Whitechapel - Sex Stories

Whitechapel

... all it held was an extra coin. He put it in her palm. "I hear the news. It's not safe out here for women. You take that and get home." Rose looked at the penny as if she didn't know what it was. She said "Thank you," automatically, without thinking about it, and then again a second time, more firmly. The sailor looked quite pleased with himself, even taking off his cap and making what he probably imagined to be a very respectful gesture as he escorted her back to the street. Half an hour later Rose lay in bed, doss paid with enough leftover for a meal in the morning. She was tired enough to sleep even in spite of the mutterings and unrest of the women in the other beds and the noises of those out on the street who hadn't earned their night yet, but she didn't let herself go to sleep right away. She was busy thinking. In that second when the sailor reached into his pocket, Rose's notions about her own death crystallized. In a way, it was like it had really happened. When the time comes, she thought, it will be no worse than this, because I've been through it already. There was no bottom after this. This heartened her. It was a strange brand of courage, but it was the only one she could afford. *** No one died that night, or the next, or for some weeks, but no one stopped talking about the murders either. The police made reassuring noises about their investigation, but no one (the girls on the street least of all) believed they really had any clue who they were looking for. The ...

... papers soon confirmed the worst of the neighborhood gossip: Not only had the latest dead woman been dissected right there where she died, it seemed the killer had even taken some of the choice parts with him. "The whole operation was performed to enable the perpetrator to obtain these parts of these body," the doctor said at the inquest. "I myself could not have performed all the injuries I saw on that woman in under a quarter of an hour." Now the talk of butchers and slaughterhouse men died off, replaced by suspicious whispers about medical students, body snatchers, army surgeons, even barbers and dentists. Surely they'd catch him soon now? How many madman doctors could there be? It was terrible for business. At night, the East End became a ghost town. When the shops closed it marked the beginnings of a virtual footrace home, leaving vast blocks of the city empty except for the patrolling policemen, some in uniform and others inadequately disguised in evening clothes, their height and broad shoulders fooling no one. "If only they'd buy we'd have ourselves a whole new game here," one of the girls joked. Rose worked anyway, and come Sunday she finally had enough extra scraped together to take a trip down to Commercial Street. She didn't want to go. She would almost rather be killed twice over than make one trip to a certain counting house at the edge of the neighborhood. But she went anyway. The office, when she came to it, was shockingly clean and tidy. Whenever she was here ...