This piece appeared in Afternoon TV in November 1981.

AN ATV NOVELETTE--PART I
The Legend of Luke and Laura
by Marilyn Henry

Bruised, battered, his frizzy permed hair spraying out in all directions, his once-immaculate white suit looking like a leftover from an old Somerset Maugham degenerate-in-the-tropics story, he ushered his blonde, teen-aged princess into the scruffy motel room. In one hand he carried a bottle of cheap wine, in the other a bag of hamburgers-to-go.

"Well," said Laura (Genie Francis) dryly, as she surveyed the awful room, "You said you'd find us a cheap motel."

Luke Spencer (Tony Geary) smiled with the air of a fox set among the chickens. His dream was about to come true. What had started as the worst day of his life was about to become the best.

And what a day it had been. Moments before Luke was to marry Jennifer Smith (Lisa Marie), the mob boss's daughter, Laura's outraged husband, Scotty Baldwin (Kin Shriner), had stormed aboard the Smith yacht, accused Luke of raping his wife and, fists hammering, sent Luke flying over the side into the murky waters of Port Charles Harbor. When Luke surfaced, the first thing he heard was Smith ordering a henchman to kill Spencer if he turned up alive. Then by some miracle, his golden dream girl Laura found him, pulled him from the water, and together they fled from the marina, the menace of Mr. Smith and the fury of her husband. A lack of funds had now brought them to this sleazy motel.

"There's only one bed," Laura observed apprehensively.

With his swollen eye he gave her an insinuating wink. "Will you please get your mind off sex?"

The girl was not deterred. "I am not sleeping in the same bed with you."

"Who asked you to?" he huffed, as his dream clearly slipped from his grasp. When she suggested he sleep in the bathtub, his cool deserted him completely. "Sugar Ray Baldwin tried to kill me today, Mr. Smith will kill me if he finds out I'm alive, and you tell me I can't sleep in our bed?"

"My bed," Laura corrected with a firm set to her jaw and, calmly handing him a blanket and a pillow, pointed to the bathroom.

Luke spent the rest of his misbegotten night trying everything in his considerable repertoire; he was by turns pathetic, wheedling, romantic, enraged, provocative, and finally, wearily abject.

"Please, please, can't we sleep in the same bed?" he begged, his voice worn with fatigue. "I promise I won't touch you--I'm so weak and tired I couldn't even if I wanted to..."

Her wide blue eyes considered him for a moment, but she shook her head. Instantly his drooping body snapped straight and he was off on another energetic tirade. When day finally dawned, they were both bleary-eyed and in moods that would make the Incredible Hulk seem benign.

Laura knew Lucas Lorenzo Spencer pretty well by the time they reached that motel. She knew about his poverty-stricken childhood, about his gentle mother who died when he was ten and the drunken father who deserted the same day. She knew about his mob connections, about his love and loyalty to his only family, sister Bobbi [sic] (Jackie Zeman) and Aunt Ruby (Norma Connolly). And although she hadn't yet fathomed the depth of his longings, she knew he had a dream to be clean and free of the mob, to be rich and have respectability, and she knew she was part of his dream. He was, in fact, her protector, her seducer, and her closest friend. They were so used to each other, to each other's moods, fears, habits, and temperments [sic] that this night was just one step further in a relationship that has become one of the most magical love affairs in visual fiction.

When Luke Spencer first arrived on the scene in Pt. Charles in the late fall of 1978, he was a cheap, cynical, street-wise hood, on the fringes of the mob and unimpressed with his ex-hooker sister's newly acquired airs as a registered nurse. He knew where Barbara Jean Spencer came from because he came from there, too: Elm Street, the slum, the gutter. He was ambitious in an impatient way; he intended to secure a place in the world by rising rapidly in the mob.

Soon there was more to Luke. He had a love/hate sibling rivalry with Bobbi that led to juvenile taunts one moment and generous affection the next. He had also fastened on beautiful, teen-aged Laura Webber with a hopeless, obsessive love and had to suffer the pain of watching her marry her "prince"--decent, square, clean-cut young lawyer-to-be, Scotty Baldwin.

This, and his uneasy position in the Organization, made of Luke Spencer a melancholy, brooding and dissatisfied man, though he had been given a comfortable job as manager of the Campus Disco, a mob-owned legit front. He was apt to slam walls or clear his desk top with his fists in emotional moments, unable to take out his frustrations on their true objects, Laura and Mr. Smith (George Gaynes).

Contradictions in him surfaced. Riddled with insecurities, he was a cocky kid one minute, Smith's boot-licking flunky the next. When he was troubled he hung out for sympathy, but could not accept it. He loved flashy clothes, wore the latest trendy threads, but took compliments suspiciously. ("Handsome is as handsome buys," he once told Ruby when she commented on his good looks.) He was as sensuous as a snake on the dance floor, but as shy as a school boy with Laura, and would rail against the fates that had placed him out of her class.

Then came the night the mob had his back to the wall. He had been assigned to kill a man and couldn't face it. Sobbing, feeling doomed and desperate, he found Laura alone in the disco late, drew her into a gesture of sympathy. Only when his passion went out of control did she panic and fight him--and then it was too late. His terrible pain had touched her and she was too naive to sense the danger. It was sex without consent and to Laura that made it rape. The officer who found her alone and distraught in the park assumed it was rape.

Luke was horrified, a basket case of remorse over what he had done to the girl he loved. He even told her to name him. On one level he felt he deserved punishment, on another he was calculating to gain her sympathy for the guilt he was suffering.

Luke had jarred Laura out of her self-absorption, made her aware of another person's needs. A new bride, only seventeen, she was frightened and confused by the feelings Luke had aroused. She fought them by heaping scorn upon him, yet she lied about the rape to protect both Luke and herself, and she returned to work at the disco to allay any suspicion. She couldn't name him; to do so would have exposed her own guilt.

Then Laura inadvertently got in the way of Luke's "hit" and thus saved his life. This, and the rape, were the two bizarre events that forged the bond between them.

The rape had affected them all, but particularly Scotty, who seemed pantingly curious about the details, and discussed the business with everyone all over town. He badgered Laura for the truth, took her emotional temperature every twenty minutes, called his friends to baby-sit with her when he couldn't be with her.

Laura was driven to Luke, the one person who didn't treat her as if she were a feeble-minded child, who expected nothing, whose love was without conditions. They could talk, and neither had exactly been garrulous in the past. "What is this?" he wondered, after he told her about his mother, "I've never been able to talk about personal matters with anyone in my life before, but it's easy with you."

The two took out a kind of unconscious ownership on each other and we began to see that territorial instinct that was so strong in Luke's nature. He knew in his head Laura belonged to Scott, but his heart rejected it. "It's like another man has my woman," he told her, half in sorrow, half in outrage. He resented Scott, thought he was something of a jerk, yet treated him with a false friendliness and called him "Pal."

During this time, Luke ached with despair. He is a natural hugger and toucher, but strained to control this around Laura. He tended to spout Shakespeare while in his cups, was hard, cold, lethal in his business with Mr. Smith, yet dissolved in tears when told by Laura that she was not pregnant from the rape. His grief bewildered her; he was too volatile, too unpredictable for her to deal with and she couldn't admit the sexual pull that existed between them. She resolved to shut him out, to honor her obligations, keep up the fiction of a happy marriage, though by now she found Scott's concerned company less than tolerable.

Two incidents hampered this resolve: Laura overheard a meeting between Luke and Smith and learned about the Organization, and Luke, in an attempt to protect Laura from Smith's icy-eyed threats, found himself manuevered [sic] into an engagement to Smith's eager daughter Jennifer, who wanted him even if daddy had to buy him.

Luke's more callous ambitions were set aside in his need to keep Laura from harm. Then he picked up on something--Laura could be made jealous of Jennifer. His humble, apologetic manner faded. Afternoons he strolled into the college student lounge in a bomber jacket and Snoopy scarf, wearing an expression appropriate to either or both, and attempted to provoke, beguile or threaten Laura into revealing her feelings. The sexual tension zapped between them like electricity. "There's a reason for all this anger, yours and mine," he growled at her after a particularly nasty set-to, "and it's frustration!"

Frustration became his way of life. He stalked the disco like a trapped animal, swallowing booze and cursing his fate.

And his fast approaching wedding date had brought out the worst in Laura as well. Frantic, she had been threatening to tell Scotty about the rape and the Organization, which put Luke in a corner. He had to stop her and he decided the only way was to get her alone on Jennifer's sailboat and prove to Laura once and for all that she was in love with him. He had nothing more to lose.

On a sunny afternoon he brought Laura aboard and slithered into the cabin after her, calculating his chances. As usual he wasn't the soul of subtlety, but after a tense start, he got her into his arms, raising both their temperatures with hot kisses and murmurs of "Tell me you want me...tell me, tell me, tell me...." When she whispered, "Yes," he nearly passed out from pleasure, but recovered himself enough to deliver his point. "Now tell Scott that night in the disco was rape!" The rest of the afternoon he behaved like a smug bastard, playing it innocent as Scott and Jennifer joined them.

His victory was hollow; Laura admitted her need of him, said she wouldn't tell, but remained steadfast in her marriage. They agreed to stay apart, though it was a great strain on them both. When his wedding day dawned, all either could think of was the other, like two moony adolescents. Laura wrote Luke a farewell letter--a letter that fell into Scott's hands. Whimpering in the face of Scott's rage, Laura couldn't explain without defending Luke and this sent Scott straight to the wedding yacht to kill Luke.

Luke, meanwhile, had failed in his brave attempt to blackmail Smith into letting him out of the Organization. Smith was not so easily intimidated; he simply reminded Luke of his choices: marry Jennifer or die. Scott arrived minutes before the ceremony, slammed Luke into the flower-bedecked altar and subsequently overboard.

Luke was assumed dead, but he had been rescued by Laura. Together they stole a little black book--the Organization's bible--from Smith's office and holed up at that sleazy motel, full of plans to break the book's code and destroy Smith and the whole mob.

Having Laura all to himself brought out Luke's clownish charm. That evening they were locked in a department store and planning to have one glorious night, though they knew Smith's hit man lurked somewhere. They dressed in glamorous formal garb, opened champagne, danced all over the store. However, Luke overestimated Laura's capacity for champagne and Astaire twirls and she passed out on him in the middle of a passionate kiss. Unfortunately, by morning she had had second thoughts about breaking her marriage vows.

When they found the store's night watchman dead, they knew the hit man was too close and they fled Pt. Charles, settling in the tiny farm community of Beecher's Corners. There they found jobs as cook and waitress at a truckstop diner and a room at a farmhouse owned by a nice couple called the Whittakers. Laura was bemused by Luke's sudden bumpkin's accent and the tales he so readily spinned about the two of them being honeymooners named Lloyd and Lucy Johnson. Sometimes he goes a little fast for her, but she was learning.

She was also learning about Luke. Impulsive, mercurial, wildly romantic on the one hand, he can be petty, bitchy, bossy, and ridiculously jealous on the other--and nearly irresistible. Laura insisted Luke sleep on the chaise in their room, while she took the bed. Luke prodded the reluctant Laura with provocative insinuations. He could make choosing a piece of chicken sound suggestive ("I like breasts!") and after announcing he was sleeping in the buff, he added, "If you have to get up in the middle of the night, be sure and peek, Baby--I got nothin' to hide!"

He could also get caught in his own games. When, one sultry afternoon, they were alone in the barn, he came on to her like a wily weasel and nearly set himself and the haystack afire with his hot glances and hotter kisses. Laura knew she loved him, but she was still too worried about becoming what Scotty had called her: a tramp. She wanted to be legally free before she bedded down with Luke.

They befriended the dishwasher at the diner, a lonely young drifter named Hutch (Rick Moses), who appeared to be as uncomplicated and friendly as a puppy. Luke, with the suspicion born of years on the street, didn't trust Hutch readily. "He's too smooth, he reminds me of me," Luke said, trying to explain his uneasiness. Hutch attached himself to them and when the Pt. Charles police came seeking them, they ran from Beecher's Corners, taking the guitar-toting Hutch with them as their ally.

By the time they found jobs in Fair Oaks, the town where they hoped to find a mysterious mob figure called the Left-Handed Boy, Laura could only cling to Luke adoringly, helplessly, trusting him to find a way out of the danger. She was more burden than support, and though Luke appreciated her declarations of love, he knew he must keep her out of the action. In one catastrophic night, Luke learned their female employee, Sally, was really a hit man named Max, and their trusted buddy Hutch was also a hit man who tagged along thinking they would lead him to a cache of gold.

When Hutch took Laura hostage as barter, Luke turned as grim and chilling as in his old days with the mob, plotting with Sally/Max to "put that dude in a drawer," in exchange for the gold. A dawn shootout left Max dead, Hutch wounded, and Luke and Laura roaring back to Beecher's Corners on a "borrowed" motorcycle, their mission accomplished and the decoded black book in the mail on its way to the Pt. Charles' [sic] authorities.

Joyously, they celebrated their triumph with a rapturous night of love-making. Luke even allowed himself to wonder what Laura's doctor mother would think of him as a son-in-law, a matter he didn't like to dwell upon before. Actually, neither had been very realistic about the future; Luke had dreamed of ticker-tape parades and cushy jobs while Laura, like Scarlett O'Hara, had put off thinking at all because she dreaded the scandal that awaited her at home. Like two happy children, they teased, pledged love, made promises. Luke failed to pick up on Laura's fears. He played out their fantasy to the last, exchanging mock wedding vows over a cigar band ring find assuring her they could face anything together.

The fantasy was wiped out the moment they entered the Pt. Charles police station. Paralyzed with shock, Laura couldn't bear up under the loud, nasty insinuations of the press and before a roomful of family and reporters, she denied their love and asked for Scott.

Luke was destroyed by her betrayal. Taken into jail on protective custody, he squatted in his cell looking like a woebegone collie abandoned at the pound by his mistress. That long, sad nose poked out between the bars, quivering at the sound of someone coming, but it was never his lady. He was suicidal, throwing childish tantrums and demanding to be released, though he was warned the mob was waiting to get him. Hearing that Scott had left town and Laura wanted to see him, he assumed the worst. "So--the prince left her and now the princess is ready to swim the damned moat to get back to the toad!" he yelled.

No one could help him. He was convinced Laura was ashamed of him because of his background. When he was released, he went Elm Street with a vengeance, sitting around Ruby's place unshaven, trashing the big chocolate cake she had baked for his homecoming. The notion of rewards, of job offers, proved to be a big joke. He was notorious and no one would hire him but Rose Kelly (Loanne Bishop), who owned a waterfront diner.

As he began a slow recovery, embarrassment set in. That he, the tough Elm Street kid, could have made such a fool of himself, could have been vulnerable enough to be betrayed by a maid in her teens--could have fallen victim to his own fantasy of love! He couldn't discuss it with anyone. He was determined to go after his original dream of money and power.

Laura, meanwhile, realized minutes after her betrayal just what she had done and was cured forever of living her life by others' opinions. She set out to apologize to Luke and make things right, having always found that saying she was sorry meant forgiveness in the past. This time it didn't work. Luke evaded her and when she finally cornered him, he rejected her tearful little apology and she was left as devastated as he had been.

Laura had matured during her long, eventful summer and instead of caving in, she recognized what had happened to her in Fair Oaks and resolved never to be that spineless again. She got a job, a cheap apartment, refused all help. She knew she could be strong, resourceful, independent, and she hoped to prove to Luke she is the grown-up woman he needs...

Next month: The winter of Luke and Laura's discontent-and the entrance of the Ice Princess