by N. M. Bell
“But you kilt her,” Jake whispered. Cowering now in front of the fire.
“Jacob, you must understand why I did that. I’ve explained it more than once, why can’t you get it through your thick skull? The woman was a witch and used her wiles to try and control me. I had to stop her from ruining my only son and there was but one way to ensure she didn’t contaminate you. I did it for you, Jacob, and because the Lord God Almighty decreed it must be so.”
Jake took a step away as the image wavered and grew larger, looming over him. He stumbled over Mary where she sat cross-legged on the floor. When he recovered his balance, Father was gone. He looked down at the woman at his feet.
The woman rocked back and forth, her lips moving silently. The shift had fallen off one shoulder baring a globular tit, the fingers of one hand circled the puckered nipple while the other stroked between her legs. Her eyes were dreamy and unfocussed when she looked up at him.
“Jake, c’mere. I’m randy as hell an’ I know yer hung like a ’orse. Don’ ye want to plough me furrow? For free like, no charge…” Her voice trailed off and she began to sing the song Mam always sang. A Violet from Mother’s Grave. Over and over, while her fingers pinched the dusky purple nipple on the bare tit, rolling it back and forth. She gave tiny moans between the words of the verse and the hand buried in her crotch moved faster. The musk of her excitement clung to his nostrils.
Jake found his hand rubbing his penis through his trousers, the rough material eliciting thrills of pleasure through the sensitive flesh. Revulsion and self-hate roiled in his gut, but he couldn’t seem to stop the intoxicating movement of his hand. There was no time to use the cock ring which usually killed his desire with the pain it inflicted, and his balls tightened as Mary Jane pulled her tit toward her mouth and attempted to lick it, drool dripping in strings from her lips. She managed to swipe her tongue across the nipple and the engorged head glistened in the fire light.
“Jake, c’mere, don’t ye want some of this? Ye can bite it iffen you want, Joe liked to do that … like ta suck the blood…” Her eyes glazed over and she collapsed onto her back, legs sprawled wide with the shift hitched up to expose her wet cunt, the tit slipping from her hand with the nipple still erect.
His knees trembled as the pressure built beneath his hand and the cock twitched wildly. Squeezing his eyes shut, he fought the intense pleasure that bordered on pain, gathering in his groin. A hiss of despair accompanied the small thrust of his hips as his fingers gripped his shaft in an attempt to stop the flow that threatened to burst out. The convulsive grip helped, but a small amount spilled onto his trousers. Hatred and loathing filled him. How could he be so weak? So submissive to the lure of a woman’s body? The musky sent of sex turned his stomach and bile rose in his throat. He was no better than the women, just as guilty and sinful as the whores themselves. He shuddered and wiped his hand on the seat of his pants.
The woman moaned and attempted to raise her head. Her features merged with Mam’s as he flashed to a forgotten memory of the aftermath of one of Father’s ‘lessons’. Jake turned to go; he had to get out of there. He stopped in mid-stride and swallowed the sourness in his throat. Father stood between him and the door.
“You know what you have to do, Jacob.” His face was implacable. “The Lord Himself has decreed the woman must be cleansed, and now you must cleanse yourself. Remember the chapters in Leviticus? You do not have to burn in hell when you can redeem yourself if you follow the Word of the Lord. Be a man, Jacob. Do not shirk your duty, to me and to the Lord God Almighty.”
Jake glanced back at the woman on the floor. Her eyes were half open and saliva dripped from her mouth as she continued to mutter the words of the damn song. He bent over her and dragged her to her feet. A push sent her onto the bed against the wall in the corner of the small room. He stood over her as she pulled the filthy sheet up with clumsy hands. In seconds small snores escaped her lips.
Leviticus—it called for a ritual sacrifice to expunge the sin against God. Jake touched unclean meat every day at the butcher’s and he had allowed the woman’s seduction to spill his seed. He ran the verses through his head and began to recite parts of them as he moved toward the hook where the knife safe hung.
Still chanting, he took the case and spread it open on the small table. From it he extracted Father’s knife, a boning knife and the cleaver used to chop the bones of the cattle and hogs. He turned back to the bed, and with Father’s knife in hand he moved to stand by her head.
“A female from the flock … for a sin offering…” He was almost singing the verses now, the words coming freely from his lips. “It is the burnt offering … burning upon the altar all night unto morning…” It must be close to three or four in the morning by now, but it was still dark and it would have to suffice, he supposed.
He flipped Mary Jane over to lie flat on her back, he skewed the body toward the left side of the bed where he stood and tipped her chin up to give him unrestricted access to the arteries in her neck. The stupid whore chose that particular moment to rouse out of her drunken stupor. Her gaze focussed on him and the knife in his hand. She gripped the hem of the sheet and raised it over her head as the knife descended to do its work. The blade sliced the upraised forearms, but missed the intended target.
“Oh. Murder,” Mary Jane shrieked at the top of her lungs.
“Stupid bitch,” Jake muttered. He jerked the sheet away and subdued her feeble attempt to protect herself. The knife bit deep and clean, the blade digging into the bones of vertebrae. Blood sprayed onto the wall beside the bed, but soon slowed to a trickle as the heart fluttered and stilled. His hands trembled and for a moment it was Mam lying on the bed, blood soaking into the sheet beneath her head.
“Finish it, Jacob,” Father commanded him.
“Ahh, the poor a mhuirnin,” Mam’s soft lilt brought his head up. Her image wavered by the fire, tears shining in her eyes. “Jakie, you don’t need to be doin’ this. Yer better than this, a leanbh. Ye must listen to me, ye must stop this madness.”
“Be gone, you sorceress,” Father thundered. “The boy must atone for his sins, not the least of which is that he issued from the loins of a witch.” The apparition pulled something from his pocket and threw a handful of water at the fire. “In the name of Lord Almighty I command you to be gone.”
The coals and bits of wood in the fire hissed and popped and when Jake looked back, Mam no longer stood near the hearth.
“Finish it. Atone for your wickedness,” Father ordered from the shadows.
“It is the burnt offering…” Jake muttered the verses as he picked up a shorter knife with a broad blade. Mary Jane’s dead eyes reproached him as he moved back to the bed. In a fit of fury he slashed at the offending orbs, in the process he gashed the nose, cheeks and eyebrows until she no longer accused him with her look. He took greater care in cutting her lying mouth, making several long cuts that continued down the chin. It gave him great pleasure to make random incisions across her features, and remembering Kate, he cut part of the ears free. He sliced open the shift and stared at her naked titties. The image of Mary tempting him into sin by exciting her own flesh darkened the edges of his vision. The knife seemed to move his hand of its own accord. He observed dispassionately as the blade circled both mounds and sliced them free of the underlying musculature. Fat, he needed fat. Would these do?
“He shall offer the fat of the rump and the fat that covers the innards….” No, the tits wouldn’t appease the Almighty. He stuck one under the head and set the other on the table with the knives for the moment. Moving to the foot of the narrow cot, he gripped her ankles and wrenched the legs apart as far as he could. Sinews popped as he cranked the left one out at a right angle to the body. He allowed the right to fall in a more obtuse angle. Taking the long thin knife now, he removed the fatty flesh from the thighs and opened the abdomen to excise the fat that lay beneath the layer of skin. He removed three great flaps of skin and abdominal tissue from the arch of the
ribs to her mount of Venus. The gaping belly called to him and unable to resist, Jake plunged his hands past the wrists into the still warm flesh.
Oh, God … it’s so hot and wet … so slickery under me hands. I’ve taken ‘er life, so I have. I deserve to celebrate me victory over sin … cleansed ‘er, I have.
In a thrall of exultation, he pulled the intestines from the cavity. He paused to move the fat to the stones by the hearth before sliding the length of the intestines through his hands, rubbing them over his face before depositing them in a heap on the cot between the woman and the wall. The sinful uterus swam in a sea of bloody fluid, the siren call silenced by the justice of the Lord God administered through Jake’s hands. He removed the offending organ and put it out of sight, under her head with the severed breast. Next he took out the liver and the spleen, he planned to keep the liver and roast it on his own fire for supper later in the day. For now, he put it between her feet where it would be within easy reach. The spleen he laid on the side of the bed nearest him. The kidneys hid in the back of the cavity and he groped for them before slicing them free. He considered taking them with the liver for afters, but decided against it. He put the kidneys by her head with the uterus.
Jake turned his attention back to the meat of the thigh. There was still enough fat there to help fuel the fire he was going to need. He removed all the meat until the knife scraped on the femur. He was forced to use the cleaver to remove some of the items he needed from this area. He striped the other thigh down to the knee, taking great interest in the similarity between the bovine carcasses he butchered and eviscerated and the human one now beneath his hands.
The flaps of her cunt taunted him and he bent swiftly to remove them, taking the external organs as well as part of her right arse cheek. It would burn well in the sacrificial fire. He began on the left calf, making a large incision through to the deep muscles from just below the knee almost to the ankle. A noise from the room above stayed his hand and he cocked his head listening for footsteps. Best to get on with it.
Moving quicker now, he ripped open the chest, tearing at the lungs in order to access the heart, which he removed. In a fit of rage at being hurried, Jake hacked at the arms he had left relatively untouched up to this point. The bitch….
“The fire, Jake. The sacrifice must be made,” Father whispered from the shadows.
Gathering up the fatty pieces, he recited the verses again, it wouldn’t do to miss something. “Where he shall kill the offering he shall burn it also … he shall offer to it all the fat of the rump and the fat that covers the innards. The kidneys and the fat from them which is found by the flanks … and the caul by the liver…. Where did I put the damned kidneys? Oh well, no matter, I have the rest here … they shall be burnt as an offering by fire unto the Lord, a trespass offering.” There was something more about the breast and waving it as offering to the Lord, Jake shook his head.
“It’s fine, Jacob. Feed the fire with the iniquitous flesh so you may be forgiven for your transgressions,” Father urged him.
He threw the fat onto the fire and then helped it along with the gin from a bottle on the mantle. The fire flared and the flesh sizzled. Too late he saw the kettle in the heart of the flames, but no matter, it wasn’t like the whore would need it again. Grinning, Jake threw more fatty flesh on the blaze. The thigh parts ignited quickly and burnt white and hot, he stripped the fat from the flaps of abdominal tissue and offered them up to the eager flames. The heat from the hearth drove him back into the centre of the room where he watched in awe as the fire roared up the flue. The ferocity of the blaze increased by the second, rather than burning itself out after a moment, as he had expected. He snatched a garment with velvet trim and a bonnet with a large brim from a pile by a chair and threw it onto the flames in an attempt to smother it. The hungry blaze devoured the clothing but also weakened in strength. He stared into the fire, mesmerised by the changing patterns.
Mary Jane’s destroyed face stared accusingly at him out of the flames. The image wavered, and now it was Mam whose battered features flickered on the bricks at the back of the fireplace. Unable to look away, Jake quivered as the faces superimposed themselves on each other. The whore’s reproaching him, and Mam … though her face was black and blue and her jaw hung at an odd angle, she still radiated unconditional love. He reached a hand toward her and took a step neared the flames. Father’s image overrode Mam’s as a globule of fat exploded, sending fresh heat and sparks up the flue. His beard waved and lifted from his chest in the heat of the flames and hell fire burned in the hard blue eyes. The image pointed a commanding finger at Jake and motioned him away. The rain pattering on the window and the changing shadows thrown by the fire held him enthralled even after Father’s image whisked up the chimney with the beginnings of the smoke as the fire faded a bit.
Jake came back to himself as the conflagration died down to glowing coals, he noticed the kettle was partially melted and smiled. Surely, the Lord God would be honoured by the strength of his sacrifice and forgive his transgressions and sinful ways. He dropped to his knees and bowed his head in prayer. Shortly, he got stiffly to his feet and gazed around the bloody room. It really was no worse than the slaughter room he worked in every day. He congratulated himself on the neatness of his handiwork. Wiping the blood from his hands and face, he inspected his clothing to be sure they were fairly clean of effluence. He cleaned the knives before returning them to the knife safe which he stuck in the waist band of his trousers. Jake tossed the soiled rags into the hearth where the fire took care of them, leaving no trace.
He spared the bloody remains on the cot one last look and on impulse he snatched up the heart which had leaked itself clear of blood by now. His gaze lingered on the liver he had originally intended to have for supper, but decided the heart was a much better choice. Wrapping the organ in a square of canvas he kept in his jacket pocket Jake tucked the package into the pouch sewn to the inside of his coat. The heart should never be allowed to rule the head. That was one of Father’s cardinal rules. The whore’s heart was wicked beyond words. Only by taking it into his own body, as a sacrifice in honour of the Lord God Almighty, and then cleansing the wickedness from it as the offering passed through his body could he atone his own sins. What if the burnt offering wasn’t enough to absolve him of the sins of the flesh he succumbed to? Better to stack the deck in his favour and free the bitch’s heart of its wickedness in the manner Father had taught him in addition to following the Word of the Lord in Leviticus.
It was dark out and still raining when he cracked open the door and peered out. He shut the door again and took his jacket from the hook behind the door. Shrugging into it he stepped out into Miller’s Court. Reaching through the broken pane he locked the door from the inside and after glancing about to make sure he was unobserved, walked openly to his own door. There was no one about, a fact for which he was thankful. The all night downpour of rain was a gift from God and a sign the Good Lord was pleased with him. It kept the denizens of the filthy tenements inside and out of his way as well as obscuring any footprints.
Jake reached the sanctuary of his own squalid room and gratefully shut the door behind him. The exhaustion that always followed the thrill of carrying out the Lord’s work sat heavy on his soul. Cor, he was tired. He stirred up the ashes in the grate hoping there would still be some warm coals he could coax into a flame. There was nothing but dank cold slag, the disturbed residue sent up an acidic fume that made his eyes water. Straightening Jake took a match from the holder on the mantle and scrounged a meagre handful of wood chips and bits of paper from the pail by the hearth. Once he had the kindling going he retrieved the coarse coal he’d nicked earlier in the night. Soon, the chill in the room dissipated a bit and he took off his jacket. The muscles in his shoulders and arms protested the movement and he dug his fingers into the knot in his right shoulder.
Chapter Fourteen
The early morning sounds of Whitechapel filtered through the thin walls. He�
�d best be getting to work, it must be almost five a.m. and the bleeding cattle boats were in this week. Damn Fridays, and damn the feckin’ beasts. Wearily, Jake changed into his only other pair of trousers and shirt. There wasn’t time to think about breakfast and no food in the place at any rate. He tightened the belt around his waist another two notches. He’d have to wait till after work and grab a bite at the Still and Star after he collected his wages. Shrugging back into his damp coat, he pulled the billed cap low over his ears and left Miller’s Court after locking the door behind him.
He spared the door of Number Thirteen a brief glance as he passed under the arch leading onto Dorset Street. All was quiet, so the body must still be lying as he left it. The hoor she shared the digs with must not have come home yet. A grim smile creased his lips at the thought of the unlucky person who discovered his latest handy work. Maybe that punter Joe Barnett, it would serve the man right for not keeping his woman in hand. Well, she was no concern of Joe’s anymore now, was she?
The thought served to lighten his mood and ease the aches of his tired body. Bitch got just what she deserved, so she did. He turned his head as Father’s quiet laughter reached his ears. There was nothing to see in the heavy mist produced by the previous evening’s downpour, but Jake felt the spirit’s presence pressing down on him. Shaking himself like a stoat shedding water, he hastened toward Aldgate High Street and Butcher’s Row.
He skirted the edge of the pen behind the shop to avoid the morass of ankle deep muck and shite. The stupid steers regarded him wearily from where they stood crowded in the corner trying to escape the incessant drizzle. Jake slipped into the back entrance and glanced toward the yellow lamp light at the front of the shop. Aggie was already downstairs and most likely pouring over the bookwork for the week. The early morning dark combined with the pool of light made it seem like there was only him and Aggie in the whole world. Isolated from the squalor that surrounded them and afloat in a small island of friendship and safety. It produced a warm glow in his belly and brought a smile to his lips.