Journal Entry ˜ 22 October 1888

I’m the man that time forgot. Nearly a week now of living in a void. There was no reason to feed the pages of this journal with the doldrums of the last week. I’ve had no visitors of any sort. Not that any were expected, although from time to time I’m sure I hear voices in the walls of my room saying HELP or MURDER. Maybe I’m getting visitors of a unique sort and sound. I often talk to them with no response. Earlier today, being a Saturday, I browsed the marketplace and a man directed me toward the local butcher shop where I purchased two decent-sized cuts of a pig. I want to keep my wits and my knife sharp for my next historical event. I plan to do some curvature work on the meat and bone, as this next event is to be most creative carving with the blade of all five of these women. Mary Kelly has to be Jack th.....I mean MY best work! I need to practice my filet work and deep cuts, which is always hardest, cutting through tough tendons and muscles to perfection so that what will be discovered later as the last true victim of JTR is exactly what history recorded. I’ve decided to remain naked in my room most of the time to preserve my attire and just because I’m beginning to like it. Before this entry I placed the meat on my chest and belly. It was cold and slimy but had such a cooling effect to it. Later I will place the two pieces on the bed and sleep beside it then when I wake I will lay them lengthwise as Mary Kelly would be laying and begin my carving practice. Once complete, I will roll my body over it naked, then, bring it to the public kitchen downstairs and make a feast for all the tenants of the lodge. Food of the gods.

***

To Ethan’s credit, if nothing more so, he was a man of his word. When applying himself, putting his mind to the task, he was meticulous in word and deed, to a fault. Everything he planned to do he followed through with including a generous banquet of seasoned pork for the tenants dining in at their lodging’s kitchen. Everybody was gracious, grateful for his magnanimity and cooking skills. Not a morsel remained. Before leaving them to their devices Ethan uttered a favorite phrase: “Bon appétit!”

Retiring back to his room after a round of appreciative gestures, he carried a hot cup of tea in hand to cut the chill on a particularly cold night. Becoming relatively comfortable with his fellow tenants, Ethan felt secure enough with his surroundings to leave his door unlocked whilst he went downstairs, so he did not have to fumble with a key when he came back up. Ethan found his room occupied. There she was: Abigail. He had not seen her since she ran off in tears down Bakers Row that intense night nearly one week before. Having taken it upon herself to freely enter his room while he was in the kitchen, she was poised near the window.

As he stepped into the room closing the door behind him, Abby turned around, glancing his way then returning her attention to the panes of glass.

“What’s it like?”

“I beg your pardon?” Ethan asked, walking close enough to discover she’d been drinking, detecting the telltale essence of liquor in the air.

“Watchin’ me. What’s it like t’ look out this window and watch me?” Abigail faced him directly, her question as pointed. “Can ya see me looking at ya?”

“Yes.” Ethan was cautious in his response, sparse, not knowing her demeanor.

Lost in thought, Abigail peered out the window as waning rays of evening light washed across her shoulders, illuminating her eyes with the golden glow of sunset. She appeared in silhouette like a fallen angel Heaven sent, a celestial vision.

“I wanted t’ do it for ya, I really did but I got scared. We talk, ya know, all the girls, ‘bout the killin’s. They call ‘im Jack the Ripper, ya know.”

“Yes.” Ethan answered again in brief.

Abby stared at him with desperate eyes, her penetrating gaze speaking volumes. He almost dropped his tea cup as she wrapped her arms around his body. Squeezing him tightly, tears welling up, she continued.

“I thought long and hard, I did, and it came t’ me that havin’ ya watch me, if it was him, the Ripper, ya’d come an’ save me, ya know, before ‘e done me in.” Abigail was quivering like a scared little girl lost in the dark. “Even if ya didn’t make it in time ya’d catch the bloody bastard an’ end ‘im for killin’ me and scarin’ me friends, too.” Wishful thinking on her part.

“Yes.” Ethan uttered, this time with a vacant smile, an expression Abby wanted to believe meant she’d be safe from harm in his charge. Ironically, to Ethan it meant it could not happen to her because there was no possibility Jack the Ripper would be down there on Bakers Row while he was up here observing her. Abigail was in the arms of a madman and because of it, was probably the safest girl in town.

Embracing him as if she’d taken a lover, like a child would her security blanket, an overt insinuation of never letting go, Ethan reciprocated only mildly, resting his free hand on her shoulder while taking another sip of his tea. Gazing out the window behind her, a gloating smirk on his face, his apathy toward her was evident only to him.

“Can we, ya know, for old time’s sake, lay in bed a while and hold each other? I wanna try again, go back out there for ya tonight. I do. I just wanna be close to ya for a bit, love.” She was pleading for his attention and most assuredly, his money.

“Yes.” His redundant response void of emotion, he led her over to the bed while she clung onto him as if for dear life itself.

It was still early in the evening when Abigail laid down next to Ethan, the night as young as she was, fresh and full of promise. She on her left side facing him, he on his back staring at the ceiling, Abby rambled on about her struggles with money. The past few weeks had been hard on her friends, other prostitutes in the area whose business was down due to an abundance of caution from both sides of transactions. She spoke of the few times the two of them had done just this in the past, lying next to each other, holding each other and talking but Ethan wasn’t doing much talking at all. He continued to stare at the ceiling with a smirk on his face. In his mind he was a god, the aloof, virtually untouchable deity with unmatched powers to predict the future with a worshipper of his omnipotent presence right by his side, believing him to be her protector from any harm, mainly the infamous Whitechapel murderer. As he laid there faintly listening to Abigail he began drifting off to sleep, imagining the emergence of these voices he’d been hearing within the walls being more of his admirers, worshippers come to call. He knew they were there to pay homage to his supreme existence. Their hands reaching through the walls, bloodied and serrated, it was obvious to him that they were trying to make contact with his holiness. They needed to connect, if only for a brief instant with his divine presence. Though Ethan adored this attention, he felt no more compassion for them than he did for the mere mortal lying beside him. Despondent and disinterested, Ethan closed his eyes.

Nodding off with Abigail’s voice drowned out by the cheering hordes en masse, the swarm of devotees swelled. In his fantasy, they transformed into the welcoming committee upon his return to the 21st Century. Stepping through the Flicker into the awaiting arms of young Maggie, his reward, he imagined a parade being held in his honor through the center of Oxford University, there to be hailed as “A Hero”. He dreamed of being the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, creating just for him a new category of award to acknowledge his incredible contribution to humanity for: “Sacrifices beyond personal interest in preservation of historical continuity”. They had welded the surgical blade he’d used to the golden plaque: “Doctor Ethan LaPierre” in relief, boldly rising from the surface to stand out for gathering crowds of aficionados, “In recognition of his plight and dedication to duty.” Cameras were flashing, accolades coming from every direction. Standing center stage beneath the white hot spotlight of fame, Ethan was in his glory.

He’d written a full, detailed, fictional report, an extensive analysis of historical adventures, ending his treatise with a compelling, thought-provoking commentary: “Five women who have spent eternity being overshadowed by an evil man named Jack the Ripper have now had their voices heard from beyond the grave.” It was hauntingly perfect. The Consortium was so appreciative, his peers rewarded him. Anson, with the highest level of trust bestowed, decided to relocate the Flicker to his apartment on the university grounds. Whenever he fancied, whatever he desired, Ethan could walk through that doorway without fear of contaminating recorded history because he was a god and just that damn bloody good! With full control of Flicker, he could adjust the coordinates so he’d need only stick his head through to be back at the window in his room, peering onto Bakers Row, watching Abby doing her job over and over again. Perhaps he could persuade young Maggie to dress in period attire to walk through the holy time portal then go stand on the street corner opposite his window, into the dark corner of history, allowing him to watch her get attacked. Would she do that for him? He wondered then concluded: “Of course she would! Maggie loves me. She would do anything for me, no matter what I asked.” He knew she had always hoped to become a Scope. Being a god, he could make it a reality for her, a dream come true, albeit an alternate reality. It was only a dream, bizarre at best, depraved at worst.

Ethan awoke from his narcissistic fantasy wearing an ear-to-ear grin. It had only seemed like seconds since he was out, but it must have been much longer. He awoke alone in his room. Abigail had left. By the silent atmosphere echoing from the street below, it was much later in the night. Wondering if she’d been put off by his lack of dialogue before and after they had gone to bed or how quickly he’d fallen asleep, he wasn’t being rude; his dream was simply more interesting than her words. Still, the girl was the only true physical contact he had anymore and it was rare to have his worshipper present, alive, flesh and blood succumbing to his every whim.

He stood from the bed and walked over to the dresser to retrieve his watch from the top drawer. Before he could do so, he heard a familiar voice coming through the window. Even though he never lit the candle at the desk he knew Abigail was aware of his presence from the shadow play. Ethan, or Arthur to her, stood beyond range, out of sight, the man behind the curtain. She was speaking with some false bravado to another working girl passing, complimenting each other’s dresses and hair, just another night on the streets of Whitechapel spent among friends. Ethan had stepped away just briefly to recover his now ice cold cup of tea, so to quench his dry palate. Covertly returning to his vantage point, cup in hand, he sat at the desk peering out on the activity below. Though the hour was later, the Saturday night traffic was still bustling with the sights and sounds of typical characters he had become accustomed to during his visit.

Abigail may have been small in stature but she had powerful lungs. Her voice pierced the ambient noise around her. He could almost make out her conversations with various people seemingly familiar and unfamiliar to her. Both Ethan and Abby knew it would still be some time before all the street attendance subsided. Once the audience was gone the play could proceed. Plenty of time remained for another cup of tea. Slipping downstairs for some refreshments before the start of the show, his anticipation was building.

Returning to his room, fresh cup of hot tea in hand, Ethan went to the desk chair to peer at impromptu performances by the ghosts of the 19th Century milling around below. In his mind he heard Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” loud and clear. Peeking out from behind the curtain, he observed the ballet of street performers entering and exiting, stage left, stage right, as each end of Bakers Row was draped with shadows functioning as theatre curtains. Gradually the supporting actors disappeared into the ether, penetrating the dark vapor of night, making it all the more mysterious as they walked off stage. More and more of those with smaller roles, bit parts, finished their scenes with little fanfare, never to be seen or heard from again. And so it went until, eventually, only the star of the show remained.

There she was, center stage, following her cues, improvising as she always had. Standing on her mark beneath the gaslight lamp, it illuminated Abby like the vision of a ghostly apparition. Mesmerized, almost breathless, he watched and waited right along with Abigail from his unique perspective, the window on his own little world. Abby was as anxious as Ethan for an entirely different reason. She could sense the time approaching for her duet with the stranger. Then she’d put on the performance previously scheduled for an audience of one, namely Arthur.

An old vendor’s cart had become a makeshift trash heap left on the street, just enough of an obstruction from anyone passing along Bakers Row to see her. It gave her a bit of privacy. Even from street level the view was prohibitive. The innkeeper below was prevented from seeing Abby while he occupied his office window. Only Ethan had a direct line of sight from HIS Mount Olympus.

After a time, his cup of tea finished, Ethan stood from the desk chair to recover his timepiece to determine how late or early the hour was at the moment. Before he took two steps he heard Abby’s prominent voice rising up from the street. Leaning back over the desk to look out in time to see a man approaching her, the gentleman was wearing a long black coat and short brimmed hat. Ethan wasn’t watching when the man first entered the lit area so he never saw his face, the only clear view being of his back as he spoke to Abby. He seemed about five-foot-ten with a stocky build, maybe late thirties or early forties. Obviously inebriated, judging by his inability to hold a steady stance, his animated behavior another telltale sign of his condition. In an attempt to hear their conversation, Ethan leaned over the desk, propping himself on the windowsill. Hoping and expecting that this was not just another trick, another con, he didn’t have that sense of it this time, considering the amount of time Abigail had spent alone in the cold, on a corner, waiting for the right time and man to come along. It certainly appeared spontaneous, unrehearsed, possessing the hint of danger he’d craved as peril for the woman. Ethan found it exciting to be the sole spectator. A sudden surge of virility swept over him, primal to the core. He removed his shirt to feel the cold night air bathe his body.

To deny Ethan’s trueness to himself regarding what this visual stimulation did for him would be more damaging than to simply accept the fact. His body and mind were telling him he had a Schadenfreude extremist’s appetite for the macabre. Yes. He liked watching her squirm in discomfort as the drunkard moved in closer to her. He imagined the man’s alcohol laden, spirited breath in her face, refusing to allow her any escape from its pungent aroma, trapped as she was against his hefty frame. No exit from his intoxicated binge, the unwelcome, intermittent spray from his lips spattered her cheeks, remnants of his overindulgence as he spoke. He took pleasure in seeing her languish over this physical advance, not too unlike the man a week ago who also began taking liberties with her body by use of his hands, rough in manner, in drunken abandon. Ethan took some amusement in analytical comparison, noting that there was not much imagination in most men, or so it seemed by their fumbling and feeble attempts to explore the female form, something far beyond the awkward clumsiness of a creature with no opposable thumbs trying to dine with silverware.

“Look into her eyes, dammit. Her eyes!” He spoke emphatically, if softly.

Willing the man to do his bidding, to help the bloke enjoy their encounter more, he’d make it a memorable scene if he would only follow his stage directions! With his god-like powers of persuasion, Ethan wanted to direct him from a safe distance but it wasn’t working. He wanted to pull the man’s strings like a puppeteer as Time had been doing to him, so both might have a better experience with the same girl. A hundred men could show up, line up to take their turn with her, one after another, groping feverishly, grabbing at her breasts and bottom, yet to grab her heart through her eyes would be the masterful manipulation. The reaction was the same. Whether the bi-product of the connection made was through love, fear or in anger, she would ultimately surrender her control to anybody. Not that literal anatomical muscle but the proverbial heart was the door to supreme power over her and the key to unlock it was the locking of their eyes. Ethan had acquired that knowledge and power with his first two victims, Polly and Annie, and was deprived of that with Elizabeth and Catherine. If the man accosting her possessed this rarified knowledge, his own level of intoxication would rise considerably. He would become drunk with power over her, far exceeding the potency of any liquid libation.

Ethan was jolted out of his attempted mental assertions on the man when, quite unexpectedly, the dark stranger reached up for her throat with both of his hands. The look in her eyes was priceless, worth every pence he had spent on her. Abject terror. It was beautiful. He wondered if he’d truly guided the man with his will. Had he tapped into his mind? His dirty fingernails gouging into her supple neck, choking her larynx, she was overcome with the fear of death. So many women had known this sensation but Abby was having her first turn with it and finally understood what she had heard described. The tightness in her throat and the inability to breathe, the clutching grasp of this brute cutting her free from life, she committed an act of self-preservation. It was over in mere seconds, as she’d managed to dissuade this assault with a target rich knee to the man’s crotch, yet Ethan knew Abby would, no doubt, remember that sensation for all the rest of her days. All three parties involved were frozen in time, remaining motionless for what seemed an eternity, enough time for Ethan to take notice of what was happening to his own body. There was a growing, stirring stimulation as he felt himself becoming aroused.

Though the candle on the desk wasn’t lit there was residual light from the candle on the dresser. Gaslight lamps glowing from the street below provided Abigail with enough light to look up to see Ethan leaning over the desk. As they locked eyes, he nodded with approval, not of her defensive knee jerk reflex to a man’s genitalia but to the allowed victimization. She nodded in understanding, a nonverbal agreement struck to provide him with the visual pleasure he was seeking. Knowing what was to come but not taking her eyes off of her Arthur, she braced herself for the drunk’s own reflex reaction from receiving a knee to the groin. He raised back up from his buckled position and, in one sweeping motion, backhanded her in the mouth. She froze in shock as she turned her attention and her eyes toward the stranger’s eyes. Just as Ethan hoped, finally, they both had absolute power over her. Only then did Abby take notice that the combination of excessive drinking and ramming a knee hard into his crotch caused him to wretch all around the ground between them. The splatter was clinging onto his unshaven chin as he began attacking her verbally, the odor of cheap liquor and vomit nearly suffocating her. Abby almost welcomed his hands around her throat again if only to avoid inhaling the unbearable stench.

It was unclear to the voyeur whether it was his witnessing a man’s control over Abby or his deity-like power or just fulfilling his role as a Scope but something had aroused Ethan, exciting him in a way he’d never felt before. During that time spent viewing them he’d undone his trousers, dropping them with his undershorts, though he did not even remember undressing. Masturbating with primal abandon, erection firmly in hand, he stroked himself into a frenzy just off the edge of the desk. Fully extended, his torso bent over the surface, resting his stomach and chest on the desk, his free hand bracing the bottom frame of the windowsill for balance and leverage, Ethan was delirious with pleasure. Chills running through his extremities as electric shocks pulsed through his veins, he momentarily closed his eyes. Faster...faster his hand moved of its own volition as the performance continued on a sidewalk below. Ethan opened his eyes again, staring down as the drunkard ripped open her blouse, tearing off the buttons. He spun Abigail around like a top, as if he had read the same playbook as the man a week ago, pressing her up against the cold, moist stone wall. One hand reaching in from behind over her shoulder then down her blouse, crudely pulling at her tender breasts, pinching her nipples, his other hand was firmly around her throat in a threatening posture. He let her know. If Abby screamed or struggled, if she tried to defend herself, his attack would be the last. She had no choice but to remain submissive to his will or possibly pay the ultimate price. He’d snap her neck.

Ethan continued to pleasure himself at the sight of it. Breathing became labored. Sucking the air in more deeply, from sheer exertion, beads of sweat began forming on his forehead, making immediate contact with outside air rushing in on a breeze. Droplets of perspiration flinging off the tips of his hair, it dripped from his scalp to his shoulders then down the small of his back. His body was on fire, fully engulfed in the flames of his passionate solitude, alive with delightful sensations. Juxtaposed with the stark contrast of cold night air, it was rather striking, an unexpected feature of a surreal experience. It was a sensation he welcomed, serving to heighten Ethan’s awareness of all things sensual in or around him. He wasn’t trying to imagine being down there in the assailant’s place. He was not proficient imagining scenarios, not adept at fantasy role play. It was a live action visualization that had him turned on. Scope trained and safely shrouded by the cover of night, in the shadows, it was the fulfillment he’d always anticipated.

The bloke pressing against her body appeared right-handed as all of the difficult actions taken were with that extremity. Groping at her breasts, he kept his left hand securely on her throat as he withdrew the right, using it to pull up her layers of skirts from behind. Kicking her legs wide apart, he violently thrust his fingers inside her, releasing his grasp on her throat, using the same hand to cover her mouth, muffling the guttural outcry of pain, silencing her alarm. In a drunken stupor, enraged by his own lack of balance, the man shoved her head into the stone then attempted to enter Abigail from behind in a remarkably unskilled manner. Bracing herself against the wall, preparing for an unwelcome and painful penetration, her head was twisted to the left, her right cheek forced against the stone but she could still see Ethan out of the corner of her eye. There was her Arthur, gazing down upon them. He could see her struggling to turn her head enough to watch him watching her feel the pain. And then he noticed his own. The sweat had run down his arm to his hand clenching the full erection, throbbing between his fingers. That moisture was value added, a much needed lubricant for the chafing repetitiveness of his rapid strokes but the agonizing ache in his forearm was becoming unbearable, more than mere muscle strain.

Lifting his upper body from the desk to determine why the throbbing in his arm was so excruciating, Ethan discovered that, in his lustful rampage, while he stroked himself in pleasure, he had blistered his arm. Unaware that he was likewise rubbing it against the desk’s edge over and over to well past the point of the blisters bursting, blood was freely flowing from the ruptured skin. It wasn’t sweat lubricating his full blown erection, it was his own blood. Possessed by the stunning visualization of an open wound, the crimson stream combined with an impending climax in his role as the voyeur, elevating him to new heights. Nearly collapsing with the realization, he leaned back over the desk to continue observing the rape of his little Maggie clone. The pain did not subside. He didn’t dismiss it nor did he attempt to put it out of his mind. Instead, Ethan embraced it, accepting pain as part of the pleasure, part of the plan, awakening him to a whole new comprehension of masochistic stimulation. It was sublime, twisting and turning in his head, transforming into some visceral bond between himself and the beleaguered girl below sharing in his sordid pain-pleasure experience. He was one with her from the shadows.

Convinced that this had been his only role from the start, Ethan knew if he never met any of these women and Jack the Ripper truly was one of the suspects the police considered, he most surely would have been hiding in the shadows, watching it all transpire while masturbating wildly as they were ripped apart by a maniac. He knew this perverted, deep-seeded sexual deviation must have always been hidden within him, the need to perform and receive satisfaction from both, sexually and mentally. His stroking only lasted a mere few seconds more as the compounded gift of visual and physical pain stimulation felt too intense to maintain control. The anguish was mindboggling. He climaxed on the floor beneath the desk, the ejaculation dropping between his feet, semen covering the blood splatter from his wound that had already stained his clothing and much of the wood floor. All he let out was a muffled grunt before collapsing, his body weight hitting the desk. Oh, the pleasure. Oh, the pain.

Down on the street the drunken attacker was still trying to stab Abigail with his own vapid erection, only to fail time and time again in the effort. Either due to his intoxication or her earlier defensive knee to the groin, he couldn’t get it up and was so embarrassed, he gave up. Taking his frustration out on her, regardless of whether it was her fault or not, he spun her back around to face him. She stood in defiance, or in surrender in tribute to Ethan. Either way, she didn’t fight back. The man reeled back his right hand and with a clenched fist, punched Abigail in the mouth, causing her to crumble to the ground. He then knelt down and grabbed her blouse with both hands, pulling her half off the cobblestone to verbally castigate her for his inability to properly rape her. Tossing the girl back to the ground he stood over her and drove his foot into her stomach, causing him to lose his balance. Falling backwards from the force of the blow, he almost crashed into the old cart. Either from exhaustion or feeling defeated and deflated, or the sobering thought he might get caught, the man pulled himself up from the ground and staggered out of view, leaving behind some of his vomit, pride and his balls. Abigail was still on the ground, softly whimpering, holding her blouse together with one hand, grasping her stomach with the other. He was gone and Ethan figured she would soon vanish into the night, as well.

Rising from the desk, he saw that he left an imprint from the sweat of his body, steam rising from the surface as the cold outside air swept across the same flat wood he had just been lying on. With his frenzied sexual urges satisfied, his wits quickly returned, as did his fuller awareness of the pain in his arm. As Ethan turned to walk to the dresser where the candle was lit, he almost tumbled from the pants and shorts still tangled around his ankles. Neither were spared the mixture of blood, sweat and semen. Leaning onto the desk, he stepped out of both, leaving them bunched up on the floor. Inspecting his wound by candlelight, from the wrist bone to halfway up his forearm, he had pulled back the top layers of skin which looked like crinkled bloody tissue at the top and bottom of the open tear. Ethan dipped his entire arm in the wide mouth water pitcher and began washing off the surrounding blood as the sting worsened. He’d cleansed the arm, rubbing his right hand up and down his left forearm, gritting his teeth from the unbearable throbbing sensation becoming more painfully apparent by the moment. He took a deep breath then yanked off the folded skin at the ends like ripping off a bandage, thus creating two deep caverns, a bloody mess on either end. Washing the wound, removing it from the water twice more to inspect it before he was satisfied with his attentive cleaning, he wrapped one of several rags around it to help clot the blood. As Ethan finished tying the knot with his right hand and his teeth, he heard a knock at the door. It could only be one person.

Opening the door, concealing his naked lower extremities behind it, Ethan was right. It was indeed Abigail, standing there with one hand holding her torn blouse together. She stared at him with those enormous green eyes, her hair messed up and tangled in her bonnet. The left corner of her mouth was bruised, the blood dripping slowly from the corner of her lip where she’d been brutally struck. Ethan, now out of his perverse sexual trance was feeling exposed in more ways than one.

“Are you alright?” He asked in an innocent tone, expressing his false interest. It was the gentlemanly thing to do.

Abby did not reply. She just stared at him. Then suddenly she held out her hand, palm up, in a gesture of required payment.

“Oh, right. Yes.” He said as he realized what she was suggesting. “Can you...” Ethan paused. “Can you wait here a moment? Just a moment.”

She numbly stared without saying a word as he closed the door, too embarrassed to let her inside with the current condition of the room, bodily fluids mingling with his clothing in a pile on the floor. Kicking the trousers beneath the desk to cover up the blood and semen, Ethan then drew a clean pair of pants and an undershirt from the bottom dresser drawer and quickly put them on. Then, from the inside of one of his shoes, he withdrew his wallet. Removing a generous payment for her, more than she would make in any normal month, he returned to the door, this time opening it fully to her. There they stood peering at one another, Abby wearing the same blank expression and Ethan without a clue of what to say. He held out the money in front of her as an offering.

“This is for you. Sure you’re alright, then?”

She took the money from his hand without breaking eye contact to count it then dropped her hand from the blouse, allowing the fabric to open, exposing her breasts. Covered in scrapes and bruises, red marks, literal fingerprints had been left behind from the monstrous man who had squeezed them so tightly. Stepping toward Ethan, she reached up behind his neck, pulling him down to her face. She kissed him, one long, passionate kiss on the lips. Just one kiss. Then she let him go, her eye contact never wavering, her expression never altering. Suddenly, Abigail turned away from him and walked down the stairs, disappearing from view.

Ethan closed the door and stood there in a state of bewilderment. He’d put her through a hellish torment to satisfy his own kinky obsession yet she returned to kiss him tenderly, graciously. Watching her exit the building from behind the curtain, he felt soiled. As he crossed to the dresser, Ethan wondered what possessed Abigail to do his bidding that night. Peering into the mirror, he noticed the blood smudged on his face, a telltale sign of her affection. It had been transferred from her mouth to his as she’d kissed him with abandon. Smeared over his lips, streaked across his cheek, it appeared to be the work of an artist, a broad stroke of genius dashed across his blank expression canvas.

“She loves me.” Ethan said to himself, reflecting on the kiss. Rationalizing her return as coming from love, not for money, she’d done what he had asked to please her man and make him happy in any way she could. He surmised that Abby saw him as he saw himself, as a god. She worshipped him. She loved him and he repaid her love with what, money? She didn’t want money from someone she adored, she desired only love in return. Ethan did not oblige. He stared at his reflection in the mirror but could bear it no longer, turning away from the painfully telling image. Feeling more battered than Abby, though her body bore the brunt of the encounter, his wounds were much, much deeper.

As he looked down, his gaze fell into the pitcher swirling with the mixture of blood, semen and water. It symbolized his selfishness, revealing his insincere and uncontrollable self-gratifying urges. He’d used her to his advantage, allowing Abby to be ravaged for his pleasure. She loved him enough to do it. Revisiting the looking glass again, a mirror told the truth. Ethan was disgusted with himself. The eyes of a sadistic voyeur gazing back at him, the man was sickened by the sight, knowing what those eyes witnessed in the street below just minutes before. The memories of the heinous act now in full perspective, it caused Ethan to spontaneously vomit into the vase, as if purging his system of an evil demon which had held him spellbound at a window, exit wounds born of self-loathing. Coughing, retching, he spit out the residue remaining in his mouth, heaving it into the mouth of the pitcher. Gazing up again, he hoped not to see the malevolent eyes gazing back but there they were, still attached to his soul. He then refocused once more on the smeared bloodstains on his lips from Abigail’s passionate kiss. It looked so beautiful before, innocent and pristine but now it was spoiled and soiled, mixed with vomit and malice. He began wiping it away with his fingers, watching while his hands touched his face. In that moment of sheer madness, Ethan beheld himself spreading the spew out around his lips, stroking his skin with the substance. Suddenly he began laughing maniacally.

“You’re fucking losing it mate!” Hysterical, he mustered the words through his uncontrollable fit of cachinnation. In one moment he thought with reason, the next with madness and confusion. He saw himself as a god yet in his reflection, a demon. Ethan knew he was coming unglued, becoming insane. He’d felt rational enough to wipe the blood and vomit from his face, a natural inclination. In the process, some unnatural tendency took control of his psyche. Dipping both hands into the pitcher, he cupped them together, creating a makeshift basin. Staring into the lurid solution, Ethan inexplicably leaned over, splashing the outlandish liquid substance over his forehead, eyes, nose, cheeks and chin, making sure to cover every inch of his face. The oral spew that was captured inside the pitcher along with the blood and semen had found a destination on his features but nothing could disguise the monster lying beneath the assemblage of fluids he was using to cleanse himself with that night. The odor, texture and uncommon warmth of that polluted water jolted Ethan back to the present, causing him to glance into the mirror to view his revolting reflection, in search of himself. He started to gag again from the vile, vulgar image and smell of profuse fluids caked on his grimacing visage. Conceding to a stronger opponent, Ethan surrendered his will. He had lost all sense of normalcy and was, if not totally, at least on the outer fringes of insanity, a stark realization causing him to burst into laughter. Unwilling or unable to break the stare down with his alter ego, he watched himself slipping into the depths of depravity. Holding his hands up he began posing, making hideous, distorted facial expressions like someone trying to frighten a child senseless on Halloween as bizarre noises emanated from within the reflection of a mouth he didn’t recognize, entertaining only the irrational man staring back at him. His actions were that of a raving lunatic.

The gradual spiral, a descent into madness still incomplete, Ethan felt the need, a compulsion, to remove the clothing he had just dressed in to receive Abigail into a room cluttered with his wanton disregard for her. Hurriedly stripping down to see himself naked and exposed, a more faithful depiction of the monster gazing back at him, Ethan grabbed the entire pitcher in both of his hands and lifted it over his head, tilting it, dowsing himself with the remaining concoction of grotesque waste water. Placing the empty vessel back on the dresser, it freed his hands to begin the typical roaming motions one would normally do during a shower but this was not the clean water he began with for the cleansing of a body. This was the baptism of a newborn lunatic. In a ritualistic manner, he rubbed the fluids all over his body. Touching his own skin with pleasure, he welcomed the irrational, sick and twisted new persona to inhabit his body, giving him free reign. If there were any remnants of the original Ethan remaining, the brilliant professor who stepped into the 19th Century through a doorway opened by an experiment, he was now being washed away, seeping into the wood floor and large area rug below his bare feet.

The imbalanced, disturbed and demented person now solely occupying Ethan’s room began dancing around to a tune booming inside his mind, fancying himself to be Natalie Wood playing Maria in “West Side Story”. He spun in circles through a dark room, dancing with the shadows, softly singing “I feel pretty, oh so pretty!” in his best falsetto. Spinning and spiraling downward, as a boy Ethan used to be afraid of ghosts but now the ghosts of the 19th Century needed to be frightened of him. He considered, “If I am indeed, an unhinged madman then time will tell the sordid tale or, better yet, will keep my secret for eternity.” Ethan reclined in his saturated state. Lying on his bed, he reminisced, recalling the perverted erotic visual images he had seen and felt earlier. There he laid, allowing his fingertips to wander about his body as dark, disturbing thoughts occupied his mind, finally falling asleep just before the sun rose outside his now infamous window on the world.