The Wife of Jack the Ripper

Cassandra looked out of the window out into Whitechapel. Below were a crowd of people screaming and crying, calling for help and the police. He had struck again. Jack the Ripper, of course. For the fifth time. Cassandra closely watched the police hurrying over to the house. Whistles were being blown to catch attention of the overwhelming crowd, so that calm would restored. But it wasn't working.

Before the crowd and police had arrived, Cassandra had heard a cry. It was a cry of shock, disgust and horror. Cassandra had run to the window to see an old man hurrying to the clearing of the alleyway, shouting for the police. It had taken a few minutes for the man to finally get some attention and people had hurried to the scene of the crime. Cassandra hadn't focused much on the scene, she had been scanning the streets carefully looking for one person in particular.

Richard. Or Jack the Ripper, as was the name she and Richard had spread throughout Whitechapel, throughout London and the country. She had looked for him but there was no sign of him, she knew that he was fast moving and agile. Cassandra knew he had only gone after Mary Kelly because she had taken their child from them. It was something that Richard could not allow. Mary had had her reasons for taking their child even though it wasn't fair. When Richard had found her lying on the bed in a fit of sobs, the answer was clear from the look in her eyes and the absence of their child. He had gone into a rage and went after her. The killing must have been brutal for the citizens of Whitechapel to suddenly go into such a panic.

Cassandra soon saw him. He was hurrying through the streets, directing the police men to where the house was. As soon as they were gone, he continued his way to their home. Cassandra could see a small bundle of blankets in his arms and let a sob of joy and relief. She moved away from the window and hurried out of the room, down the staircase and towards the door. She saw Richard walking quickly over to their house.

"Thank God!" she cried. She hurried over and looked down at their child. "Is she all right?"

"Cass, let's get inside first then look after her. Come on." he said, looking around. Cassandra nodded and they both hurried back in. Richard walked into the living room and sat down on the sofa. Cassandra drew the curtain back slightly, she could see more people hurrying over to the scene. She turned back to her husband.

"Did you kill her?" she demanded. Richard looked up at her.

"Yes. Yes, I did." he said. Cassandra sighed and glared at him.

Cassandra could remember the murders he had committed those months ago. The first killing had been Mary Ann she had been an easy victim as she was naïve. Soon she was lying on the ground, her throat and abdomen sliced open. Then Annie had gone and bad-mouthed Cassandra about her engagement to Richard, but before Richard could even think of the vendetta, Cassandra had told him no more killings but Richard had gone behind her back and had done the deed. Cassandra had left him throwing her ring away and telling him that they were finished. Elizabeth had been the third and Cassandra had found out that she had planned to get Richard for herself. But she had been interrupted and Richard had pulled her far away from the scene. Soon the two made up and had gotten married five days after. Then Catherine had been next and finally Mary Kelly had been utterly destroyed for stealing their child for something so petty.

"Give me Bethany," she said, holding out her arms. Richard looked at her.

"Pardon?"

"You heard me. Give me Bethany. She's tired and she needs rest."

Richard looked at her for a moment, hesitating. Finally, he gave her the small bundle and Cassandra took her upstairs, to her little room that was just next door to her and Richard's room, and placed her into the cot, that Mr Jackson had given her. She tucked her daughter in and placed the stuffed teddy beside her. She smiled down at the sleeping child and moved slowly and quickly away. She walked back down the stairs and headed into the living room to find Richard, standing and hold a glass of whiskey.

"Richard?"

He turned at the sound of her voice. She walked closer to him. She took hold of his whiskey glass and took a swig from it. She handed back to him and looked at him, dead on.

"Richard. When I first met you. I thought you would be the most caring and loving friend ever. I love you, Richard. I married you because I love you. I came back to you for the same damn thing. We took in that orphaned child from the cold and made it our own child. Don't even..."

Richard placed a finger against her lips, silencing her. "Cassie, you don't think I know that. I did all those things because I love you too. I killed those women because they were our enemies, they did things to us to make us take action."

Cassandra knew those things were true. Those women had ruined her life. They had all gone over the line by cutting them both out of their lives, treating her like shit, but Mark Kelly had crossed both lines by getting her mother abused by her brother and taking away their child. She watched as 'the Ripper' took a swig from his glass, while staring at her.

"She's as good as dead." said Cassandra, moving close to him. His arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her close to his body, giving her his warmth. "Tell me, Mr Ripper. How did you kill her? And with what?"

Richard smiled at her seductive tone and licked his whiskey covered lips. "Would you like full details or the short version?"

"The full," she said. "Tell me everything, Mr Ripper. How you cornered her, what you used to torture and kill her with and what you did to her filthy, disgusting body."

Richard growled like a lion and tilted her head back, to reveal her gorgeous neck. With one swift movement, the tip of his rough tongue, licked upwards, making her shiver. "I knew that Mrs Kelly would greet me like an old friend. So, she let me in to see the child but with her back turned. As she was washing up, I cornered her, shouting." his hands moved her head so that she could see the burning lust and hatred in his eyes. "That she shouldn't have taken Bethany, I tried to stab her but the bitch kept dodging and blocking my aim. So, I pinned her down on to the bed and slashed her. With this."

And he pulled out a long bladed, blood stained butcher's knife. Cassandra stared at it in awe and ran a slim finger over the edge of the blade. It cut her skin drawing, very little blood. Richard watched as the blood oozed out of the cut, it began to slowly trickle down her finger. He leaned in and licked away the blood, letting the taste linger in his mouth. The taste intoxicated him, making his senses heighten.

"This knife caused her skin to be hacked away. Her face was torn apart." he held up his left hand which was stained with blood. Cassandra couldn't believe that Richard had had them hands all over their child. "Her blood was everywhere. It seeped onto her bed clothes and all over me. I had to wash up so it didn't make me look like a suspect. You should have heard her scream."

Cassandra licked her lips, twirled her fingers around the handle of the knife and took it. "Then what my dear?"

"I cut open her stomach, her breasts were torn apart. That bitch will never feed our baby again, with her dirt filled milk from her poisonous breasts. I opened her up and her organs lay there. I took out every single organ I saw." He pulled out a blood stained handkerchief that was wrapped around something that looked like meat. "I even broke her heart."

Cassandra stared at the heart that was wrapped up. Richard threw it onto the table and looked at his wife. Cassandra let out a breath and leaped on her husband. She kissed him with such passion, such force that he stumbled a few feet and gripped her in his embrace. The kiss became more heated, more passionate. Cassandra twirled the knife in her hands and pulled back her arm that held it. Richard could see out of her corner of his eye the knife being drawn back and watched as the knife flew through the air. It spun wildly and hit the wall, half of the blade was sunk deep into the wall.

Richard looked around and grinned at his wife's handy work. "Impressive, my dear."

Cassandra grinned down at him and kissed him again. Richard lifted her into his arms, her legs wrapping around his waist. But Cassandra wasn't having it. She broke the kiss and pulled herself free from his embrace. Richard could see the savage hunger in her eyes like his eyes always did when he planned out his killings. However the savage hunger that had been there tonight had increased and was now an inferno of pure loathing and revenge. Now it was complete, Mary Kelly was no more than a disfigured corpse, drained of her blood, her organs sliced, cut and torn from her body. The torso, an empty shell.

Cassandra smiled at him. The smile wasn't cheery; nor was it happy or joyful. It was a devilish smile, one of pure mischief and sickening glee. She took a few steps back. Richard mirrored her movement but went forward. Cassandra let out a giggle and ran out of the room, but Richard had anticipated this and was hot on her trail.

"Come here, you!" he called. They raced around their home. Sometimes, Richard managed to catch her but she would escape in a way that Richard wouldn't know. Soon, he was following her up the stairs and caught her halfway. She giggled and screamed hysterically and tried to break free of his grip but he wasn't letting her go. He put her down and spun her in his embrace. He smiled at her and the smile was returned by a beautiful one, she kissed him and tried to pull him up the stairs while her lips still lingered. But he slightly lost his footing and the two newly weds went crashing down onto the wooden stairs. Cassandra cried out in agony and hissed as the pain shot through her spine.

"Are you okay, my love?" he asked, turning her over slightly.

"Yeah, just slight bumps and bruises but no matter. Ow!" she yelped as Richard ran his fingers over the sore spot on her back. Suddenly, Bethany's sobs were heard.

Richard looked towards the direction where the cries of their child were coming from. He looked down at his wife and muttered. "That's you, making all that noise."

Cassandra looked at him indigently and poked her tongue out at him. He raised himself onto his feet and held out his hands, which she took, and he helped her to her feet slowly and surely. They both walked back up the stairs to Bethany's room, to find the little baby crying, kicking away her blankets. Cassandra hurried over to her and picked her up in her arms.

"What's wrong, little one? Hmm?" Cassandra cooed. Richard looked into her daughter's mouth.

"She isn't teething, if that's what you're thinking."

"It's not the right time, she's too young." she explained. "She must be hungry. Did Mary give her anything to eat?"

Richard thought back to when he had stepped into that whore's apartment. Come to think of it, there had been a bottle of some kind on the table near his daughter. "She must have done." Richard growled.

"That bitch!" Cassandra snapped. She handed Bethany to him and began to undo the lace that held together the front of her dress. Richard watched as his beautiful wife pulled down the front of her dress, exposing her bare chest to the cold air, her husband and their baby girl. He stepped close to his wife and manoeuvred Bethany's mouth to Cassandra's breast. Bethany began to suckle happily at her mother's breast, her crying ceased. Cassandra and Richard looked at each other and smiled.

"Mother knows best." he said. Cassandra beamed and continued to watch her baby girl being fed.

Soon, Bethany was back in her crib, tucked up with her teddy bear in her small arms and sleeping quietly and peacefully. In the next room, Cassandra and Richard watched as policemen began boarding up Mary's windows and front door. A wooden coffin was being carried through the streets. Friends mourned quietly or cried hysterically. People, who knew Mary Kelly by her reputation of being a prostitute and disliked her, began to shout insults and curses. Robert Kelly, her brother, was shouting back at the people who disrespected her name. If everybody knew the truth of why she had been killed, then the insults would have been coming from everywhere.

Richard snorted and moved away from the window. Cassandra watched the coffin disappear and pulled the curtains closed. She looked down at her husband as he sat down on the bed and began to take off his shoes. She took hold of the lace in her dress and began to pull it away. She snapped it in half with her teeth. She continued to watch as Richard began to undress. He took off his jacket and his blood stained shirt, folded them each and threw them over a chair. She was about to leap on him when he turned and dodged. She landed awkwardly on the bed and squealed as Richard landed on her and turned her over onto her back. He dragged her so that her hands were near the bed head. He snatched the lace from her hands and tied one bit of lace around her hands and tied them to the head of the bed.

"Unfair, Richard." Cassandra warned.

"My house, my bed, my game." he countered. He brushed back her long bushy blonde hair and stared into her blue eyes.

"My rules." she said, pressing her knee between his legs.

Richard gave her a wide grin and kissed her firmly on the lips. As their lips danced against one another, his hands trailed across her body and pulled off her dress, ripping it in half. Cassandra yelped, she began to writhe out of it, and the dress was soon thrown to the floor. Cassandra looked up at her killer husband the 'killer'.

"They don't call you 'Jack the Ripper' for nothing, you know!"

Richard smiled and gave her a passionate kiss. When the kiss was broke, he rested his forehead gently against hers.

"So," she asked. "you going to show me how you sliced her open?"

Two days later,

The knife was still sunk deep into the wall where Cassandra had thrown it two days earlier, after the 'tragic' death of Mary Kelly. Neither of them had bothered to remove it. It was the instrument of Mary, Catherine, Annie, Mary Ann and Elizabeth's deaths and it was only thing they had to remind them of the whores they had killed. Mary's blood was still heavily stained on the blade. But they had to remove it when the police called around for questioning about her murder. It hadn't been easy to get out but in the end was thrown into the sink full of dishes nearby to be washed later.

Cassandra had rescued her husband a few times when a policeman had seen the blood stained clothes he had worn when killing Mary, Anne and Katherine. She had told the police in question that her husband was working at the local butcher's and had come back from a night shift. Then Richard stepped in and told them that last night, at the butcher's, he had been checking up on the meat and the blood that they kept had spilt over his clothes. It had been a good save but not when the same officer had gone and whispered threats down Richard's neck.

Richard had been on the verge of killing the officer then and there, even with the other officers present. Cassandra had calmed him down with her worldly charms and had let the officers leave peacefully. When the door had shut behind them, Richard had grabbed the knife from the sink and stabbed it repeatedly into the kitchen table but soon Cassandra had calmed him down and given him the 'relaxation' he needed.

The thing that the two murderers found laughable was the number of suspects and who they were. When the paper boy had brought the morning paper to their home, Cassandra had collapsed in fits of laughter when showing her husband the paper. The two soon fell around the living room hysterically laughing with Bethany staring oddly at her murderous parents as they laughed over the headline:

Prince Albert: Innocent or Guilty, Murderer or Prince?

The murders still continued as Richard and Cassandra had found out about a few little hints of gossip coming from the neighbours and strangers. But Cassandra and Richard were never caught for their crimes and Bethany never found about her parents' little secret...