[UA] Your Alex Abel.

[Gregory Paul Stolze]

	I'm curious about how the character of Alex Abel appears to all y'all on
the list.  Naturally, given the medium, there are going to be different
"versions" of Alex out there, and no one is more right than another (until
it hits, print, of course.)  So.  How would YOUR Abel respond to the
following situation?

	When Alex was back in college, he met a beautiful woman named Mona.  They
had a common interest in getting rich, but given their (then) very
conventional opinions about gender roles, Alex was interested in becoming a
millioniare, while Mona was more interested in marrying one.  They hit the
sack a number of times, but had a kind of acrimonious breakup when Mona
found an older, better established and more lucrative paramour.  That was
Alex and Mona in college, she hurt him bad and there wasn't anything he
could do about it.
	A little more than ten years after that (the very early 80s), Alex met
Mona again.  At this time, Alex was doing well, and was poised to become a
genuine robber baron.  Mona, however, was doing badly.  Her husband had
left her for this year's model, leaving her in the lurch and desperate.
She swallowed her pride and crawled back to Alex, flattering, seducing and
obliquely apologizing.  Alex was in a postition to help her a lot: instead,
he got his revenge.  He humiliated her, lorded his success over her, and
sent her packing with insults and a $5,000 payment, which he pointedly told
her was payment for the sex he'd gotten in college.  Having made her into a
whore, he thought he was done with her.
	This year she showed up again.  Like him, she's in her fifties - a well
preserved, stately woman.  He's gotten over his hurt.  Sometimes he's even
felt bad about how he treated her.  When Mona came back into his life in
1999, Alex hoped he might have a chance to make things right, but he didn't
really get a chance to put things on a good footing before Mona made her
offer.
	See, Mona was still in bad shape.  Still needed money, just like she had
back in the 80s, when she had was divorced, abandoned and pregnant.  (She
hadn't mentioned that detail when she was asking Alex for money then.)  She
needs money again, but this time she's got something to trade: her daughter
Ruby.
	Ruby is a rare beauty.  She's nineteen, intelligent, and ready to do
anything to help out her mother.  Anything.  Mona is willing to basically
sell her to Abel (a man she considers a callous bastard, and with some
reason).  
	What does Alex do?

-G. 
	
1899 Phrenologist: Your son has the sloping forehead of a sexual deviant:
better put him in an asylum.
1999 Gene Therapist: Your fetus has the "date rape" gene.  Better abort.