Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 3, March, 1953

Teaser by William Lindsay Gresham

She was strange — passionate one minute and aloof and cold the next. It was almost as though there were two different women inside her beautiful body.

Many men went out with Gerry Massingham. And when, apparently on the threshold of surrender, she suddenly seemed to change and stopped them, they realized that they could go just so far and no farther with her. They responded in a remarkably uniform fashion. First their faces registered desperation and something like hatred. Then they sulked. Then they got control of their dignity and would chat in a civilized manner for a few minutes. Then they went home, promising to phone her. Only they never did.

There were, in secret, two Gerrys... Warm Gerry and Cold Gerry. Sometimes, when a man had gone, Warm Gerry would take over, and she would start to rush out toward the hall to remind him that he had left his pipe, or his scarf — anything to bring him back. But then Cold Gerry would take over and stop her, freeze her hand on the doorknob.

The other girls in the office did not suspect that there were two Gerrys. Warm Gerry was always turned on there, and the girls envied her looks, her poise and her small, beautifully decorated apartment. She would smile inwardly when one of the girls came home with her. Gerry could see what was going through the girl’s mind — that Gerry was a femme fatale and had a tremendous life.

Only Cold Gerry, deep inside, knew how austere and cool and disciplined was the life led between these walls, painted contrasting shades of chartreuse and dark green... beside the lucite coffee table with its gleaming copper, and the ivy which twined up the piece of driftwood Gerry had brought back from the Cape one summer.

The beige rug matched the two beige chairs and the deep, inviting sofa. And in Gerry’s small bedroom the fiercely feminine simplicity and delicacy of the lampshade beside her single bed would have warned any man of real sensitivity that Gerry was a devoted spinster and there was no Bachelor Girl in her anywhere.

“Cold Gerry” was her own term for herself in a self-protective mood. It had grown into an affectionate term. “Warm Gerry” was affectionate, too. Because that was the side the world knew and admired, and it was Warm Gerry who had the men clustered about her at office parties.

In all her experience, Gerry Massingham met only three men who did not have the typical reaction of pain, desperation, sulks and vanity-saving flippancy at the end. Their names were Clarke Trowbridge, Dr. Immanuel Fein and Joe McAllister.

Warm Gerry had felt drawn to Clarke first of all because of the way his damp, dust-colored hair fell over his forehead. He stammered slightly when he was excited or deeply moved and music could make him practically speechless. Holding Gerry’s hand at a concert he would quiver with intensity when the music swept into some intricacy which he, she knew from his feverish, long bursts of confidence, was always trying to reach in his own work.

“Maybe I’m too eager,” he said, sitting in the little cellar restaurant on the last night she ever went out with him. “But something in me says I’m licked before I get there. Look, Gerry — the themes are all around me. They pop out of nowhere. And I can hear the development of them. But when I get to staff paper... the flatness of it; the coldness of it... would you like another Martini, Gerry? I’d like one. Have another to keep me company, Gerry. Please do.”

Gerry had another Martini and her face in the candlelight kept its gentle little smile of sympathy; her eyes, which were a brilliant blue, now looked smoky grey in the yellow light of the candle.

Clarke swept his hair back from his eyes and drank down the Martini in a gulp.

“You’re going to get drunk, Clarke,” Gerry said, Warm Gerry speaking with the sweet, husky voice. She knew that candlelight threw the bones of her face into exquisite shadows and she knew that the darkness of her hair had golden highlights in it. She saw in the drawn face of Clarke Trowbridge how enchanting she seemed to him. And she felt guilty inside, for Cold Gerry reminded her that she was not enchanting, not at all in the way men wanted, not really, deep inside.

Cold Gerry often told Warm Gerry that she was a fraud. But there was little real animosity between the two Gerrys. One got her the eye-worship she needed to feel comfortable and the other defended her fortress of resolution and the life she had laid out for herself. Cold Gerry, that is, had laid it out years ago.

Clarke wiped his hair out of his eyes again. “Gerry — let’s get out of here. That sonata tonight — you see, that is sort of what I’m trying to do. And while Braunstein is playing I make believe that I’ve written it. And I can hear one of my own themes going in and out of it. Then the applause at the end comes for me, sort of. That’s how I pretend. Do you understand, Gerry?”

Her smile was warm.

When she opened the door of the apartment her gloved finger found the light switch and there it was, waiting for her, her fortress — the contrasting walls, the lucite table. And in the darkness of the bedroom was the chaste single bed and the lamp with its virginal, alabaster-like shade.

Clarke sank onto one end of the sofa and Gerry pulled up the big Venetian blind which hid the kitchenette side of the living room. She broke out ice cubes and silently poured gin and vermouth into the mixer, twirling it with a bar spoon. Clarke watched her. She was tall, with lovely shoulders and narrow hips, in her black skirt and snowy, low-cut blouse. She set the glass before him and poured. A small one for herself, said Cold Gerry, smiling deep inside.

She knew that Clarke was working up to demanding.

She took the chair with the high arms. Cold Gerry had chosen it, thinking, “They’ll try to scoop you out of it like a clam from its shell. Between its high arms you are safe, able to think and say the things you have to say at such times, Gerry. You’ll be able to block their selfishness in such a chair; it’s like a fortress around you.”

Now Clarke reached for the Martini mixer and filled his glass again. “Gerry...” They always begin with your name, in tormented tones. “Gerry... you must see, you must know... I’m so devilish clumsy with words. I mean, I need a catalyst. In my work, I mean. I know if you married me now you’d still have to work. For a while. But Gerry — I won’t go on teaching harmony to kids all my life. I’ll write stuff and get it performed. You’ll see. I need you, not just for my music, but... just for my life. I just... just need you. So bad.”

“Maybe what you really need is another Martini and then to go home and get a good night’s rest.” Gerry crushed the tiny olive against the roof of her mouth with her tongue. “I’ve told you, Clarke, that I’m not a marrying woman.”

“But you love me, Gerry. You wouldn’t see me so often if you didn’t.”

This was it. He was sitting on the floor now, rubbing his cheek against the fabric of her skirt where it was stretched tight over her thigh. He slid his hands between her and the high arms of the chair, clutching her. Gerry let her free hand float over his head and come to rest on the back of his neck. “I’m afraid I’ve given you the wrong ideas, Clarke,” Cold Gerry said, speaking still with Warm Gerry’s voice. “Really, I’m not such a nice person if you get to know me.”

Clarke’s mouth drew into the familiar lines of desperation. “Get to know you! Gerry — remember the time the stadium concert was rained out and we ducked into a doorway? Remember how you kissed me then? Gerry... have you forgotten that I’ve kissed you... touched you...?”

He scrambled awkwardly to his feet and gripped her hands. She lay back in the chair; his feet slipped as he tugged, drawing her to her feet. This time when his lips found hers the insistence of his mouth met the mouth of Cold Gerry, sweet, cool, remote, smiling a little at the corners.

She did not draw away from his hands. Instead, she stood like a statue of Diana, lovely and unattainable, and watched the sweat streak its way down his gaunt temple.

“Gerry — my God, don’t you realize what this does to a man?”

“You’d better go now, Clarke.” Cold Gerry spoke in her own voice, with no interference from that dazzling, melting, bitch-in-heat Warm Gerry. “No, Clarke, you mustn’t misunderstand me. There is no room in my life for sex. I decided long ago that I must go one way or the other. If I gave in I would end in the gutter. I have my own standards. And nothing you say or do can change me in the least.” She drew breath and went on more softly, “Please go now.”

The words sounded archaic, out of the past generation, as if they came from an old play.

He was on his knees now before her, pressing against her, and she found it necessary to disengage his hands and push him away abruptly. She was waiting for the sulks and then the face-saving attempt to be very Noel Coward, very sophisticated, very sporting. Instead he disintegrated. Cold Gerry stepped back in disgust. The thing on the beige rug was a sickening infant.

“Please leave, Clarke!” she said sharply.

Now he was sitting, his hands before his face, sitting with his long legs spread out like a child in a sand pile.

At last he gazed up at her out of tormented, colorless eyes. He gagged twice as if he were going to be sick, and Gerry felt a twinge of alarm for the rug, but he struggled to his feet and lurched into the hall. She followed him, tall, regal and remote. Warm Gerry fought her way forward for an instant to lay a hand on his arm, steadying him. “Sorry, Clarke.” Then Cold Gerry had the upper hand again. “But I warned you when we first met that I was a disappointing woman. Now you know.”

At the door he turned. Now would come the good loser, the flippancy, and all would end on a proper note. But it didn’t. “I ought to knock you down and pull the clothes off you,” he said. “Only you know I won’t. You’re just a teaser. That’s what you are. Do you hear me? Just a teaser. A lousy teaser.” His voice had risen until it cracked ludicrously. Cold Gerry could barely keep herself from laughing in his face.

“You... you made me think you wanted me,” the man’s voice went on, in a lower key with more control. “All right, I’ve learned. You don’t have to worry about me saying anything about you. I won’t talk. I won’t ever mention your name again. Not even to myself, I won’t. You tear a man into bloody chunks and then you want to be civilized and... and... oh, go to hell!”

He fumbled with the door catch and Gerry had to work it for him and open the door. She closed it softly behind him and stood listening until the elevator rose, stopped, opened, closed and descended.

Then Warm Gerry filled her and she pressed her forehead against the cool metal of the apartment door. The tears went sliding down her face until Cold Gerry, indignant, pushed her back, back, far back in the mind, saying harshly, “Be careful, you fool. He may come stumbling back. Don’t open the door. Don’t open the door. Get in the shower and turn on the water so you can’t hear the doorbell. You fool, some day you will be lost.”

But Clarke Trowbridge did not come back. That night he took twenty-eight sleeping capsules. And when Gerry read about it in the paper the next morning, Warm Gerry cried, the silly tears making her eyes red. Life was so hard on sensitive people.

Dr. Immanuel Fein’s hands on the wheel and the gearshift lever had a sureness of touch that made Gerry feel safe and well-taken-care-of. He slid his big convertible into the parking bay; under the full moon, rolling hills lay silvery with the night. Then he cut the motor and the lights and drew on the hand brake.

Gerry untied her scarf and ran her hands through her hair, shaking it out. She took a deep breath and leaned back against the upholstery, watching the stars. The summer wind brought back memories of evenings at home, the hammock on the front porch and boys who talked softly in the darkness, and a group of kids singing close harmony. Gerry remembered her own contralto among them and sighed.

Dr. Fein took off his glasses and placed them on the dashboard shelf. He let his arm slide around her waist; Gerry drew another breath and leaned toward him. She felt the exciting hardness of the muscle in his arm as he held her closer. His lips touched her hair at the temple. And his voice whispered, “Darling.”

She made a contented little sound. Warm Gerry thrilled to Manny’s touch. His breath quickened. “I wanted to bring you out here, Gerry,” he said softly. “On an evening when there was a moon. I’ve often stopped here when I was alone and wished a girl like you was with me. And now you’re here.”

Her lips found the hollow of his throat. “I’m here.”

His arms tightened. Warm Gerry let her hand slide up to find his cheek. Without his glasses the sternness left him. He was really a very handsome man. And it was sweet being with him under moonlight. And safe. Safe here with other cars nearby. Manny would do nothing to alarm her. Only the sweet things which stirred her and in a strange way satisfied her, tingling all over, in a way no man could understand.

At last he took his mouth from hers. “Want to ask you something Gerry. Same old question. Why not marry me? Don’t have to wear a ring. Don’t have to change your name. Or give up your apartment. Or your job. Let’s just go along together... always. Say, ‘Yes.’ ”

“Manny, darling — mustn’t ask me that.”

“But you like seeing me?”

She dug her nails into the muscle of his arm.

“Want... want to go back to your place?”

“Anywhere you want to go, Manny.”

He was silent on the drive home, manipulating the car expertly with his left hand. His right she kept prisoner between her own and when he tightened his fingers her own replied.

In the vestibule of the apartment house she turned. This time his hands were demanding and his lips hard. Cold Gerry, who had been waiting with that marble patience which was her strength, pushed Warm Gerry aside and Manny was kissing Cold Gerry instead. He recoiled. “Gerry, hon — what’s the matter?”

“Nothing, Manny. It’s been a very pleasant evening. Now you must let me go.”

“It’s early, Gerry. Let’s have some coffee and a cigarette together.”

She shook her head. “Too late.”

He seized her in his arms, crushing his mouth against hers, and Warm Gerry fought, whimpering and clawing, to get through to him and give herself to him and let him hurt her the way women have always let men hurt them. Cold Gerry had a tussle with her but managed to push her out and hold her away.

“I don’t get it,” Manny said hoarsely at last. “Gerry — do you realize we’ve had four dates in the past week? You do care for me. I couldn’t get my signals crossed after... I just don’t get it.”

Then Cold Gerry spoke. “No, Manny. You mustn’t misunderstand me. There is no room in my life for sex. I decided long ago that I must go one way or the other. If I gave in I would end in the gutter. I have my own standards. And nothing you say or do can change me in the least.” Like words from an old play. She drew breath and went on more softly, “Please go now.”

Dr. Immanuel Fein had taken off his glasses when they entered the vestibule. Now he drew them from his pocket, opened them with a flip and put them on. His voice was detached, kindly and businesslike... a doctor’s voice. His fingers snapped suddenly beside her ear with a sound like a rifle shot.

“Who says that? Who taught you that speech?”

Gerry swallowed hard. Deep inside her Warm Gerry was screaming, “Mother says it! Mother! Mother! Let me out. Let me out to him. I want him to kiss me. I want him to have me. To have me, have me, have me. To hurt me and love me. Don’t listen to Mother. She’s dead. She’s dead.”

Cold Gerry smiled with one corner of her mouth. “Why... why I say it — Doctor Fein. Yes — I say it. Now, please, let’s say good night.”

But Dr. Fein had no intention of saying good night. He said, “Come out and sit in the car a minute, Gerry. I want to talk to you. For real.”

Cold Gerry smiled.

“If you wish. But only for a moment.”

“Sure. ‘Only a moment’ is all I need. If you can listen.”

He slid in first and then reached across her and closed the door softly. “Gerry — forget all about I ever proposed to you. Or touched you. All that stuff.”

“Yes?” Smiling faintly, smiling sweetly, statue of Diana, maiden goddess, chaste and fair.

“Now listen to me, kid. I’m not trying to sell you a bill of goods. I think you’re swell. I want to help you...”

Cold Gerry had met this I-want-to-help-you-type before, but it was just deceit to cover up what they really wanted. She listened coolly.

“I mean it. Gerry — let me ask you something and I want you to answer straight out, without taking time to think. Are there two of you?”

“How dare you!” Furiously she fumbled with the latch of the car door. “Let me out of this car before I have to start screaming for the police.”

She was standing on the curb. Manny’s voice pursued her. “Baby, you need help. Believe me. Helping people is my business. I know what I’m talking about. You don’t have to talk to me about it. I’ll give you the address of a woman doctor. I know a couple of good ones. If you can’t stand the tariff for office calls I’ll fix you up at the clinic. Dr. Rose Stillwell, she’s tops. You’d like her. Go tell her about whatever it is that’s tangling you up. Go tell her about this business of two Gerrys. Will you?”

“Good night, Dr. Fein.”

“Call me if you feel different about it. If you want to talk to somebody.”

She turned on her heel and moved, regal and remote, into the dark vestibule, hearing the soft purr of the car move off into the night behind her.

Manny even wrote her a note but it wasn’t the usual kind. He said, “... might get you into trouble, Gerry. You don’t have to see me again. Better not. But talk to Rose Stillwell. She’s a swell gal. You’d like her.”

Cold Gerry tore the note into small, small pieces and let them drift into the wastebasket. What a disgusting, self-assured animal lay under that handsome façade, she told herself, and felt equal disgust for the distant whimpering of Warm Gerry, locked into a closet of the mind.

Dancing with Joe McAllister was one of the strangest experiences which had ever happened to her. He couldn’t speak a sentence in correct English; he wore flashy suits and shirts and handpainted neckties — nudes. Yet the touch of his tough, calloused palm against hers, the hard sureness of his right hand against her waist, stirred her. Warm Gerry delighted in him. He was a wiry, hot-eyed man and had an odd way of looking over his shoulder as if expecting someone he knew to step out of a corner.

Back at their table he forgot to push her chair under her; Warm Gerry took pleasure in settling herself.

“You know something, sugar?” Joe said, jerking his head for the waiter to bring him another bour-bon-and-water. “We go together like fried catfish and hush puppies.”

Warm Gerry laughed, her throat slender and marble-like in the glow from the rose lampshade on their table. “Tell me some more things we’re like.”

He never seemed to smile, even when joking. “You’re like a million things, honey. All of ’em honey-sweet.”

“Tell me some.”

He drank the double bourbon in a gulp, swallowed a sip of water and reached across the table to grasp her hand. “Like something carved out of marble with a fire burning inside it.”

She squeezed the calloused hand, dark-tanned against the white table cloth. His eyes were black, and his head was as agile as a bird’s, turning to watch the other dancers, to watch the door of the dining room as if he were expecting to meet someone there, only he never saw anyone he knew.

“Go on, darling.”

“Why, sugar, you’re like summertime. After a hard winter. One of these northern winters, freeze you fit to die. You’re like moonlight down home and a whole lot of them little old swamp frogs, singing about the new year a-coming.”

She laughed again. “Now I’m like a swamp full of frogs. I’m learning a great deal about myself, going around with you, Mr. McAllister. You know, Joe — you’re the first strange man I ever spoke to in a bar. And I’m glad I did.”

He was standing and she was standing too. He had left a bill on the table and was taking her arm. The headwaiter watched them go, the girl tall, marble white and black-haired, the man flashy, quick, dark, and with that air about him which suggested a weapon held against the ribs of the world.

In the cab Joe started a long, rambling story. Warm Gerry was only half-listening, watching his face leap out of darkness as the cab passed the street lights, holding the slender, calloused hand tight between both of hers in her lap.

She was hardly aware of his paying the driver, and the story continued in the elevator, and then when her finger found the light switch and the chartreuse and green walls leaped out of darkness, she felt his hand, firm, warm, compelling, against her hip.

The story somehow came to an end and she didn’t notice. “I’m afraid I haven’t any bourbon, Joe. Will rye do?”

“It’s drinking whiskey, isn’t it, sugar?”

Gerry spun about with a start at a flash of light behind her. The bedroom, her own bedroom, temple of her devotion to a Way of Life she had chosen for herself, was violated by a rush of light.

Joe switched the light off again and when he saw her face he softened and nearly smiled. “Lookin’ for the little boys’ room, sugar.”

“Oh.” She went ahead of him, turning on the light.

When he came out she was seated in the chair with the high arms, sipping a Scotch and soda. Joe’s rye was on the coffee table and the table was between her and the sofa.

He picked up the drink and tossed it off, standing. Then he came over to her chair. Cold Gerry, self-contained, alert, in control, gazed up at him, a ghostly smile on the corners of the full-lipped, kissable mouth. Joe took her drink from her and placed it on the lucite table. Then he seized both her hands — the old, old routine — and hoisted her out of the chair to her feet. His hand twisted in her hair and bent her head down, holding it rigid. Then he kissed her.

The lips of Cold Gerry were sweet and remote, saying all that need be said to any man whose heart was making the big blood vessels at the side of his neck throb in the lamplight.

“Maybe you need a couple of quick straight ones, sugar,” he said, still keeping his hand in her hair.

She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have let you come up, Joe. It isn’t fair to you...”

He interrupted her. “I’m here, ain’t I?”

“But I’m afraid you misunderstand me. If you think...”

Frantically Warm Gerry was screaming in the closet of the mind, “Let me out. Let me out. Let me go to him. I’ll take off my clothes. I’ll let him bite my lips. I’ll have him — hurting me, hurting me — anything he wants.”

Cold Gerry drew in her breath. “Stop it, please, you’re hurting me.”

With a surge of alarm she found herself jolting down to a seat on the couch beside him. He had put a pillow at her back, swept her feet from the floor and was sitting beside her, his arms locked under her shoulders, his mouth near hers, his eyes black, burning, unwavering.

“Look here, sugar — we been together four nights running. And I haven’t bought you anything but liquor. I haven’t promised you presents or jewelry or anything. So it isn’t anything but me you want. You don’t have to act bashful any more. Just turn your mouth up and start kissing. Honey, we’re going to climb up that old Jadder to heaven and roost right on the stars.”

She struggled to sit up but he held her. Tight. Warm Gerry was sobbing, there at the back of the mind. Cold Gerry was never more herself and she was cold fury.

“Will you please let go of me, Mister McAllister?”

He shook his head a fraction of an inch. “Uh-uh.”

She strained against his hands and his fingers tightened on her shoulders, making her suck in her breath. “Joe, you’re hurting me.”

“Yep.”

Cold Gerry went limp and the smile curled the corners of her mouth. “Mr. Joe McAllister... I find you a most entertaining man. But you must realize something about me. There is no room in my life for sex. I decided long ago that I must go one way or the other. If I gave in I would end in the gutter...”

“Quit talking.”

She wrenched her mouth free of his. “Mr. McAllister... do I have to start screaming for the police?”

“You aren’t going to scream. You’re going to hush up and lay it on the line, baby. My name isn’t McAllister. No difference what my name is. I’m a man. Now you start being a woman.”

Gerry heard her own breath hissing between her teeth as she drew the air into her lungs. She heard her own voice, the words tumbling out, “There is no room in my life for sex. I decided long ago that I must go one way or another...”

Her vision blurred and her mouth had a salty taste. Then she knew that he had struck her a sharp, backhand blow across the mouth.

Gerry’s eyes were so wide now that white showed around the pupils. She found no words and words were Cold Gerry’s most deadly defense.

The man was speaking, “... so I done a stretch on the rockpile, just on account of one like you. And I’m not ashamed of it either. Be good and we’ll get along.”

Summoning all her strength, Gerry squirmed free and tore loose from his grip, her hair disheveled, her dress ripped under the arms, breathing heavily. “Leave this apartment at once. Before I call the police.”

He seized one of her hands and drew her toward him. She tripped over his foot and fell where he wanted her to fall — back on the beige sofa that matched the rug. Now he had her hands over her head, her thumbs imprisoned in his fist; as he tightened his hold the bones of her thumbs grated cruelly together. Then he relaxed the pressure, stopping the punishment but still keeping her body his prisoner.

“You aren’t going to get away with it, honey. Not this time. You seen me four nights running. You’re going to put out.”

The scream got to her lips but somehow couldn’t get past them. She felt the blood vessels of her throat pounding with great hammerlike blows and knew that his other hand was clamped on them, his iron fingers digging in. She felt one of her pumps come off as she kicked and she felt the sharp angle of his hipbone holding her down.

Cold Gerry seemed to burn with a bright flame that was as cold as ice.

“You got half a minute. Going to be a woman?”

And then it was an insane mixture, with Warm Gerry yielding and Cold Gerry fighting, and her wildness was so great that his own wildness grew, and he took a switch-knife from his pocket and pressed it into her back even as he fought to kiss her. And Warm Gerry surged in triumphant, free at last, as the light in her brain went out.

Even after the heart stopped beating, Warm Gerry lived on for a dozen long, ecstatic seconds, singing with fulfillment, feeling the man’s teeth meet in her lower lip...