The Ripper's Wife(55)

My knife grated against bone. I worked and worried at it, sawing back and forth for longer than I should have as the sky lightened. I wanted to take her head away with me. I wanted to boil the flesh from it and make it into a vase, a memento mori, filled with bloodred roses for my study, or maybe to adorn my wife-whore’s boudoir. At last I gave up. I just could not get through the bone, and there was so much more I wanted to do to Dark Annie; I mustn’t squander precious time.

I flung up her filthy skirts, exposing candy-striped stockings that made me smile, recalling my wife-whore’s favorite corset. I pushed up her knees and spread them wide, parting them in an obscene parody of passion or childbirth. I felt the Devil in my knife, guiding me. I slashed and ripped and tore and still I wanted more, More, MORE! I gutted her. I flung her innards out onto her shoulder, a fleshy—not a feather—boa for milady’s shoulders. My wife-whore tells me that particular shade of pink—“intestinal pink” I shall call it from now on in memoriam of Dark Annie, ha ha!—is all the rage this season! Perhaps I shall visit one of the fashionable shops tomorrow and buy her a feather boa that color—and if it has accents of bloodred and shit brown so much the better, ha ha!—so I can look at her, laugh, and remember the little whore who died for the sins of the Great Whore.

I took her womb away with me along with some blood in a ginger beer bottle, locked in my Gladstone bag lined with newspapers about Polly’s murder. I’ve a fancy to fry it. It’s the only way I can bring myself to taste her! And last, from her dead finger I snatched a pair of brass rings, a wedding and a keeper, like the cheap set I had given my Mrs. Sarah, a souvenir, something to remember Dark Annie by, though I was quite sure I would never forget her.

As I walked away, I was preoccupied with pulling on my gloves, to hide my bloody hands until I could wash them, and forgot the unevenly paved ground. I stumbled and fell and barked the heel of my palm upon the broken stones—jagged and ragged like the cuts I had made. My blood mingled with hers. We are one—one forever, I thought as I swiftly made my way back up the passage and out onto the street. I lost myself in the early-morning market traffic, people hurrying to set up stalls, to sell their wares, or on their way to work. No one noticed me. Why should they suspect a gentleman—a gentle man—like me? The whores, they say, are wary of a Jew boot finisher who has been harassing them, a man they call “Leather Apron.” I was just another slumming gent on his way back to his wholesome, respectable home after a night of wanton carousing, tomcatting in wicked Whitechapel. No one looked twice at me.





The womb was awful, just AWFUL! So spongy and springy I exhausted my jaw trying to eat it. Tough as an old whore! I spit it out—damn the rotten and repulsive cunt!

I lay back on my bed, smoked a cigar, sipped some brandy, licked my medicine from my palm, slowly, savoring each dainty white grain, and stroked my prick and thought of Mary Jane Kelly and my wife-whore, watching them blur together in my mind, face merging with face, two sides of a spinning coin, until I could no longer tell one from the other; they were one, sister sluts, wife, whore, wife-whore. Tomorrow, I promised myself, tomorrow I shall see Mary Jane. . . .

I found I could not sleep. Whenever I closed my eyes I saw that pathetic drab before me, begging for pity, so I rose and did what I had been longing to do—I wrote a letter. At first I thought to address it to the police. Then I thought better of that; it would make a far greater impression on the gentlemen of the press. The police would only file it away in annoyance, but the newspapers would be sure to publish it. But I would not mail it just yet. First, I wanted to have the pleasure of walking around with it in my pocket, knowing it was there, savoring the thrill, the thrill of the kill, and the risk of having such a damning document upon me. What if I should forget and leave it in when I gave my coat to be laundered? Oh, what a thrill it is, being both hunter and hunted!

The blood I had taken away with me was no use; it had gone dark and thick, caked inside the ginger beer bottle. Even when I tried diluting it with water, still it was no use. Fortunately, I had had the foresight to purchase a bottle of red ink. I am so bloody clever!

I began to write in a hand elegant enough to grace the finest wedding invitation, but scattered with a smattering of misspellings and grammatical errors no educated gentleman would ever make to further confound the fools:



Dear Boss,





I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they

wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look

so clever and talk about being on the right track.

That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I

am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them

till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I

gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch

me now. I love my work and want to start again.

You will soon hear of me with my funny little games.

I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer

bottle over the last job to write with but it went

thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough

I hope Ha Ha. The next job I do I shall clip the

lady’s ears off and send to the police officers just for

jolly wouldnt you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit

more work then give it out straight. My knife’s so

nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I