Chapter Two: The Alan & Susan Years

Monica never wanted to let anyone else win, even if doing so would have been so much easier on her and everyone else involved. Not even if quitting would have been what she needed to do in order for all her dreams to come true; whereas Alan was deeply disturbed by apparent abandonment issues.

In 1981, Monica devised a new plan to rid herself of her marriage while keeping her son and the vast Quartermaine fortune. She conspired to put Alan in the path of sexy entrepreneur Susan Moore (Heather’s cousin). Alan agreed to finance the purchase of The Campus Disco from newly incarcerated Frank Smith for Susan. Monica, still plotting to get Rick Webber back, saw Alan and Susan’s partnership as the perfect opportunity. In no time, the lonely and rejected Doctor Alan began an affair with Susan and moved her into a waterside cottage across the lake from his family home. Before you could say “birth control,” Susan was pregnant with Alan’s child. “Divorce is out of the question.” Alan informed Susan. He refused to give up custody of AJ.

Edward’s niece Alexandria Quartermaine came to visit, which thrilled her uncle but made Monica leery of having more Quartermaines around. Edward came out of retirement to work with Alexandria on a secret project. The first thing Alexandria did when she came to town was hire Luke Spencer to locate her business rivals; the Cassidine family, who were living in Port Charles under assumed names. Luke was trying to “go legit” and demanded reassurance from Alex that his work for her was completely above board. The beautiful brunette convinced Luke that it was all on the up and up, but she also came on to him boldly and her sex crazed pursuit threw him off his game while making Laura insane with jealousy. Luke quit working for Alex when Robert Scorpio swept suavely in to Port Charles demanding that Luke give up information about something called “The Ice Princess” and also immediately put the moves on Laura.

Robert teamed up with Luke and Laura to find the statue, which was actually a huge uncut diamond that Alexandria Quartermaine had painted black and mounted on a pedestal. A pedestal that, it turned out; also held a secret formula that Alexandria’s ex boy friend Tony Cassidine (a.k.a Tony Castle) had promised his crazy father, Mikkos. Mikkos wanted it for a weather machine he threatened to use to freeze the world which he held for ransom. Alexandria was killed when Luke reversed the weather machine and flash froze the Quartermaine along with Tony, Mikkos and others.

AJ suffered a relapse of his heart problem and Rick again saved his life. The emergency brought the Quartermaines closer together. Susan moved to New York and gave birth to Jason. Our couple might have reconciled in spirit as well as in fact except that Alan discovered that Monica had hired a private detective to dig up proof of his affair to use in a divorce against him (which happened before AJ’s relapse which didn’t seem to matter to the volatile doctor.) In response, Alan went to New York and talked Susan in to coming back to Port Charles with his son.

When Monica's investigator provided her with proof of Alan’s affair and illegitimate child, Monica reacted in exactly the way Alan feared: she demanded sole custody of AJ and an immediate divorce. Alan moved in with Susan and for a short time it looked as if he had found happiness with his new family, but Susan was a Grant and she was angling for a wedding vow to secure her piece of the family fortune “for her son”. Alan returned to the mansion and the fighting commenced escalating until Monica tried to sell the mansion out from under the family for spite.

Unable to make up his mind, Alan moved back in with Susan but developed impotence and was quite a disappointment to his hot-to-trot mistress. Alan sought out a shrink and through counseling and physical tests was able to discover that he didn’t have a physical problem. His problem was that he was turned on by his wife, not his mistress. The situation was exacerbated by Monica coming home from a vacation to Europe with a handsome Frenchman in tow. In response Alan suddenly decided that he stood a better chance of winning custody of AJ in the divorce if he was not shacked up with his mistress and moved back in to the mansion.

The sale of the estate was supposed to put a stop to that, but Monica discovered that a codicil to the agreement gifting the home to her was that it could not be sold until after Alan passed away. Alan sent Susan on a world cruise as a gift to her for having his son and he and Monica literally sectioned off the house half and half. Monica moved her studly Frenchman in and proceeded to use him to taunt Alan into believing that she was sleeping with him. Edward managed to scare the potential boy friend away convincing him that Alan could and probably would kill him if he stayed. Alan sabotaged any chance of a reunion with Monica by trying to sneak off to meet Susan on St. Thomas while Monica’s hired man got pictures of Susan and her husband.

Furious that the damning pictures would no doubt lose him custody, Alan looked to Edward for advice and Edward had the solution to his problems. Get Monica back in the sack. This proved to be an upstanding idea as Alan’s little impotence problem proved to be no problem at all for the couple. Alan admitted to Monica in post coital after glow that he still loved her and wanted to get back together for real. His wife told him that would never happen while Susan was in the picture. Alan promptly ended the affair and with Monica at his side, they weathered a paternity suit over Jason in which Susan won one million dollars in for her child.

Susan, now a rich woman, was prey to Scott Baldwin’s machinations. Scott and Heather conspired to get Susan’s money away from her and did so by encouraging the heartbroken Susan to drink herself into oblivion. Alan attempted to take custody of Jason as soon as it became obvious that Susan was an alcoholic, but Monica gave him an ultimatum: her or his son. A judge ordered Susan to pick a trustee to administer Jason’s wealth and care for the child. Heather and Scott vied for the position which Scott won by marrying Susan. This was not as successful as Scott hoped due to the fact that he was having a torrid affair with her cousin Heather. Of course when Susan found out, she bounced her husband and her cousin to the curb and made friends with an elderly newcomer to town, Crane Tolliver, who, it turned out, was Lila Quartermaines legal husband. The two began a blackmail scheme to ruin the Quartermaine family once and for all.

It was at this time that the Quartermaine family stepped more to the front burner and Monica and Alan's merry matrimony-go-round stopped being the prime Quartermaine claim to their piece of the GH canvas.