11. Morals
The grown women in his life couldn't be more different. Todd growls, rubbing his temples, pacing back and forth in a desperate attempt to quell his thoughts. His head pounds. He is disorientated.
Lucy Barker still holds his heart. She might not be physically alive anymore, but she'll never die in his memories. She belonged to Barker, but he has no intention of severing the love that once tied him to humanity.
He tries to recall her now; she always calms his anger. She was virtuous, was Lucy. Shy. Beautiful. Modest. She'd always had a soft smile preserved for her husband, a gentle touch which told him everything would be all right. She'd been faithful, dressed appropriately, loved no one but Benjamin. She'd had all the morals a woman should.
Unlike the woman below him now, humming away in the pie shop.
Mrs. Lovett. So very different from his cherished love. She is not virtuous. She is brash. She is left with the haunted beauty hardship brings. She is immodest. She is temptation sent by the Devil himself, a fiend intent on making him forget. She runs her hands down his arms, presses her body against his, assaults his neck with heated kisses he cannot stop. He drowns in her lust, clinging to her even though she disgusts him beyond measure.
Lucy may still hold his heart, but Mrs. Lovett holds the anchor to his sanity.
In the end, it doesn't matter if Lucy had morals. She is the one buried in an unmarked grave, not Mrs. Lovett.
In the end, virtue could not save her.