The Ripper's Wife(31)

He never once looked at my face, he never saw the way I’d wince and weep, though I doubt it would have made any difference anyway. Maybe that’s why he preferred to take me from behind? It allowed him to feign blindness and pretend I enjoyed it.

I still mourn and miss the friend I lost that afternoon. It was as though the Edwin I knew and liked best had died and left behind a single-minded amorous identical twin to accost and bedevil me. And there was no one I could turn to for help. I couldn’t very well confide in Jim or Mrs. Briggs. With Edwin living right there in the house it was simply impossible to avoid him; to snub and cold-shoulder him in any noticeable fashion would only invite awkward questions. I lost so many things that day—the sanctity of my marriage, all the trust and love I had poured into it and thought I had been given in return, my children’s legitimacy, my self-respect, and my own respectability, the right to say with pride that I had always been a faithful wife. Then, as if that were not enough to lose all in one afternoon, I lost my best friend too. And the worst part is, if I had met him first, instead of Jim, I might have loved Edwin. I had loved him. And, by letting him have me, I had lost him forever.

Bent over the back of that chair, stifled by my tight-laced stays, blood rushing to my skirt-shrouded head, I felt as though I were sinking like a stone, drowning, like salt water was searing my nose, throat, and lungs. I felt that horrid heart-about-to-burst pounding. Then, all of a sudden, it was as though my head broke the surface, and I came up, gasping for air. I shoved Edwin away. Before I could say a word or slap his smiling face, the front door opened and I heard voices, Jim’s amongst them. I froze. Edwin turned his back and nimbly did up his trousers and slicked back his hair. I stumbled over my drawers, down around my ankles, and almost fell. I heard them rip, but I hadn’t time to fuss with hitching up all my many layers of skirts trying to pull them back up, so I snatched them off and stuffed them into the nearest vase and ran to the mirror above the mantel to put right my hair.

With all that had happened, I had quite forgotten that we were expecting guests for cards and dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Samuelson, the Carters, the Radcliffes, Dr. and Mrs. Drysdale, the Hammersmiths, the Dashmores, and, of course, Mrs. Briggs, and the poor man who had the misfortune to call himself her husband. It would be hours before I could talk to Jim in private. Hours in which I would have to smile and pretend and sit there in the parlor playing whist, stark naked under my skirts, aware every moment of the shameful wet heat between my thighs, with Edwin darting secret smiles across the table at me as though we really were lovers and what had passed between us actually meant something more than the end of our friendship.

I did it, but for the life of me I cannot tell you how. If you know the scandal that surrounds my name and are reading this hoping for a guidebook for discreet deceit within a marriage, to learn how a smart, sophisticated woman manages her secret amours, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that was never who I really was or ever wanted to be and I bungled it all so badly. Whatever you do, dear reader, do not pattern yourself after me! The only thing I can offer by way of instruction is my many mistakes, and you’re welcome to take what lessons you can from them.

I smiled and laughed, flirted and chattered like my old frivolous self, but I can’t recollect a single word I said or that was spoken to me. I only know it seems like I spent the entire miserable evening trying not to look at that Blue Willow vase into which I’d thrust my drawers but feeling my eyes drawn inexorably toward it, fearing that the others would notice and someone would rise to admire it, or the flowers within, and discover my guilty secret. I felt like the lovers of the Blue Willow legend, whom the gods had taken pity on and transformed into doves, were laughing at me, mocking my misery with every flap of their happy wings. Love, real love, just isn’t like a fable or a fairy story; the truth intrudes and makes it ugly every time.





Jim, calm and regal as a king in his red velvet dressing gown, with a glass of brandy and a cigar in hand, came in while I was sitting at my dressing table, brushing my hair. I instinctively pulled the gold-crusted bodice of my amethyst velvet dressing gown together over my b-reasts, the way I would if any man who was not my husband suddenly walked into my room while I was in a state of dishabille. My fingers fumbled over the gold buttons and I stumbled over the voluminous velvet folds pooled around my feet as I stood up and swung round to face him. My dressing gown was cut in a faux medieval style, with slashed-open sleeves hanging down long enough to trail the floor. I was always stumbling over it, but I loved wearing it. Jim said it was “a robe fit for a queen” when I modeled it for him, so he wouldn’t complain when the bill came. I needed all its majesty now to shore me up. I needed a queen’s cast-iron petticoat strength now more than ever before. My bare arms trembled, goose pimples rising, as I stood, braced against my dressing table, staring at Jim as though he were a snake.

He came toward me with a smile and bent to kiss me.

I pulled away. “Your wife came to see me today,” I said.

“My wife is right here,” Jim said, turning me around to face the mirror. He brushed the thick golden curtain of my hair aside, baring my neck, and pressed his lips hungrily to the pulse beating there. His fingers deftly undid my buttons and, in spite of my resolve to be strong, my nipples puckered. He lifted my breast out of my lilac silk nightgown and held it, cupped tenderly in his palm, caressing the nipple with his thumb, making my knees tremble.