AN: So here it is, after about a month's work. I'm proud of this baby.
Companion to MST3KguruK10's "Propriety". Thanks so much for your help in this!
Ms. Lovett was a greedy woman. At least, Mr. Todd thought so as he listened to the sounds of the building settling, a few of which were entirely inexplicable and not really worth thinking about. He remembered her eyes when she told him she could have sold the razors, the jealous way they caressed the gleaming sliver. The tone of her voice had given him reason to believe that she had had every intention of selling them that very day, until he had walked through the door. He also decided, with that statement, that she was not a woman to trust.
And then there had come the breathless words of wonder at the pretty things, and he had heard the hunger in her voice. In those words, she had all but begged him to let her have them for herself, even as she relinquished them to him.
He sharpened one now, loving the sound of the blade scraping against the rough surface. It was every bit as satisfying to his ear as the blood was to his eye, a sensory pleasure that spurred on the passion of his killing. "You'll never belong to her," he muttered to it gently, and the others in the box on the table. "You never did. If she tried takin' you from me, I'd cut 'er bloody 'ands off. " Never mind that he wouldn't have anything to do it with.
He knew that she was surely quite used to desperation, her business failing so severely that she had to be penniless much of the time. He supposed she had grown conditioned to taking what she needed, when and where she could get it, like a beggar living on the street. He knew that it must have been a tempting thing, to sell those razors. But there was something about her that made all this difficult to tolerate:
Almost--if not absolutely--everything she did was to her own benefit. He was well aware of the fact that the only reason she told him of the razors was that he might think himself indebted to her. He most certainly did not. They were his, and they had always been his. She owed it to him to return them to their master.
("You have beautiful 'ands, Mr. Todd--anyone ever told you that? Your wife ever told you that?" He could hear the bite of sarcasm in her words, through the wretched, breathy huskiness. "Could your wife remove flesh from the bone, Mr. Todd, or could she stomach it? Could she do what I'm doin' to you? Could she really please you this well?" He knew she was touching herself with the other hand. Every now and then she'd switch hands, and it was all he could do not to shudder in revulsion at the sudden stickiness of the replacement hand. He couldn't stand the feel of that on him.)
Not that he hated her--it was difficult to hate her, as well. She could be pleasant when there was little to be pleasant about, and she lifted his mood more often than he would have liked to admit. It could almost be endearing, the way she chirped incessantly about mostly meaningless things, as if the world weren't crashing down around them.
("Could she please you, Mr. Todd? Did she really love you? Did she love you as much as you loved her?" She was leaning close to him now; he could feel her hot breath against his neck, against his cheek. "I did. I do. I can. She can't. She's dead. I can love you more than she can, more than she ever could." Her words grew dark and hard and desperate, her groping more insistent. )
Sometimes, in the back of his mind, he wondered what had really happened to his wife. He didn't consciously dare to question Mrs. Lovett's side of the story, simply because of the other possibilities.
("Look at that. You love it. You love me
It should have been heartbreaking, the way her voice wavered at the end. At the very least, the slick manipulation of her fingers should have been terrifying. But it was none of those things. It was desperation and obsession taking precedence over propriety, over reason, even. It was the flesh of a man within the reach of the deprived hands of a depraved woman.
She thought he was asleep, which was proof she must be mad--no man could sleep through that. These nightly visitations had become routine, but he could hardly chase her out every time--he hadn't the energy for that.
("I wish you'd touch me with those hands, Mr. Todd.")
(He heard her whimper softly, then a soft rustling as she pulled up her skirts. His throat tightened reflexively at the image. As much as he wanted...Yes, he was caught in the throes of lust, now, whether he wanted to be or not. She was evil in her seduction.)
(He heard a low, throaty moan, and a wet sound that would have usually made him cringe. It made him feverish, the light scraping of her nails against his length, punctuated with those guttural moans--it might have made him laugh, to hear such forceful, passionate sounds coming from within her. Her mouth was up against his throat now, her wet lips and tongue gently violating the skin. )
(It was too like prison, she too like the men forcing themselves into places where nothing was really meant to fit.)
(He felt a curl brush against his cheek, and the suddenness was enough to bring an involuntary twitch. He felt her go still, heard her moaning cease abruptly; she was like a girl caught in the act of pleasuring herself. )
(Then events would go as usual--her doubts would force her out of the room, and he could hear the patter of her feet on the floor. As soon as he heard the door shut, he'd open his eyes and curse what she'd left him with.)
Sometimes, she wasn't like that, though. Not desperate, mad, predatory. At times she was gentle, calm, almost loving. She didn't always attack him; the low, hostile tone was not always present in her voice. On occasion she would sit and stroke his cheek and tell him about how they would live together by the sea one day, and she would be his wife and she would make him happy. About how she'd feed him and he'd eat and not be so painfully thin, how she'd learn to cook properly. How they'd enjoy their money and just...
Foolish dreams, the dreams of an unmarried girl, still sweet with the anticipation of an idealized life, not the expected thoughts of the jealous, embittered widow, the jaded view she ought to take. At times he despised her for that, that she could manage to retain so much hope in such a world, a world that had shown her so much cruelty, that had so much cruelty to offer. He was secretly envious of it, of the fact that she could carry on every day with a smile on her face.
He wanted to make it so that she would never smile again--or at least not for the next hour or so. The thought that rushed through his mind was disgusting, he knew, but he wanted to break her down, just as she was breaking him. He wanted her, just for awhile, to be as utterly without hope as he was, day after day. Even if it meant lowering himself to the level of the man who had made his life such misery.
It didn't make any difference, he told himself; he was already damned, already a heartless murderer. No better than Turpin himself, but he would be absolved. It didn't matter what he did now, because once he killed the judge and then himself, he would rid the world of two evil men. It didn't matter what kind of sin he committed now, whether he lowered himself to the level of the man he most despised. He could not pretend to be above such a crime anymore.
And he craved her sometimes, after being deprived of a woman for so many years. There were whores, yes, but those who had made it into the bowels of a prison were sickly, skeletal and diseased, and he'd never touched them. He wanted warm flesh, breasts and hips and thighs and even more flesh than Lucy'd had. He wanted exactly what Mrs. Lovett had, her lusciousness and willingness. Even her face was tempting, her sharp features and full lips and even her tongue seemed promising, slick and sinewy. And despite his disgust and aversion when she touched him, when he heard that heavy moaning down in her room, he wanted that. He wanted her, without her lust for him to soil her.
He thought of her down there, among all the blood and entrails, hacking away at it in the dark, and he shuddered with wicked lust at the thought. The image of her face, fearful in the shadows, her dark eyes wide with it, and his hands on her...
He was snapped to life by the sound of the blade grinding against the sharpening surface, and realized that he had been going at it so fiercely and for so long that he was probably wearing it down, the poor thing. He skimmed his fingers along the edge, and just as he felt the pain of its bite, he felt more, a bit lower, at the thoughts that had been going through his mind.
The reflection of his smile in the stained blade promised him that he'd sleep well tonight.