Renoir's The Odalisk

“The Whitechapel Murderer”

Mist was flooding the East London streets as every evening in that ill-fated autumn of 1888. Bohemians went out of their dens to seek for another adventure under the night’s ancient light. The best place in Whitechapel area to satisfy their deepest and most perverse pleasures was Satin.
The brothel had a sordid atmosphere. Red bulbs illuminated the walls’ peflaking paint and the ragged curtains that functioned as the rooms’ doors. Almost naked women wandered around the place, while strange personages murmured something to their ears. A thin, pallid/pale man sat at the piano playing the same dull melody over and over again while a group of drunk men kept on prattling.
However, beyond that fake joy, there was something else. Horror had entered their careless souls after hearing about the fifth murder committed by the infamous “Leather Apron”.
The front door opened slowly with a creaky noise. A burly figure stood firmly at the entrance. His defiant look paralyzed the habitués who could conspicuously perceive an evil aura around him. No sooner had he stepped into the room than Thelma, the procurer, grabbed his arm took him upstairs. He was one of Satin’s renowned clients. Thelma, praised for being the best belly dancer in London and, as such, known as The Odalisque, was to begin her vengeance.
She had spent months, more precisely since the 31st August, the day the first murder took place, watching cautiously and patiently this man’s moves. Her wrath had reached levels that were beyond description when she got to know about the horrid nature of the crimes. This had led her to cleverly plan every detail so as to wreak revenge on Jack the Ripper.
Once upstairs, she closed the door behind her.
“Make yourself comfortable,” she muttered, giving him a sharp look.
She handled him some opium to smoke and laid down on a thick with dust old sofa. Thelma stared at him suggestively while she sweet-talked him.
The odalisque started shaking her hips skilfully in a provoking way. Strangely, Jack began feeling dizzy although he had regularly smoked this herb before. Meanwhile, the odalisque continued with her vibrating and sinuous movements while he laid on a ramshackle bed with his feet too numb to run away, but still not sleeping.
When she realized his dizziness, she stopped dancing and, with a sudden movement, she clutched at a candelabrum and violently hit Jack the Ripper’s head making him fall off the bed. Blinded by anger, she kept beating the inert body screaming bloodcurdling curses at him until her strength abandoned her.

By: Gisela Cubilla & Melina Lasorella