I remember my first.  You always remember your first.  It was the end of August, 1888, and she was an older woman.  Twice my age easy.  Not very pretty at all, but someone to truly love her.  I'd like to say that I regret not being the one for her, but I can't.  I almost hated lying to her, telling her I loved her and all.  She obviously didn't believe me, and chuckled a little, then sighed.  Let's just get it over with, shant we, she said with a wink and a smile.  That was Polly for you, straight and to the point.

Wasn't too much later when I was sitting in a pub on Buck's Row, nursing a warm pint in a filthy glass, that I heard a couple of blokes talking about her.  Real name was Mary Anne Nichols.  Mary.  I've always liked that name. Was my mother's name.  Mum was a good, kind woman who never got in her husband's way, never stood against him.  Even when he was beating her to death in front of her children.

Soon after I met Annie while wandering Brick Lane.  She, too, was twice my age, and as desperate as Mary Anne.  She had nowhere to stay for the night and was in desperate need of money.  We haggled for a bit, and then began walking.  I listened patiently to her sad life story, about her failed marriage and children, a deformed son and institutionalized (now dead)
daughter.  Made me thankful for my fortune.  I could have been swaning around Bloomsbury or Chelsea, but I'd be more likely to be picked up by the bloody bobbies for my usual mischiefs.  I'd been bounced out of Oxford for various reasons, snuffing all my dreams of becoming a doc, so I had to find something to fill the days and, more importantly, the nights.
 

She told me she had a place out around Hanbury Street.  Turns out her "place" was another's backyard.  Didn't make much difference to me.  With Polly it was on the cobbles of an alley.  I suppose you could consider me a bit of a voyeur.  It's the thrill of it, I imagine, knowing that at any moment some passerby could spot you.  Makes your blood rush.

She was a bit harder.  Made me angry with her struggling.  Caused me to lash out with more force than I intended.  Sliced the bitch's head clean off her shoulders before I knew what I was bloody well doing.  I'd wanted to do a neater job this time, too.

I'd used a bit of black polish to dye my hair beforehand, and some of it had stained my face.  In trying to wash it away, I'd only served to spread it more or less evenly.  It was an interesting effect, making m look totally different, in fact not like a Londoner at all!  So I'd left it on when I went out walking, and was only slightly surprised when in the Times the next morning it was reported the death of one "Dark Annie" Chapman on the East End, and the suspect was a man of possible foreign origin, dark of complexion and hair.

I'd managed to wash most of the color out, enough that it was nearly again the brindled mop I'd been born with, and cleaned every trace of the polish from my skin before going out that morning.  I ran into a friend, Louis, an old merchant who was quite lively and a good mate to get pissed with.  He talked avidly about the murder.

"Aye, Billy, can ya b'lieve the state o' things now'day?  Poor ol' tart. Bastard tore ‘er apart, he did!  Ya ‘ear abou' it?"  he jabbered in his heavy Cockney-Scottish blend, shoving the paper in my face.

"East End is a dangerous place."  I nodded.

"Don't know why th' bloody ‘ell ya stay ‘ere.  Ya can get outta ‘ere, ya ain't skint.  Go ‘ome where ya belong."

"Maybe I like the company here better.  More fun,"  I smiled a bit, "'Sides, don't right fit in with proper society in any event."

"Aw, ‘ell wit' ya.  Don't ‘preciate wot ya got.  Foolishness o' youth! Gordon Bennet, looka tha!"  he barked, hitting the paper with the back of his hand,  "Wot kind of monster does a girl like this?  Cut off ‘er ‘ead's bad enough, but t' tie it back on with her kerchief… an' then t' gut ‘er!  Says ‘ere they found ‘er intestines all floppin' over her shoulder like a bloody ribbon.  An' pieces of the ol' gal's skin ‘rranged ‘roun' ‘er ‘ead. Sick, I tells ya."  I could only nod a little.

It was quite some time before I met my next girl, almost a month.  Well, again she wasn't much of a girl.  Not at all.  Guess I'm just attracted to older women, or I attract them.  Her name was Long Liz, Elizabeth, and when she smiled, I could see her front teeth were missing.  She, too, gave me a long sob story as we strolled down Fairclough about having lost her husband
and nine children in the Princess Alice disaster, and that's how she ended up on the streets.  Steamer went down in 1878, killing nearly 700 people. I lost an aunt in that disaster, so I knew the kind of scratch necessary for such an outing, especially with nine bloody moppets.  Anyone with that kind of money would still have it.  She was lying through her nonexistent
teeth, but I humored her, gave her my condolences.

We turned down Berner and stopped by Dutfield's Yard.  I told her I had something for her, something to help end her long suffering.  Her dark eyes were glittered for a moment.  They flashed in the flickering gaslight, but not as bright as the fifteen centimetre knife I drew from my coat.

She made a bold move, swinging out with all her strength, knocking my knife from my hand, and then lashing at my face and eyes with her nails. Tough old bird.  She wasn't so tough when I took a small penknife, tucked always in my pocket, to her throat.  She collapsed to the ground, gurgling, and I continued to slash and cut in anger.  I was all set to go to my work,
when I heard hooves and wheels on the cobbles heading my way.  Cursing, I came up with my long blade and hoofed it into the shadows and away from the scene.  I'd have to try again.
 

I continued to walk, somewhat hurriedly, up Commercial Road, down Whitechapel High, and to Aldgate.  I found myself wandering Mitre Square in the City of London, and muttering to myself.

"Must be more careful next time, William.  Got a lot more work ahead of you, and can't be stopped now…"  I looked up at a soft sound and saw a woman hurrying down the street.  I called out to her and she stopped.  I walked up to her slowly, pulling my coat tighter around me to hide the wet stains on the shirt below.

"Where are you off to so quick, love?  Looking to meet someone?"

"Oh no, ‘guv,"  she smiled, "No one in particular…"  Bloody hell, another older one.  Weren't there any pretty bits in this part of London?  Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.  I tipped the brim of my hat down a bit at her, and offered my arm.  She accepted and we walked down Mitre Street for a while.

"What's your name, pet?"

"What's in a name?"  she asked, almost enigmatically.  I smiled.

"Seen a lot of ‘em, then?"

"Some call me Mary Kelly, some call me Burrell…"

"But what can *I* call you, my lady?"  I asked softly.  She grinned up at me like a fool, blushing.

"Cathy.  Catherine Eddows."

"My name is William, pleased to meet you."

I stopped behind a group of homes and business houses and made pretend to be removing a bothersome stone from my boot.  My hand slipped into my jacket and drew the long knife.  I moved so swiftly to have seen me you'd have likened me to a great African panther.  I severed her windpipe so that she could not scream.  I could hear wind whistling out of the gash as she sank down to the pavement, but ignored it, pushing up her skirts and beginning the cutting and carving.  I finished with haste, knowing the police would most likely be out and about along Whitechapel, but stayed long enough to destroy her face, lest she be recognized, and someone remembering her walking with me.  Despite my disguise of darkened hair and
skin, now done with surreptitiously bought theatre paint, I wasn't stupid enough to be reckless.  Although never let it be said I don't fancy a good game.  I snatched up a kidney lying on the pavement by the road and a bit of torn apron and ran, stopping only for a moment to read a bit of chalk scribbling on a wall on Goulston Street..

"The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing?"  I asked myself, wondering who the illiterate was who wrote such a message.  I shook my head and hurried home, not wanting to be caught in the open with blood splattered across my shirt and vest and coat.  I didn't notice until I got home that I had lost my bit of apron.

Turns out I'd dropped the bit of bloody cloth by the message on the wall. The police thought the inane scrawl a clue, a confession of sorts.  I couldn't help but laugh, but decided to rest up for a while.  Police were going off their heads trying to figure out who was the murderer they were calling "Leather Apron"  I decided to have a bit of fun with them.  I penned a few notes, carefully changing my handwriting, ruining the spelling.  The first I sent to the pathological curator of the London
Hospital Museum, one Dr. Openshaw.

"Old boss you was rite it was the left kidney i was goin to hoperate agin close to your ospitle just as i was going to dror mi nife along of er bloomin throte them cusses of coppers spolit the game but I guess i will be on the job soon and will send you another bit of innerds."

The second I resorted to doing with my right hand in red ink, addressing it from Hell, and to George Lusk, head of the Whitechapel Vigilance committee.  Like the previous, I included a bit of Cathy's liver, which I had carefully preserved in Russian spirits.

"I send you half the kidne I took from one woman prasarved it for you tother peice I fried and ate it was very nise  I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer.  Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk."

I watched the police go even further insane at this.  About the start of October say, I got a notice on my door, warning the female residents of the East End of a murderous scoundrel.  I smiled a bit and crumpled the note, tossing it into the dustbin.

I spent the next weeks thinking and drinking mostly, enjoying myself truly, keeping company with my friends.  Especially Louis.

"Ya doin' yeself wrong, boy.  Should be out courtin' a young lady.  Takin' ‘er t' fancy spots an' romancin' an' things, but wot're ya doin'?  Sittin' in a pub wit' this ol' dog.  Yar just a child.  Get out an' live, be wit' people yer own age bef'r ya get trapped ‘ere, dyin' an' wishin' ya were young again."
 

"That's the difference between you and me, mate.  I don't plan to grow old."  I laughed over my scrumpy, and he just scowled.

I decided he was right, though.  I needed to be around people my age.  I walked less now, but when I did, I watched the passerbys with hawk's eyes. I finally found her on the ninth of November, when the air was chill and crisp, and the sky darkened with heavy clouds.

She was quite lovely, and of Irish blood by the looks of her, neatly dressed and wore a neat white apron across her dress.  I'd seen her a few times in the company of a few cronies that shared her profession, but tonight she was alone, wandering Dorset Road in search of a customer.  I approached her, and made small talk before making an offer.  She accepted
and led me back to her flat in Miller's Court.  It was little more than a bedroom, but it was more than enough for me.  The privacy the little room invited was wonderful.

She said her name was Mary.  Mary Anne Kelly.  I smiled to myself.  Cathy must have known this little bird from work, so to speak.  Another Mary. How I love that name.  If I ever had a daughter, I'd name her that.  For some reason, I felt it necessary to divulge that information to this young lady.  She blushed and smiled and looked at me with eyes older than the stars.

Once I got her to lie down on the bed, I rapidly cut her throat, almost taking her head off.  Nasty habit, that.  I then made a neat Y-incision down her stomach, as I'd learned in biology at Oxford.  Her bloody tits kept getting in the way of my operating, so I sliced them off, placing them to one side on the table.  I removed the flaps of skin as well since they
refused to behave and kept falling back into place.  I continued to cut until I had removed all of her skin from sternum to knee and began removing organs.

I produced a smaller scalpel and began cutting away at the connective tissue with leisure.  No worries about police this time.  I had time to poke and prod, cutting holes here and there, satisfying my curiosities.  Or at least I thought I had.  Done, I got up to leave, and found myself staring at her shoulder.

I picked up the scalpel again and began slicing into the right shoulder joint until I was down to white bone and shiny cartilage.  I moved her arm up and down, rotating it all around and watching the way the bones moved against each other until the bloody thing popped out of joint.  I put it down and gazed down her body to her hips.  I began working at her hips, slicing away at her thighs and buttocks with my long blade until I'd exposed the ball joint.  It, too, was quite a learning experience, although I was a bit more clumsy with the cutting, what with the weight of the flesh there.  By the end most of it had torn from the bone and fallen to the soaked mattress.

I attempted a dissection of her face, but her severed neck caused her head to roll about too bloody much.  I considered holding it with my knees, but I'd already made such a mess of it, that it seemed quite pointless.  So I moved on to the flesh of her arms.

I began to wash the blood off my hands cat-like, reveling in the sharp taste of it.  Feeling a bit giddy, I began arranging the bits of her on the bed.  I tucked one breast under her left foot, her kidneys and uterus under the other.  I placed her liver between them, and lay her intestines on the right side of her body, spleen on the left.  Still annoyed with them, I left the flaps of skin on the bed table, but folded them neatly as one would linens.  I gathered up a lobe of lung and her heart, and vanished
into the night to await the morning papers.

It was glorious.  Another front page headline.  I went around London collecting papers with mention of the murders to add to my collection.  Oh, Louis was so very right.  It had felt good to be with a girl my age for a change, her body as yet unravaged by time and drink.  It would be young ones from now on!

Christmas Eve, and the snow was deep enough to numb my feet.  I considered putting off until summer, when the cobbles would be bare of white and less likely to show blood or my fleeing tracks.  But I saw her, and I knew she had to be mine.

She was like an angel, sent down to tempt me.  She wandered down the strangely empty street in her silken white robes.  Her hair, the color of sable night, flowed and rolled down her back with every little motion, a velvet contrast to her alabaster skin.  She was a painting, a marble statue.  She was a princess, a ghost of England's long past, and it was like she was meant for me.

I felt almost timid as I crept up behind her.  Every time I grew close enough to walk abreast, she'd float ahead of me, giggling softly.  I caught a glimpse of her eyes, and could see the madness in them.  Was she the daughter of a well-to-do escaped from an institution?  If so, how had she managed to end up so deep in the East End?  She moved with the grace and
stateliness only fine breeding brings, and I weighed the risks against the pleasures, and decided to take the chance.  I walked faster, finally managing to overtake her stride.  She slowed and walked silently beside me, arms behind her back, humming softly to herself.

"Run and catch the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch…"  she turned suddenly, as if seeing me for the first time, and squeaked a little before giving me a serious look,  "Do you like daisies?"

"Daisies?"

"I like daisies, but they don't grow where it's dark…"  she began to skip like a little girl.

"What's your name, love?"

"I know my name…  Do you?  What's your name?"

"I asked you first."

"My name is…"  she suddenly grabbed my shoulder and leaned up to whisper in my ear, looking around as if she were telling a secret she shouldn't have been,  "Drusilla."  she giggled, letting go and backing away, rocking back and forth on her heels,  "I've told you mine, now it's your turn."

"Name's William," I said, bowing, "But my friends call me Jack."  I smiled, standing to stare into eyes flickering between tarnished copper and brushed gold, and to see the flash of teeth too long to be human, and knew at that moment that the reign of the Terror of Whitechapel was at a close… and a new story was about to begin.