Razors & Ruin (Rare Horrors #1)

Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Christmas Day…

Sweeney

A workhouse Christmas is at least as tragic as a prison one, as I know too well. No gifts, no goose, and no goodwill toward men.

Having never received much of the latter, I’m not much inclined to dish it up, but Nellie is a different creature.

She’s far better than I at pretending to be a normal, functioning member of society, with the happy outcome that her festive Christmas Day sitting is packed to the rafters.

It was all I could do to coax a few stragglers upstairs, but that’s fine with me. Technically speaking, I’m not the breadwinner, although I consider myself under-appreciated, an unsung hero. The man who fills both the pies and the piemaker.

Happenstance continues to smile upon us; despite skirting so close to discovery, we never attracted the interest of any official who was charged with investigating the disappearances.

Sommers was assumed to have fled to avoid his considerable debts, and as for the Beadle, the rumors about him were enough to make the middle-class housewives of the city clutch their pearls.

I sit at Nellie’s counter and watch her bustle and bark, keeping her little army on its toes.

“Ale for this table,” she says, jabbing a finger. “Quick now. Clear this one. Customers are waiting!”

The workhouse kids are thrilled to be here. Not only is it warm, but Nellie doesn’t work them too hard, and she doesn’t hit them, either.

Her maternal streak appeals to me, but fathering a child upon her would be more than a bit irresponsible, given our lifestyle.

Those bakehouse stairs are a fucking death trap, and there are way too many sharp objects lying around.

The kids get fed, not the award-winning Mrs. Todd’s Meat Pies, but the stuff we eat. It makes Nellie happy to give hungry kiddies the finest food money can buy while rich and poor alike eat each other instead.

She put her prices up recently in an effort to drive demand down a bit, but it did nothing to reduce the queues that start stacking up earlier evening by evening.

I spear a chunk of pie from the plate before me. We have a system to keep the food separate—all the punter’s pies are made and stored downstairs now—so I’m certain this one is lamb and potato.

It tastes fine, but presumably, it all does. The scraped plates and daily sell-out are a testament to that.

So who’s the fool? For all I know, I’m missing out, and those flea-bitten tribespeople were onto something with their long pig and short tempers.

Nellie parts with her last pastry at four in the afternoon, and I have the unenviable job of disappointing the line of pie lovers still waiting outside.

The kids take their meal at her table and put away more ale than a shipful of sailors could imbibe over an entire voyage. We wave them off as they meander back to the workhouse, a trail of uneven footprints in the snow behind them.

It’s dark now, and I extinguish the parlor lights upstairs. Few men were of a mind to visit a barber on Christmas Day, so business was slow, but now the night is drawing in. Before long, the streets will be empty.

I find Nellie in her lounge, admiring the present I got for her. It’s a locket in gold, with my picture on one side, and she’s squinting at it, smiling.

“Is this an etching?” she asks. “It’s familiar.”

“That’s because it’s my face, treacle. You see it every day, apart from when you’re sitting on it.”

I sit beside her on the couch and hand her a glass of mulled wine. “The picture was from a newspaper,” I say. “Don’t I look dashing?””

“That’s it!” she says, sipping her wine. “I had the bigger version on my wall. You’ve no idea how many times you looked down on me while I touched my pussy and wished you were there to fuck it.”

“What a charming notion, Mrs. T.” I kiss her neck. “I will add that to the wank bank, if you’ll excuse an indelicate term.”

Her gift to me is a razor. I pick it up from the box on the table and admire the perfect sheen of the handle, my name embossed on the surface.

“You know, it’s quite the extravagance, a gold razor,” I say, turning it in the light. “Silver is ostentatious enough as it is. Wherever did you get it?”

“As a matter of fact, I had it made specially.”

She shuffles closer and studies my face as I examine my new blade. “Took a lot of work to melt down the raw materials into a more acceptable form, but once the idea came to me…”

“You used the Beadle’s gold teeth?” I ask, suddenly understanding.

“I used a lot of gold teeth beside his. There was a whole pail of them downstairs.”

“That’s sickeningly clever. I love the way your nasty little mind works, Nellie. So you took a brick of tooth gold to an artisan, and they whipped up this wee beauty?”

She nods, exhilarated by my appreciation. “Correct. Paid through the nose, but that’s to be expected for a one-off piece.”

“You’re a one-off piece,” I say.

I push her onto her back and bite her collarbone hard, making her yelp. “Did you find the extra treat behind the locket photo?”

“I did. It stinks; do I have to keep it there?”

She sighs as my hands roam over her body, and I use the razor to slice her dress buttons. Her rosy nipples harden beneath the tip of my tongue, and she arches her back.

“Yes, you do,” I murmur. “If they come for us and I’m not here, you’ll know what to do, and so will I.”

My police mugshot, glaring out of the tiny locket, hides a grim secret: a cyanide capsule. I have one, too, hidden in my wallet, and I won’t leave home without it.

If we are to be undone, we’ll do it ourselves, but not until we’re cornered.

“Swear to me,” I say, running my tongue down her smooth belly until it crests her mound. “Swear you won’t give me up. Promise, if it all falls apart, that you’ll come with me to Hell.”

I lap her clit, a fleeting touch, and she moans. “Say it, Nellie,” I whisper against her slick folds. “There is no life without me and no death either. Wherever I go, you’re going too. Say it.”

“Of course, love,” she sighs. “Of course.”

I dig in then, devouring her pussy, her slutty cries ringing off the walls. She winds her hands through my hair, her body surging against my mouth.

My new razor is slimmer than the others, with an edge that could split a diamond; it shimmers as it unfolds in my hand. I press it to Nellie’s opening, and she freezes, terrified I’ll slice her sensitive flesh.

Instead, I stroke it over her pussy lips, flexing the tendons in my hand, making the tiniest nicks and cuts, the thumb of my other hand working her swollen button.

“It hurts,” she says, the words shuddering from her chest, “but it’s so good.”

The blood is minimal—the blade is so keen that the cuts are more like grazes—but they come up beautifully, little red lines crisscrossing her plump slit.

My cock throbs, and I free it so I can rub the juicy head over the fresh slashes that paint my love’s cunt like a fresco.

“Hold that pussy open so I can fuck it,” I say. “Nice and wide now, so it hurts you right, that’s my good slut.”

She does what I ask, and I toss the razor aside, overcome by the need to be inside her.

I sink into her in one thrust. The friction pulls at the tiny cuts, searing her cunt with every stroke, but still, I rub her clit, blood lubricating it as I bottom out deep inside.

“You’re so hot,” she says, throwing her head back in surrender. “Do it to me. Make me bleed for you.”

Her words make my balls tighten. So rare, this wife of mine. Rare enough to bleed, as any good chef would say, and bleed she does.

Always, every day, for me .

I slap her cheek so she’ll give me her fuck-hungry eyes. She’s coming; I know it from the precise dilation of her pupils, the flush in her chest, her clutching, tortured channel.

“I’m coming,” she cries, scratching her nails down my back as she explodes.

I’m beyond words, beyond anything.

All there is, all there ever was, is bound up in her, and I’m coming too, filling her with all the filth and chaos she could ever want.

Nellie and Sweeney. Sweeney and Nellie.

We lie awhile, watching the candlelight dance on the wall

“I love you, treacle,” I say.

Nellie caresses my face, leaving her bloody fingerprints on my jaw.

“I love you too, Mr. T.”

THE END