Saucy Jacky

Four – Soldier's w***e

Four – Soldier's WhoreAs to the pair on the stairs above me… Unpleasantness might well have followed had either been sober enough. But they were not. The unsatisfied soldier picked up his trousers along with his wounded pride, stumbled down the stairs and, righting himself, abandoned the Yard by way of Wentworth Street.

The unpaid w***e descended to the foot of the stairs. There she stood, sniffling and weakly calling curses after him until he was out of sight.

That was when I stepped from the shadows. I silently approached the soldier's w***e from behind. I reached for her shoulder but stopped my hand short. I didn't want to touch her – yet. I wasn't ready to touch her – yet. Instead, in a voice that shattered the night silence (a voice I barely recognized), I asked her, “Have you been cheated?”

“Lord,” the woman exclaimed, turning quickly to face me. She fluttered a hand over her breast. “You scared the life out of me!” Her crocodile tears instantly dried. She took a breath, then another for good measure, calming herself. Back in control, she asked, “What did you say?”

“I asked if you'd been cheated.”

“What's it to you? Who are you anyways?”

“It's nothing to me, really. I'm someone who wouldn't want to see a lady cheated.”

Even in the gloom, I saw her eyebrow go up. “A lady, huh?”

“I'd be willing to make it right,” I told her.

Her second brow joined the first on high. “Yeah?' she asked. Then, with a muted laugh, added, “If I'm willing, eh?”

“But not here, of course; not in the street.”

“There are plenty of places, love.” She chucked a dirty thumb over her shoulder. “Nice dark little nest right up here.” She beckoned me, then started back up the dark stone staircase, back to the spot she'd abandoned, where moments before she'd failed and insulted the soldier.

Neither originality nor superficial social formalities appeared to be of import to her. That was fine. While I enjoyed the first, I could live without it. I was entirely indifferent to the second. I followed her up the steps.

She reached the flagstone landing, and stopped as before, not twelve feet from a resident's door. (Its position suggested it belonged to none other than the building superintendent.) I joined her there. As she turned around to face me, I think she smiled. Lamentably that spot was even darker than the street; too dark to clearly see the expression on her face. That was a shame.

I'd imagined this moment for a long time – and had always envisioned the rise of terror on the face of… whoever the lucky w***e happened to be. Now, with that moment finally at hand, to find it too dark to really see. Yes, that was a shame. But don't think I allowed that to put me off. More light would have been desirable, but wasn't necessary. The job ahead would hold excitements that couldn't be seen, I was certain; joys that stimulated all of the senses. Don't think I was dithering. I was looking forward to it. Not merely for what I hoped to receive from the act. Don't think me selfish.

Don't think I was putting it off, either. I was not afraid to proceed. Nor was I embarrassed or unsure. The job needed doing. The East End teemed with the barking mad, who believed, and existed by their belief, that filth, disease, illicit s*x, drink and gluttony were meant to be the ways of this world. They would not admit their wrongs and therefore would not correct them. Someone else, someone wiser, was needed to issue those corrections. To exact the cure for the Emma Smith's all around us. Yes, I was needed. On with the job.

That brings me back to where I started this story.

Don't think I immediately stabbed her.

I wasn't a fool. I didn't need her squealing her head off and bringing the neighbourhood out and the coppers down on us. No. I was wise and knew I had to go about my work quiet-like. As I said before, I grabbed the w***e by her fat throat, clutched her voice box with all the strength in my hands, allowed not a wisp of air to pass and thereby prevented anything like a squeal. Then I switched to a one-handed grip and, with my free hand, reached into my coat and took hold of the long knife I'd nicked from the hospital's surgical theatre.

That was when I startled the both of us. For the first time, I pulled the knife – with measured and full intent. I raised the blade on high. Then, without sign of nerves or so much as a 'by your leave', I stabbed down and into the w***e's left breast.

No questions remained. Her actions with the soldier had cemented my thoughts, my will. That was how I felt about her. She wasn't a girl; girls were innocent and she clearly had not been that for ages. She wasn't a woman either; not anymore. Women were respectable. She was a w***e; nothing less than filth. Removing filth from the streets was the job needed doing. A job made easier, made exciting, by the fury I felt for her – for being what she was. It was nothing to throttle her where she stood and even less to stab her. She'd got what she had earned.

Once she'd gone unconscious, or dead, if dead she was, I let her fall to the flagstones. In so doing, she made virtually no noise at all; she was a plump thing after all (standing little over five feet) and was soft all around. She hit her head good and hard on landing but even that produced only a dull thump of no consequence. She lay on her back with her tightly clenched hands at her sides. But how she lay, I suppose, was neither here nor there. I had no compassion for her. All I felt for her was a strangely muted fury, the dirty w***e.

I switched knives. I tucked away my new but unfamiliar long blade and, instead, pulled out the trusty penknife I'd carried for ages. I opened that blade.

Then I opened her long black jacket. I saw she really was a plump little thing, past middle-aged, but still with – now that her black bonnet had been shaken from its place – mostly dark hair. She had a matching dark complexion. I wanted to hate her!

With a heat rivaling hate, I stabbed her left chest. I stabbed her again. And again, again, again. I stabbed her right chest, and again. Back to her left and a good hard stab into her treacherous w***e's heart. I moved down, below the heart; stab, stab, stab, four, five, six, seven. Then on to her round gut; six more stabs there, each as vicious as I could deliver. Dozens of times, I stabbed her. I lost count, of course. I was too busy, and far too agitated, to keep a proper count.

Then as quickly as it had started it all came to an end – or I thought it had.

I was panting for breath… fighting to keep my balance for a strange dizziness had suddenly come over me. But, even as I steadied myself, I realized the job was not done. She was a filthy w***e, wasn't she? Though I had put her in her place, I had yet to address that specific fact at all. To make amends, I grabbed the hem of her green (slightly besmirched) skirt, lifted it, and tossed it up above her stomach. I repeated the motion with her brown petticoat. This helped to clear my head as the fabric, on falling, covered her bloody upper form and gave me a respite from having to look directly down into the results of the work already completed. Likewise, the act exposed her stockings, the old and worn pair of side-spring boots with which she was shod, and…

My mouth went dry. I had to lick my lips.

And… her lower region.

Regarding that area… I hadn't seen… that… since Emma Smith. I had no other choice now, I had to look at it. The look, by necessity owing to the gloom, became a prolonged stare. I couldn't see clearly, yet I couldn't turn away. I thought of Emma Smith's bleeding… region. She'd deserved it. This w***e deserved it as well.

Time was getting on. Others would inevitably come. I wanted them to come. Whatever else would have been the point? Others had to see. But, needing to be away by then, I had first to finish the job. Resolved, I tore my eyes from the centre of her evil and went back to work.

Nervously, I admit, I took the w***e by both knees and spread her legs. Then I took up my penknife again and slashed her evil spot one hard time; a gash three inches long by a good inch deep, above her own dirty gash. With her already dead, there was no spurt of blood, more's the shame, but there was an oozing and pooling as the blood and juices drained into the natural crevices between her separated legs.

Didn't that show her for the w***e she was! Wouldn't all who saw it, or eventually learned of it, then know? Gasping for breath, I stood and turned, heading quickly back down the steps to the dark George Yard byway. My job was done.

I got the hell out of there, leaving the soldier's w***e to rot where I'd killed her.