I was doing some research for my full multi-chapter retelling (almost finished with the first draft, by the way!) on Victorian euphemisms. These people were euphemism machines. It's literally like another language. Guess what I come upon?
Barber's chair means slut.
It's from the phrase "She is as common as a barber's chair, in which a whole parish sit to be trimmed" and was widely in use. Obviously I had to do something with this.
This fic is rated M for lots of discussion of sex. Not a lemon. Anyway, here's a short glossary.
Tupping = copulating with. A vulgar term, originated by Shakespeare, from Iago's speech in Othello: "a black ram is tupping your white ewe". Coincidentally, a similar sentiment by Iago gave us "the beast with two backs".
Dab it up (with) = sleep with.
Dirty puzzle = nasty slut.
Crinkums = venereal diseases. Lower class Victorians have a whole range of phrases dedicated to the avoiding, catching, and possessing of them.
Old hat = not very flattering term for ladybits.
Barber's chair = slut.
Sweeney Todd knows, without a doubt, that there is no god. That heaven can never exist because Botany Bay does. He has not uttered those three letters since Lucy's eyes filled with tears and her sun-blinding hair became a dot on the horizon.
There are no more prayers left in him. Piety is for those who can hope. If, after death, he is told there is a god, he will claw his way out of hell, storm up to slit St. Peter's throat, mangle the pearled gates, find the world's throne, then brutally murder whoever sits there and watch the sky rain blood.
But for God's sake.
She swings her hips like weapons, leaning down and making a show of the pie when all she's truly presenting is her cleavage. The youngish, handsome fellow chokes down a mouthful with a blush, sputters something.
She sits next to him, and they start chatting. Her hands sail through the air, grasping and wringing it for all its secrets. He says something softly to her, she twirls a strand of fiery hair around her finger, bats at him. She smiles and pushes her breasts together and the man goes silent, stares.
Then she looks up for a flickering second, meets Sweeney Todd's glare.
And her hand settles on the fellow's thigh.
He watches them shuffle inside the shop, no doubt to her bedroom, and grinds his teeth until he's sure they'll chip. He doesn't want her, he's respecting his wife's memory, he couldn't care less, and if she doesn't stop tupping everything that bloody moves he is going to snap.
At first it didn't bother him; she seemed the type to be loose, and aside from the quiet admiration that prison taught him of the womanly form, he had no further interest. But now he's sure she's doing it because he watches. For the past week he's been afraid to induce sleep with gin—the only way he knows how—for hearing her moaning beyond the parlor.
It was only…yes, after the dancing. Her idea lit up the air around them. If he had been a lesser man he would have ravaged her right there, against a table full of disgusting pies with all of London watching.
He came far too close as it was. She tasted like cheap liquor and sweat, her dress was rough as the curves it hid were soft, and he'd called her love, pet, mine, brilliant, mine, panting at her neck, grasping her closer, closer, needing in the most base way.
Thank goodness he tore himself away from her when she undid his belt.
But there is no goodness and she'd only gone at him again, he'd thrown her to the ground. "No," he'd said. "Never. Never, you hear me?" then he'd hauled her up the floor, pretending he wasn't afraid he'd hurt her, and sneered. "Go prepare the Italian's meat for grinding."
She'd dusted herself off. "Go to 'ell. Wrong to leave a woman like this, don't you think, Mr. T?"
"Wrong for two widowers to dishonor the memory of their spouses."
She'd laughed and laughed, then gone and got herself ridiculously drunk for hauling the Italian's body down that night.
Their first customer came two days later. A poor man getting on in years ordered a pie. Sweeney had been in the shop, cleaning his razor. He watched the man's eyes light up.
Then Mrs. Lovett started her usual act, and the hunger on the man's face became a different kind entirely.
He'd underestimated her, at first. Thought it was another game. He'd pretended to be interested in the razor while she hummed around the customer. Then she'd sat in the man's lap, and he'd coughed. "I think I'll go back up," he'd said.
The man started to say something and she grabbed his face, thrust her tongue in his mouth. Sweeney couldn't tear his eyes away as the old man grabbed at her buttocks, groaned, made the most indecent propositions.
Sweeney had coughed again. "You might have another customer."
"No one comes in, love, no worries," she'd said, touching the old man's nose. "Carry me to the parlor."
Sweeney Todd stood there for an hour, cleaning that one razor, tracing the pattern on its handle. It's a woman with flowing hair, like Lucy. Lucy, the dearest lady who ever lived, the only woman he ever loved—
Then an unholy moan then rose from behind the parlor door and he'd near about broken it down and murdered them both. "Gawd, oh gawd, oh right—yes, yes, oh Mr. Todd! You don' mind if I say, ugh, gawd, Mr. T, mmm—ohhh…"
She'd come back with a handful of coins and the most disgusting smile on her face.
"Didn't ask 'im to pay me, but that was nice, weren't it?" she'd asked.
"Never do that again," he'd said.
So of course she did it whenever she could.
If he gives in now, he knows, he's only asking for her to manipulate him deftly as you please. If one time would sate them both, he'd—no, he must be faithful. Lucy would want him to be faithful. And Mrs. Lovett will hang it over his head. She knows him well enough to use this now, there's no telling what further intimacy might bring.
"Bloke's wife were away, and she don't love 'im," she says later of the admittedly attractive youth she seduced that morning. "I can tell."
He bets she can. If his own feverish attempt at grabbing onto something, anything tangible taught her enough to use his body against him like this, she sees a man's soul on his naked flesh.
That night he cannot force himself to stop thinking of her. He wakes the next morning and the only thought on his mind is: this has to end.
He kills a man, letting the frustration coiled inside him fly out with the quick, jolting movement of his arm, a puppet having its strings drawn up. A puppet, controlled by that insane comedian fate, cutting the strings of the marionettes around him.
He has let the tyranny of existence yank him around far too long; it is humiliating that she pulls at him too.
He goes down for a pie for lunch, scans the crowd. There. The filthy beggar woman who continually hangs around, shouting about smoke when she's not lifting her skirts.
Mrs. Lovett is nowhere to be seen, likely grinding human meat or deluding herself into bedding a man for his attention, and Toby is too occupied with serving ale to all the men calling for it. He seizes the whore by the arm and tugs her out back, then pushes her against the wall.
Her teeth clatter. "Sir, evil pourin' out the—"
"Yes, whatever." He grabs her petticoats and she gives a wheezy laugh. He can't see her face through her scraggly hair and filthy bonnet. Just as well.
The slivers of her thighs, though, are not as mangy and pockmarked as he thought. Perhaps she isn't altogether too old.
"Hey, don't I know you, mister?" she asks, then leers up at him.
He struggles to undo his trousers. Best get this over with as quickly as possible. He will be satisfied, no need to watch Mrs. Lovett, and she'll understand that it's not only his marital promises keeping him from her. He'd rather dab it up with this thing than give into such a dirty puzzle.
He pushes the beggar woman against the wall.
"Mr. T!"
Suddenly Mrs. Lovett is there, seizing his arm, hauling him away. "Jesus God. Get out, you old bat," she says, shooing at the beggar woman. "You ain't to advertise your filthy wares 'ere, I say—out!"
As the prostitute hurries down the alley, he does up his trousers and turns on Mrs. Lovett. "I should think this is my business."
"You ninny, she has diseases!" Mrs. Lovett wracks her hands over her hair. "If you're so bloody set on not grindin' me at least let me find you a girl that don't eat rotten fish and…and catch crinkums in her old hat. 'Ow're you gonna get revenge on the Judge covered in warts and things?"
"You're jealous," he says.
"Yes, dear, now come along and go back to the shop, I need one—delivery of meat today, alright?"
He stomps away. The nerve of the woman. As if not wanting her must be a cardinal sin.
When she comes back up after their businesses close, her dress is different than it was. He glares at her. "I'm going to have to tie you down."
"Aw, Mr. T, don't you flatter with me fantasies,'' she says, and goes to the vanity, moving in a way that could only be called serpentine. "I was thinkin' of a boar's head or summat, we can certainly afford it now."
He smiles wickedly. "Oh, he paid you, did he?"
"It's rather fun, you ought to try it. Honestly it's not like you're inducted inter the clergy once your wife's—gone," she winces, then tries to cover it up by putting her hand to her hair. "Sorry, pin slipped. Ugh. Toby's worried about me, silly little lad."
She pops her neck, runs a hand through her curls. "I've been clumsy all day, and a bit drunk, besides. Won'tcher turn on the lamp in the corner, love? I can't hardly see my ruddy face. Honestly you're probably known as the Darkest Barber on this side of the Thames, not the best. Gonna hurt your eyes, it is."
He closes the box where he keeps his razors. His friends have been angry all night. And his newer companion, the chair—
The chair. He snorts.
She turns around, cheeks red with indignation. "What's such a lark, huh?"
"Nothing," he says. "Keep fixing your hair."
She turns, gives him a full dose of those ugly-wide doe eyes. "Mr. Todd…"
"It's just, I'm a barber, and you're my chair."
"You still on about that?" her hands go right to her hips. "Honestly. If it bothers you so much—"
"Sit," he says.
She goes to picking at her red mane again. "My hair, dear."
"Sit."
She shuffles up, reclines in his chair, curling her arm around the back and giving him the grin of a trickster god.
He takes a razor from his holster. Lets it catch the tiny specks of light left, begins to circle her. "You're jeopardizing everything, pet," he says. "Any one of those men could figure out what goes into the pies."
"Darlin'—"
He doesn't care what she says. By now he's salivating. With murder or lust, he can't be sure. "You talk enough as it is. If anyone—they will hang us, Mrs. Lovett."
He puts the blade to her throat.
"No more men," he says.
She laughs, but it's a nervous twitter. "Now, dear. Let me up. From one barber's chair to another this one's dreadful uncomfortable."
He presses the blade closer, feeling the resistance of the skin at her neck.
"You need me," she says. "you're not stupid, love, you wouldn't kill me over a romp or two."
She starts to get up, and in a panic, he grabs her hip and presses her into the chair. He doesn't want to kill her, it's a threat, she's reckless as damnation.
He can feel her pulse at her hip.
He grabs at it, and her neck is so white and gorgeous, she's splayed out for him, completely at his mercy…he's half a mind to send her down and half a mind to take her right there—
She reaches up, threads her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck. "Out of breath, dear?"
He's panting. They both know it.
He slides the razor closed and grabs her wrist, takes her hands off him. "Have the grinding ready and be in your room when the sun goes down, Mrs. Lovett," he says. "It's time to end this."
It certainly is.
As she rises, goes to him, wraps her arms around him and kisses him, he stills and closes his eyes, but doesn't stop her. She's a barber's chair. It doesn't matter. His concession means far more to him than her. He feels a pang in what he has left of a heart—he is giving up something, and she merely adding another trophy to her collection.
She's a barber's chair.
But he's always had a certain reverence for objects.