for dinner.

Chapter XV Epilogue
Eventually, Love Two will be discovered, but it might not be found where the psychologists have been looking for it. Alan Browne in Love Two. I felt very sorry for Dr. Young. If he was no better than any of the others, he was no worse. No one quite anticipated all the heavy artillery that would be directed at him from all sides. Just because he said he loved me. Another tragic love story. Nancy Mackintosh in her diary. he year is 2049. Carol Eisman and Ruth Payne relax side by side in the comfortable mobile bedchairs with which they maneuver through the wide hallways and garden paths of the house they had built for themselves. Until she died, Ruth and Donnas mother, Edna, who had retired to a gracious old age, lived in a wing of the building especially designed for her. They had made a happy, busy, yet still independent, female trio. Now Ruth and Carol, in their nineties, kept up with scientific work in their separate quarters, but lately were spending more and more time together, just talking about all that had happened and about what might happen in the future. Together, they reminisced partly with sadness, partly with regret, and partly with pride. hen Brew3 proved successful with humans, all hell did, indeed, break loose, just as Carol had anticipated, but in some ways that she could not have guessed. Others had copied Carols formula, and effective love potions flooded the market. The political upheaval was penetrating. Congressional sessions lasted until the wee morning hours. Some conservative senators were unyielding: Brew-3 was a dangerous drug, immoral to use. Love was not something that should be messed with. A more moderate, but still highly moralistic view was that it should be banned until more was known about it. On the furthest left, egged on by the latest incarnation of the 1960s love children, were those who advised no restriction be placed on use until more was known about its positive, as well as possible negative, effects. In the meantime, as might be expected from what Carol, Xavier, Ruth, Scott, and Donna had known from those first meetings as a working group, once the cat was out of the bag or, if you prefer, the genie out of the bottle, the unstoppable march of events began to unfold. Unfortunately, especially in view of later events, there did arise a schism among the five who attended those now historical meetings. Because of their past experiences, and whatever else that made