Razors & Ruin (Rare Horrors #1)

Chapter 30

30

Two weeks later…

Sweeney

W e fell into a routine with frightening speed, like it was predestined. Nellie said it first; she and I were meant to be. And what we are, what we do—it’s unique. Elegant, pragmatic, and poetically justified, at least to my mind.

The undignified death of Lady Wetherby, followed swiftly by her cowardly cunt of a husband, sent shockwaves through the upper echelons.

Everyone who attended the ball that night was sullied by the sordid event, and the social calendar of the season has been sparse ever since, with the well-off of the city mostly keeping a low profile.

This includes me, of course. I was there, and while no one seemed interested in that fact, my overtures to the gentry were dramatically overshadowed by Nellie and her confident grip strength, with the result that I have seen no titled heads through my parlor door.

They come through hers instead.

Mrs. Lovett’s Meat Pie Emporium, now called, runs two sittings per night, six nights a week, with takeaway lunch boxes available on a first-come-first-served basis.

Her fare is already the stuff of legend; savory, yet sweet. Soft, but with a bite.

Just like Mrs. L herself.

Today, I’m opening late. My love has imposed upon me a trip to the hardware store for new tools; the ones Harry left behind are broken or too blunt.

She’s going through the bodies of the ill-groomed middle classes at a rate of knots, breaking saws and blunting blades, and it’s high time she upgraded.

“Do you have the list?” she calls through the bakehouse trapdoor. “I wrote it all down. You might want to take the cart—if you get everything, they’ll make a heavy parcel.”

The horse and cart are a recent addition, bought for cash and kept for us by the inn at the end of the street, for a modest livery fee.

“I have it here,” I reply. “You sure that’s the lot?”

“Yes, love. Don’t skimp on it now. We can afford to get the good stuff.”

Indeed we can. Business is damn good, more on her side than mine, but that’s because I tend to reduce my capacity for repeat custom in favor of filling her crusts.

I pick up the list and peruse the items.

Good hacksaw

Cleavers (all sizes)

Tenderizing mallets X 2 — biggest one you can find, plus another

New blades for mincing machine — IMPORTANT. Maybe order a new mechanical one?

I read it again, then a third time, unsure why I keep going over it. All the things she wants are right here; I don’t have to remember them. It’s not like there will be a test.

But there’s something about her jagged handwriting that puts me in mind of the note that told me of Johanna’s death.

Or, at least, there could be. I can’t recall exactly, and I stupidly reduced the damn thing to ashes.

Nellie has been anxious of late, all darting glances and sharp tongue. She tells me it’s because she fears we will be discovered, I am dragging my heels with the wedding planning, she’s working too hard.

It’s never anything I can truly address, and as much I try to placate her, she’s febrile, stuttering through her days like a candle in the rain.

The past, the future—her yesterdays and tomorrows are perilous places. I only know Nellie today , and as the astronomers say, the rest is in the stars.

She could have written the note. It’s not hard to picture her bent over the paper, procured from some posh stationers for the single-sheet price, cussing as she tries not to blot the ink.

Today is All Hallow’s Eve, and the superstitious part of me feels like the membrane between alive and dead, truth and lies, is as thin as rice paper on this of all days.

Even in our cynical metropolis, the pagan rites persist, and down below, Nellie burns sage in an effort to neutralize the piquant stench that emanates from the ever-burning chimney.

She has the brains to trick me, and it’s just possible she didn’t wait for this day of mischief to do it.

Could my treacle, the woman for whom I hung up my pathetic hopes of salvation and agreed to build us a house in Hell, have deceived me so unspeakably?

I step out of the shop, my feet crunching through the crispy russet leaves that litter Fleet Street. It’s a bright day, cold but clear, and the cobbles glisten beneath my boots. Passersby murmur their good mornings, and I touch the brim of my hat in acknowledgement.

If Nellie wrote the note, she has some fucking gall, but then again, I can’t prove it. She’s not stupid enough to confess—I love her, and I tell her every day, but she knows from what shoddy, unholy stuff my adoration is made.

I love her. That’s not to say I won’t carve her heart from her chest and feed it to the fucking crows.

My soul is an endless void where there’s more than enough space for both of these things to be true, and my woman expects no less, but this isn’t what makes me doubt myself.

She talks to me of fate, of destiny. I come to her table, bloodied and fired, only for her to soothe me in ways that reach some deep, starving seam in my psyche.

We fuck like animals, and at times, like lovers—human beings. All over God’s rich tapestry of possibilities, Nellie moves her needle, stitching us together by inches.

I’m paranoid, that’s all, pulled every which way by the fear that the note’s author will make themselves known. If it was Nellie, it’d be a relief, but I don’t believe it.

My woman is a jealous, possessive wretch. She hasn’t got a screw loose; there isn’t even one that was fully tightened in the first place. But she is not merely crazy.

She’s crazy about me . And that is how I know I’m wrong.

We can go anywhere, Veronica. Anywhere.

I don’t want to. Dammit, Currer. I told you—Gerald and I, we want to sort things out.

He doesn’t love you like I do!

No bad thing! You frighten me, for crying out loud. I was naive, but not anymore. It’s over.

You don’t get to decide, Veronica. Give me the baby.

If you so much as touch Johanna, I’ll ? —

I sit bolt upright and gasp like a fish out of water, my heart galloping.

Nellie sleeps naked on her front, the moonlight picking out the individual bumps of her vertebrae, and I stare at her, trying to reassure myself she’s real.

She’s recently taken to a nightcap of a sleeping draught, saying it stops her waking too early in the morning, but in my opinion, it’s enough to knock out an African elephant.

That fucking dream again. It will not let me be, stalking my subconscious, driving me out of my warm bed and into the cold loneliness of the shop, where I pour a large tot of gin.

I wish I understood what was happening. My head feels like it’s full of broken glass, splinters of something irretrievably broken, and it’s new to me.

Not that I’ve ever not felt broken, but there’s a fragility to it that sickens me. After my earlier musings on paranoia, it occurs to me now that the person I trust least in this world is, in fact, myself.

What did I do to Veronica? Why, after all these years, does she come to me in my sleep, ever less the sweet lover of my youth and more a stranger?

It’s moments like these when I need Nellie most, but I feel too raw and porous to let her near, and I can’t find it in myself to go through the rough, bestial fucking we do when one or both of us needs to relieve some pressure.

I drain the gin and head back into the bedroom. My love has rolled onto her back, her scars silvery in the moonlight, and my mouth goes dry at the sight.

Her breasts rise and fall evenly as she sleeps the dreamless twilight sleep of the lightly drugged.

I can take what I want without having to give her anything. She will never know, and I’ll get to feel her acceptance and understanding without the corresponding vulnerability.

I don’t want her to see me this way, but I do want her to take me. To relieve my tortured mind by being a receptacle for my seed, a depository for my vitality.

I take her ankles in my hands and slowly slide her legs apart, banking on her remaining in position. She is too out of it to resist, and I climb onto the bed between her thighs, my cock already stiffening as I take in the view.

Her pussy is pink and smooth, darkening where her tightness calls to me.

I work myself up to full mast, breathing through my nose so I don’t moan aloud. Leaning over her mound, I spit carefully on her slit, watching as my saliva runs over her inner lips and into her pretty hole, and it’s all I can do not to plunge in to the hilt.

With a quiet hawk in the back of my throat, I pull up a good mouthful and do it again, sure she’ll stir. Her pussy shines, ready for me, but she remains a thousand miles away.

Is it possible Nellie will sleep through this? Fuck me, I hope so.

I’ve never fancied myself for a necrophile, but there’s something about her utter submission, unchosen by her and unearned by me, that makes me feel the same godlike power as when I take a life.

Her body, hijacked in the dead of night, used for my pleasure. What a tonic!

I rub my tip over her entrance, easing inside, but she doesn’t move a muscle. Her pussy is awake, though; it seizes at the intrusion, and the resistance meets with my instinct to force my way past it.

My cock sinks into her velvet channel, the heat suffusing every over-engorged inch of my shaft. I sigh with bliss and pull her closer, pushing her legs wider so I can bottom out.

My cock disappears inside her wetness, swallowed by her body, and I marvel at her ability to be wholly absent for the event.

Normally, when we fuck, she’s taut, straining against my girth and her own desire. Now, she’s supple and accepting; a warm, safe space.

I move her along my shaft, using her pussy to masturbate. That’s what it is, in essence. A total surrender of her essential humanity, a rejection of her personhood, and I didn’t have to kill her to do it.

My balls grow heavy with the need to come, and I slow down, trying to delay the inevitable, but without her orgasm to consider, I can’t convince my body to slow down.

The veins throb, and I bury myself deep, grinding into her hard as my climax ravages me, my seed flowing rhythmically into Nellie’s oblivious cunt.

I pull out, watching as my come puddles beneath her hips, and feel like me again.

Just as sneaking into the ball gave me the joy that comes with non-consensual thrills, so did fucking my sleeping fiancée.

I love her, need her, but I hate that it’s so. Our kind of intimacy is too enmeshed, too choking, and yet I’d have it no other way; it’s how I know it’s real.

Nonetheless, this one-sided encounter had the ring of conquest to it, a clear sense of winning, and I enjoyed the breathing space.

I could tell her, of course—she’s the type to get off on it—but for now, I’ll hold onto the sense of power. Something about the act has recharged me, and I feel whole again.

The room is chilly, and I close the window before returning to Nellie’s side. I draw her into my arms, and she rubs her cheek on my chest before settling back into slow, quiet breathing.

“Sweet dreams, treacle,” I whisper.