A/N: This is the first of hopefully some big surprises for the most wonderful friend a girl could ask for. September is the month of awesome births - none more awesomer than the epitome of loveliness - Jamesluver. PLEASE go and read her wonderful Sweenett pieces. She has a stunning grasp of the English language. She is in my favorite authors list and should be in yours too. You will not be disappointed in her pieces. You might be with this.
Luvie - I truly hope you enjoy this kickoff to September! A lot of motifs running through...some a little heavy-handedly. But I thought you might enjoy it nonetheless. I adore you and hope that you have an amazing month and year. Thank you for being such an amazing friend...for always being there. I truly love you. Hopefully some Sweeney Todd can show that! You have some other early birthday presents coming...so hope this puts them off to a great start! ;)
Pieces said by Nellie outside italics can be read as her singing...or, with my sucky attempt at writing a ST song after the haunting pieces therein, you can just read them as if she's simply saying them. Hopefully it won't be too painful a read either way!
Disclaimer: I do not own Sweeney Todd in any shape or form.
The barber's chair beneath her bare bum creaked out a whine as she settled in as if sinking into a warm bath. Red velvet ran its grizzled fabric against her calves as she shifted to let her toes scrap the cold footrest. The world was cold, the room a Giorgione painting, her nipples bitingly hard.
Night gone black with a touch of navy from the streetlamps, the bashful moon glimpsed in from the windows overhead just barely enough to catch light onto her feet. Musk of men and smolder of blade sharpener melded in her mind along with the permeating scent of hair. A biting iron scent too. It was a perfume which she had grown to appreciate. It was a bloodlust that she could not ignore.
And yet, even with the comfort of his chair beneath her and the night cloaking her, Nellie worried the only article of clothing she had allowed herself – a string of pearls recently acquired by an expired patron of Todd's. She stared into the dark, sulking. Aching teeth bit down upon pearls and she pulled the string tight so that the beads snuggled to a choke on her neck. The action brought red to her cheeks, her mind still nursing the wound he had dealt her.
"Mr. T!" she exclaimed, giddy with delight. "Look wha' I found on this here gent!" She held the blood-dipped pearls up to his indifferent gaze and cackled. "A prize for his bonny bride, no doubt!"
A dark brow raised, Sweeney curled his mouth into a smile. An actual smile. "Mrs. Lovett. That string of pearls was round the neck of a lowly transvestite."
His dead words seemed so haunting with that beautiful smile plastered over his face. "But…"
And then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the smile faded. He ripped the pearls from her hand and for one terrible moment, she thought them broken.
"Eh!" she cried. "Do yah know 'ow much they will go for, Mr. T! Be careful!"
"You are a blundering idiot," he said, voice barely at a whisper. "These are quite clearly fakes."
"Fake? Fake? I don' believe it!"
"Believe it, my pet," he said, causing her heart to flutter. "They fail at every turn. Too light." He dangled them from his spindly fingers which he moved like an overturned spider's legs. "Too smooth." His fingers dug together, claiming all of her attention with what those fingers could be doing instead. "Too perfect."
A moment and another passed and she swallowed, suddenly aware of herself.
"Yeah?" she asked, folding her arms beneath her bust and pressing upward, pressing toward him. "An' just how would you know, Mr. Todd?"
That familiar cloud fell over his eyes and she regretted the question as only a foolish woman in love could regret such a thing. He was in another world, transported to another time right before her eyes. And she knew without asking that those still sliding fingers had clasped a necklace – a real string of pearls – upon the neck of the ethereal Mrs. Barker. She shut down then, claiming hold on the pearls with hands that seemed too frantic to be her own.
"Ahright then! Give 'em back!" she screeched, her own voice ringing like a church's bell in her blushing ears.
Too suddenly he let go. Too silly must she have appeared flailing with the faux pearls in her grip and her feet – her very center – off kilter. Yet she composed herself, yet she caught herself, just in time to stumble backwards. She threw him a look of distaste that she had learned this morning when trying the lawyer in the lamb pie. As if he was to blame. As if he reeked. As if she did not care that she was Nellie Lovett – possessor of the perfect pearls and not the damaged ones around another's neck.
The past was the past…is the past…could be the past…past the present there was only the future.
Snorting lightly, Sweeney kept his blistering eyes on her as she gathered the pearls in her hands and clutched them in a bunch. He wore the eyes he wore when scoping his prey and she returned the look, fearless yet foolish.
"Come now, Mrs. Lovett. Come now…I will place them around your neck. You would like that…no?"
She had meant to say no and yet her fists turned to palms dropping faux pearls into his greedy grasp. They fell like tiny pebbles into the ocean.
She glanced up at him, gaining a glimpse of the world in the stained windows behind him. Clouds whispered by like a private play held just for her with Sweeney – her Sweeney – standing on stage.
Those lean fingers – strong fingers, long fingers, wronged fingers – held the pearls open. A reverence that he must have reserved for shaving seemed to fall upon them. He approached her without hesitation and, without much expression, carried the necklace over her head to lie against her neck. She spotted a bloody bead grazing her bosom. The transvestite's blood painted the swell of her breast as she breathed out a shaky breath.
"It is too long," Mr. Todd observed, hooking one finger into the necklace's lowest point – some simmering spot just above her rib cage. "Here…let me fix it for you."
His speed was particularly spectacular. She saw those hands again, this time clutching either end of the pearls – his fingers brushing her sides. As her body teemed deliciously at the contact, she saw the horrible rise and the terrible twist as he turned the necklace upon itself. For a swift second, she saw the sign of infinity. For the next minute, she saw his eyes – too large, too close, and too calm – as he pulled the sides of the necklace until they seized and squeezed her neck with death's grip.
Having taken her last breath for granted, she gasped dryly and a raw terror filled her yawning mouth. The smile on his face that she so adored was now torn into a toothy grin that took up his whole face. She brought her cold hands to his warm ones and felt his muscles seizing beneath her fingertips. His blood ran wild and hot and she felt her eyelids droop as the rush bit into her senses. The clouds above Sweeney's head fuzzed into a pained plain sky. The room vanished.
And then, just as suddenly as his attack started, he let his grip grow lax and her lungs claimed air like a drug.
"Hehe he…hehe…" He grinned, staring somewhere in the vicinity of her beaded and bruised neck. "Hehe!"
Each breath she took felt more precious than the last. The stench of the pies downstairs wafted into her throat and yet, even through the curl in her stomach, she swallowed air in gulps.
Still laughing, he turned away from her, suddenly disinterested. His wandering hands picked up a razor still dressed in a gleam of red and he walked and he waltzed about the room in a high…in a daze…in a hurry.
And she breathed.
And she breathed, her lips holding the pearls and her elbows digging deep into the arms of the chair. Both hands clasped her neck, her breasts rising and falling with a steady rhythm. Into the dark she stared and into the night her conscious ran.
Outside, the city of London hummed with life. Inside, her body quaked. She released her loose hold on the pearls and they fell to a haphazard grip on her chest just like before.
"Who would ever thought…I would 'ather come away with wretched pearls all on display…all sizes and all sorts…just the kind that he adores…just that kind an' then no more…"
Fingers feeling down her skin, falling slow and creeping then clasping at her breasts, she cupped and crushed the skin. Her head pressing back onto the neck of the chair, she spread her fingers to allow the buds of her nipples to poke through. Tight as a vice, she clamped her fingers together and gasped at the pinch in the pink flesh.
"Buy these pearls, sir! They're the finest. Trouble with them? What's the matter? Mind my lips? This here's just reddener. I'm selling pearls and pies, sir, not pleasure. That's down the street 'ere...block or two. She'll sell cheap, sir. She'll sell sure."
Unbidden, Sweeney's face came to her mind as he looked when he was choking her. Desire wound from her chest to her thighs.
If he had not let go…
"Sell, sir…sell, sir…she'll give the kit then the caboodle…"
If he had pulled her close…
"She will give it all for a price. Twenty pounds? Girl can't be right…'haps a pie will buy her night…"
If he had kissed her then. Kissed her and ground upon her. Thrown her on the ground and had his way with her. He had always had such a way with her.
She could see him now, taking his blade and smiling that smile that had terrified yet thrilled her as he pressed it against her bare breast. Too comfortable to bother even getting up to take a step or two to the vanity behind her, she took the pearls instead and ran a bead against a hardened peak. The sleek surface ran cool against her skin and she released her right breast to clutch her dark hair in a grip tight and mean – a grip that she supposed he would use.
"'Bout the pie, sir…could you try, sir…just a simple little bite? They're to die for! Cut and lie for! My pies will change your life!"
Just being there – in his room, in his chair – had her heart racing. Would he tower over her from behind the chair, touching her without allowing her to see him? Or would he stand in front of her without touch…with only his blades and his lathers allowed on her skin? Her fingers shaking with a pleasure and a fear, she gripped down to the scalp to raise her head until she looked at the ceiling. Closing her eyes, she could imagine it. All of the focus on a stray board before Mr. Todd's gaunt yet haunting face came into view. He the last image of life and the first of death. Alpha and omega.
"Lovett's Bakery…Sweeney's Barber's…all in one convenyant stop. Stop on by now…anytime now…just for you, we'll find a spot!"
Core tingling, senses oversensitive, Nellie fell into her pattern. The many times she had lain in bed with her legs spread wide and her fingers clutched closer than close had allowed for a demon far worse than any on Fleet Street to come alive. Letting the hand on her breast fall lower, she arched her back into her own touch as it glided along her belly. A stirring heat struck her flowing fingertips, the cold night all but forgotten.
"Wha's matter? Stop the chatter! Todd is waiting up on top. Come along now! Won't be long now…he'll have you all cut off! He'll beat the price! Course he's nice! Listen not to all that posh! Come along now! Won't be long now! The dinner bell is calling out!"
Taking a quick tempo, she ran her hand up and down her stomach, imagining his blade along the sharpener at the same speed. The hand in her hair twisted and turned and tousled in delight.
"Take me pearls! Forget the whore! What's she good for once you're spent? Try the pie now…'haps the time's now that you'll come to Sweeney's chair. Don' be foolish! Don' be runnin'! Mr. Todd's ah waitin' tight. Take me pearls! Forget the whore! We haven' got all night!"
Moaning, she let her hips thrust naturally upwards. Her hand on her stomach stalled, dragging out the pained pleasure. The need between her legs was almost palpable, her lust driven higher by the night, by the tight tug that every breath seemed to take when it hit her throttled throat. Almost nervously, she let her hand tumble lower and lower, invisible in the night yet more real than air stuttering from her very soul.
"Perfect pearls! Perfect night! Todd should not be kept awaitin'! Take me pearls! Take me stockings! Take me pies! Take me lot n' go to Sweeney! Fleet Street's Sweeney! Just above the Lovett's Pies! Stop on by now! Anytime now! Shave by Sweeney's like none other! Don't trust me word? Then take another pie on home! Home to your wife! Bonny girl…I bet she's nice. Kind of girl who'd change your life! Wouldn' she like a…like tah try a simple little bite?
"Take me pie! Take me pearls! Girl like her would wear them right! Mr. Todd would love to see you for you see your bonny wife! Won' take a moment, let's get going, down onto the Fleet Street stop! Closer shave in all of London…I bet my life you'd never want! Grab me pies! Grab me pearls! Grab me stockings! Grab the lot! Pies especially must stay hot! Hot as hell or London's cocks…all wanting more and more's a lot…cool ya down will Mr. Todd…cool ya down yet keep you warm…warm for wifey, warm for tommy…cool ya down…keep you warm…warm and hot, but not for long. Sweeney's secret…well come along! You'll find it soon, but, dear, be warned…shave from him will change your life! Take the pearls! Forget the whore! This is Sweeney Todd of Fleet Street's night!"
Fingers finally skimmed the wet insides of her vagina and the hand in her hair came down to wrap among the vine-like necklace round her neck. Dipping a finger and then another inside, she mewled. Though she had never seen her Sweeney kill someone, though she had only seen the aftermath and did the most economical thing, she could see him now. Hands gripping, heart pounding, face alive as if in the throes of passion. In those moments alone she could see him living in the present. In those moments, exacting his revenge, she imagined he could love her.
She imagined. Yet she knew. And so she dug her fingers deeper and deeper…as if trying to pull something out.
Tense heat coiling in her soul, Nellie clenched the muscles in her legs until they ached. Like an orchestra harping on a dissonant chord, she moved her fingers up and down and in and out and low and deep. A lovely ostinato.
Neck feeling angry and red, she threw her head back to let her open mouth quiver. A terrifying jolt ran through her and ended at her groin as the chair beneath her whined and the headrest snapped back just enough to have her heart in her throat.
She waited. And waited. And waited. Her heart hammered on, her eyes bulging and blind in the darkness. She did not fall into hell's mouth, so she continued on to her ascent to heaven.
The pearls were now tight and lean in her hand. The muscles surrounding her other fingers pinched and purred and pulsed in time to her movements.
Pleasure growing and dragging and heating, she trembled. The Sweeney in her mind brought a blade to a boy's neck. Pressed in deep. Curved along the skin like butter. Grinned like a boy on Christmas morning. Broke the world.
Her world began breaking, began shaking, began loosening at the edges. One hand tugging, the other pushed. The taste of pleasure was so close that she could touch it.
Just as sudden as a heart attack, the door flew open with a bang that for a split moment she truly thought a gunshot. She cried out, tugged to hard. The pearls came tumbling after her – popping on the floor, pooling between her closing legs, pouring themselves out like blood.
The man at the door cocked his head to the side. Nellie threw an arm across her heaving breasts. Sweeney Todd stepped through the threshold, picked up a pearl bead, and smiled the devil's smile.
She imagined. Yet she knew.
And so he laughed like he laughed when he was alive.