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1960 was not exactly the golden age of feminism. As you are likely to have noticed when reading these stories, women are generally referred to as “girls” and those under the age of fifty or so are normally described mainly in terms of their physical attributes and not much else. Those were the conventions of the era, not just in commercial fiction but in everyday discourse, and it would not have occurred to me back then to rebel against them. But the crime-fiction magazines of the 1950s were tough stories about tough people pushed into extreme situations, and some of those people were women, as in the case of this one, a self-described “girl” who showed that she could take care of herself. I wrote the story in July, 1959 and it appeared in the March, 1960 issue of Guilty, as by Dirk Clinton.
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YOU DON’T OWN ME
Johnny didn’t want Ella to be going out with any other man!
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Johnny had it all figured out. If his girl Ella didn’t stop seeing that other fellow, that Nelson fellow, Johnny was going to kill both of them. Nelson and Ella both. It would be just like you read about in the papers all the time. Jealous teenager slays girlfriend and his rival.
He didn’t care what happened to him after that. Maybe he’d get away with it, maybe he wouldn’t. But he couldn’t go on this way. It was tearing him apart to have to sit home while Ella was out with that other guy.
He put it to her straight that Friday night, just at the end of their date. He was seeing her on Friday this time because she had promised Saturday to that Nelson guy. It was going to be the first time in over a year that Johnny hadn’t been with her on a Saturday night.
He had kept it all locked inside him throughout the evening. They had gone to the movies, like they usually did, and they had held hands like always, and Ella had even let him feel her up a little, also like always. Just an ordinary date. Ella didn’t seem to see anything much wrong with dating two guys at the same time, even with kissing them and letting them go farther than that sometimes.
But after the movies, when they were sitting facing each other in the soda place, Johnny decided he had to give her the word. He stared across the booth at her. She was one hell of a good-looking girl. Seventeen, with big dark eyes and shiny jet-black hair. A looker. Tonight she was wearing the green sweater that pulled so tight over the full thrusting mounds of her breasts.
He said, “Ella, I gotta talk to you about something important.”
From the way her face quirked up, she seemed to know what he was going to talk about.
“I’m listening,” she said.
“It’s about tomorrow night. I want you to break a date with him.”
“I don’t break any dates with anybody once I make them.”
“It’s Saturday night. It’ll be the first Saturday night all year that we won’t be together.”
Ella shrugged. “He was bothering me for weeks about a Saturday date. So I finally let him have one. What’s the matter—you have to be a hog?”
“Saturday’s special.”
“It’s just a night of the week.”
“It’s special. Ella, I don’t want you seeing that guy tomorrow night.”
Anger blazed in her dark eyes. “You don’t, huh? Since when do you own me?”
“You don’t get it. It’s killing me, having you go out with that creep at all. I stay home and it pulls me apart. I go out of my mind.”
She laughed. “You’re too possessive, Johnny. Why can’t you relax?”
“Not while you’re dating somebody else.”
“We’ve been through this a million times,” she said. “When I’m ready to go steady, I’ll go steady. Meantime I don’t want to tie myself up with any one fellow. I see you twice as often as I see him, anyway.”
“That isn’t good enough. I don’t go out with other girls—why should you see anybody else at all?”
“I told you I wouldn’t mind if you saw other girls on the nights I’m out with him.”
“No, dammit! I don’t want to see other girls, and I don’t want you dating him! I want it to be just us. You and me.”
She shrugged. “You’ll have to be patient, then. When I’m ready, I’ll say yes. You’re going to mess things up if you keep on nagging me like this, Johnny.”
He clenched his fists. “I made up my mind. You break that date with him or I’ll do something desperate, Ella.”
“You threatening me?”
“I’m just telling. I want to go steady with you. I want you to keep away from that creep.”
“Don’t call him a creep. And don’t tell me what you want. You don’t own me, Johnny.”
“I’m nuts about you.”
“I can’t help that,” Ella said. “But you’ve got to learn not to be jealous. Let’s change the subject, huh?”
“No. I want an answer. Are you going to quit seeing him and go out with me tomorrow night?”
“No.”
“I’m warning you, Ella—”
She rose suddenly. “I told you not to threaten me. I’ll date anybody I damn please. Good night, Johnny.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Wait. I’ll take you home,” he said, desperate now that he saw he was losing the argument.
“Never mind. It isn’t far. I can take care of myself.”
“It isn’t safe.”
“Never mind, I said. And never mind calling me any more, either.” She fumbled with something at her wrist, pulled it loose, tossed it down on the table with a clatter. She flounced out.
Johnny looked down at the table. Her charm bracelet was lying there. The bracelet he had given her a long time ago.
That meant they were through.
–
He sat numbly at the table for a while, staring without interest at the half-finished sundae in front of him. After a while he scooped the charm bracelet up, dropped it into his pocket, paid the check and slouched out of the soda joint.
It was a warm, muggy night. He walked slowly up the avenue toward his house, five blocks away.
He wasn’t surprised the argument had turned out the way it had. He had more than half-expected it to end up like this. Ella was a stubborn girl, a girl with a backbone and guts. That was what he liked so much about her. He figured she wouldn’t back down. But he hadn’t had any choice.
And now she had broken up with him. It had been coming a long time. When they first started going together, they had really hit it off big. For maybe a month or two neither of them had dated anybody else. But then things started to cool a little. He was still her special fellow but she began dating her old boyfriends again.
And then this new geek, this Fred Nelson. He had a good job and plenty of money to throw around, and Ella was obviously impressed. At first she dated him once or twice a month—in the middle of the week, usually. Then it started to get more frequent. And now he rated a Saturday night. Johnny had known that it was the beginning of the end for him, when Ella gave somebody else a Saturday night date.
He felt quite calm. He knew exactly what he had to do now.
He had lost Ella. But nobody else was going to have her.
He had a knife. He hadn’t used it in two or three years. He’d been pretty wild when he was around fourteen or fifteen, but now he was off that gang stuff. He still had the knife, though. It was a switchblade with nice fast action. He kept it hidden in his room, under a pile of shirts in his dresser.
Tomorrow he would use the knife. On Ella and on Fred Nelson. After that, he would take his chances. If they caught him, well, too bad. They’d send him to the chair, maybe. But life wouldn’t be worth much without Ella, anyway.
And if they didn’t catch him—well, then maybe he’d forget her and find somebody new after a while. At least he wouldn’t have to go through the rest of his days knowing that Ella was dating someone else, Ella was getting married to someone else, Ella was sleeping with somebody else, having somebody else’s children.
He came to the rundown apartment house where he lived. It was only eleven o’clock. The earliest he had come home from a date in years.
He took out his key and pushed the door open. His mother was still up, sitting in the living room watching a television program. She looked up in surprise when she saw him walk in.
“You’re early tonight.”
He shrugged. “I was feeling pretty tired, Ma. So I decided not to make a big night out of it.”
“Wasn’t Ella annoyed?”
“Nah,” he said. “She didn’t feel like living it up either. So we called it a night early.”
“You sure you aren’t sick, Johnny?”
He shook his head. “Just tired, Ma. I think I’ll sack out now.”
–
He went on into his room, turned on the light, closed the door. His mother was suspicious. She didn’t know that Ella was dating anybody else. Johnny hadn’t been able to tell her anything so humiliating. She had some vague idea that her son and Ella were practically engaged, and she liked that idea. Ella was a cool kid, a lot smarter than her seventeen years. Johnny’s mother had been very impressed with her.
Johnny had mentioned that he was staying home on Saturday night. Ella was having a cousin come in from Chicago, that was the excuse he had given. He hated having to lie to his mother, but he didn’t want to tell her that Ella was ditching him.
Squatting by his dresser, Johnny pulled out the bottom drawer and extended a groping hand under the pile of shirts. The hand closed on cold metal. He took the knife out. These days he didn’t look at it more than once or twice a year. He would take it out and polish it up a little, and put it back in its hiding place.
He pressed the button. The deadly blade came licking out. He flicked his finger along the cutting edge, nodding admiringly. The knife would slice through flesh and bone like so much butter.
He hadn’t used the knife too much even in his wild days. He had carried it a lot, and on the one rumble he’d been in he had cut somebody up with it. But not seriously. He’d never been the killing type of teenager. There had been two or three knife-stands, but always it was first blood that ended the duel, never a fight to the finish.
But now, he knew, he’d be finding out what it was like to kill.
With loving care he closed up the knife and put it away safely. He heard his mother switch off the light in her bedroom.
Time to go to sleep, he thought.
He undressed, washed up, got into bed. It was just before midnight when he closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, he thought.
Tomorrow he would teach Ella that she couldn’t get away with dumping him.
–
He slept late. His mother was already up, and out to the store to do her Saturday morning marketing. Johnny made breakfast for himself and cleaned up.
Afterward, he went out to take a walk around. He killed time by figuring out just how he was going to do it.
Nelson would be taking her to the movies, nine chances out of ten. They’d be making the 8:30 show, be getting out around midnight. Then out for some refreshments, and then they’d come home. Johnny knew that Nelson didn’t have a car. So all he had to do was wait around in front of Ella’s place from midnight on, and jump them when they came strolling along.
He decided he would get Nelson first. Cut him up, let Ella see her new boyfriend lying stretched out on the ground. Let her squirm a little. Then slice her too. Vividly, in his mind’s eye, he pictured the way he would cut her. Slash her in the belly, first. Then cut her throat. Then finish her off by sticking the knife deep between those big heavy breasts of hers.
And after that, he’d beat it. It was a quiet neighborhood and there wasn’t even a street lamp within half a block of her house. If he was lucky and nobody did any yelling, he could get clear. He would go over to the river and toss the knife in. It would sink down into the mud at the bottom: the cops wouldn’t find it if they dredged for half a million years.
Then he would go home and quietly go to sleep. In the morning the papers would shriek out the awful news. Double slaying, teenage girl and her date killed on the girl’s doorstep. Knife-wielder sought. Police believe the work to be that of juvenile delinquents.
They would probably question him, of course, since he was known around as a close friend of Ella’s. He would have to do something about an alibi, in case they asked him where he was at the time of the killing. He thought it over for a couple of hours without coming up with anything satisfactory. Finally he decided simply to rely on his mother. She was a sound sleeper, and she didn’t hear too well. He would hang around the house until she went to bed, around eleven. Then he would slip out and head over to Ella’s street. She would never know he had gone, and she would swear up and down that he had been in bed all night.
–
They watched television together. Johnny and his mother. The evening dragged woefully along. Around half past ten, his mother started yawning.
“I’m going to bed,” she announced.
“Me, too,” Johnny said. “I’ll get in bed by eleven. It’ll do me some good to grab a nice long night of shut-eye.” She busied herself inside, getting ready for bed. He made sure that she saw him en route to his own bedroom before she went to sleep. By eleven, her light was out.
He sat around, fidgeting, until half past eleven. She was certainly asleep by this time. And the movie was still going on. There was no rush about any of this. He felt very calm, very cool.
He took the knife from its drawer, slipped it into his pocket, and tiptoed through the darkened apartment without awakening his mother. He went downstairs and out through the basement exit, so none of the other tenants would see him and thus be able to puncture the slim alibi he had.
He went down sidestreets and back alleys until he reached Ella’s place. It was just before midnight. He didn’t know how long he would have to wait. Hours, maybe. He started to pace up the block, down the other side, keeping in the shadows, making sure nobody saw him. He kept his eyes open for cops, too.
The street was quiet. The night ticked along. Twelve-thirty. Quarter to one. One. One-thirty.
Where were they? Johnny pictured them nestling up in that fellow’s room, and his eyes blazed with anger. He was sure Ella was cheating on him. She had never let him go all the way with her, but he was willing to bet she had done it with that other fellow. His anger rose. All these weeks, she had been talking lovey-dovey to him, and at the same time she had been doing things with that other fellow—
They were coming.
Now.
Johnny sank back into the shadows on the opposite side of the street. They were coming along now, arms around each other’s waists. Real buddy-buddy. He drew his breath in sharply, feeling the hatred mount, until he yearned to plunge the knife into Ella’s faithless body again and again and again, to trample her pretty face into a mucky pulp.
He realized he still loved her. And she scorned him. The only way to save himself was to destroy his love—by destroying Ella.
–
He plotted out how he would do it. He would wait until they had passed him on the other side of the street. Then he would draw the knife and come running across diagonally. He would come up behind Nelson, who was walking on the gutter side of the street.
It would all be quick, Johnny thought. He would snake his left hand over Nelson’s mouth to bottle up any shout. With his right hand, he would rapidly drag the keen blade through the fellow’s throat. He would be dead inside of seconds. And then he could take care of Ella, making it a little more lingering—but not so lingering that she lasted until help came, and would be able to name her attacker.
Johnny smiled savagely. His heart was thundering. This was a big moment, he thought. Killing Ella would almost be like making love to her. Making love with his knife. Slicing deep into her soft, tender, beautiful body. He would have his revenge.
His muscles tensed.
Now! He thought.
He sprang out of his dark recess, loping swiftly across the street. The first part of the attack went off precisely as he had worked it out. He was across the street before their heads began to turn. He reached out, snaking his left hand over Nelson’s left shoulder, clamping it down over his lips. He reached around with the knife, jammed it easily into the far side of the man’s throat, and with a quick wrist-twist brought the blade around.
Nelson gargled something unintelligible and went sagging to the pavement.
Johnny turned to give his attention to Ella now. But, as he turned, he felt with sudden astonishment a white-hot burst of pain in his side. Startled, he looked down, saw Ella withdrawing a knife from his body. Blood was gushing out. He tried to cover the gash with his hand. He felt weak and watery-legged, and he didn’t have the strength to thrust with his own blade.
“You...stabbed me,” Johnny said thickly. He was swaying unsteadily. Ella loomed up in front of him, her eyes glittering like cold marbles.
“I figured you’d try something like this,” she hissed. “I saw murder in your eyes last night. So I carried a knife tonight. To defend myself.”
“You...stabbed...me,” he repeated, uncomprehending.
“You were too fast, Johnny. You got Fred before I saw you. But at least you’ll pay the price.”
She lifted the knife again.
“No,” he muttered.
“You always liked me because you said I was a girl who could take care of herself,” she said. “Well, I am.”
“Don’t, Ella...don’t...”
The blade swept inward. Johnny felt burning agony sear through his chest. He heard the tinny tinkle of his own knife dropping to the pavement, and the next moment he had fallen to his knees and was looking down at the dark pools of his blood below him.
He tried to speak, to tell her that he had acted out of jealousy, out of love. But no words came.
And he heard her say mockingly, “You thought you owned me, Johnny. But you were wrong. You were dead wrong.”
She laughed. And plunged the knife into his throat.