Page 35 of Razors & Ruin

Sweeney slides his hand into the small on my back and dips me, my hair trailing in the blood. As he pulls me upright, it whips the wall with a fresh arc of vermillion to add to the drying slashes that scream on the dirty magnolia wallpaper.

He walks me backward until my calves smash into the metal step of the barber’s chair. Then all there is is him, looming over me, blood crisscrossing his shirt in vibrant arcs as though he’s been lashed.

Sweeney’s smile is one I’ve never seen before, at least not on him. It’s almost tender, and my chest flares at the thought of him looking at Veronica or his daughter that way.

“Mr. T.” I throw my head back and gaze at him from beneath my heavy lids. “There’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do for you. Nowhere I wouldn’t go, no bad thing that’d be sin enough to leave you behind. Can anyone else say that?”

He knows I mean Johanna. Sainted, blessed, God-I-hope-she’s-dead Johanna, who, even if she lived, couldn’t be the one to save him now. That’s for me and me alone.

He walks behind the chair and, without warning, stomps on the ratchet mechanism. The chair flies back with a squeal of gears, and I scream, afraid I’ll hit the floor, but I find myself slightly inverted, the blood rushing to my head.

Sweeney’s hands are a blur as he unbuttons his fly, his cock surging toward my face.

“Nellie.” He weaves his hands through my hair, shifting my head so I’m almost upside-down, my jaw flexing. “I’m gonna fuck your face, my pretty. All you have to do is take what I’m giving you.”

I gasp as his heat crowds my mouth. His cockhead is smooth and hot, already juicy as it slides along my soft palate and into my throat, and the salty taste is strong. My muscles pump, closing on his shaft, and I fight for control, my eyes streaming.

“You’re a wonder, my girl, a proper wonder.” He frees a hand from the tangle of my hair so he can slide it over my sweat-slick neck, squeezing so he can feel his cock inside my tortured trachea.

“That’s some fucking hot shit. How do you like me, treacle? You like it when I stick a cunt? I’ll fuck yours for every soul I bleed. All this shit,” he stomps his foot, thrusting savagely deep and sending a splash of blood into the air, “is for you.”

For me. Let it be true. I allow myself a moment and imagine attending the ball tonight, proudly displayed upon his arm. I have one good dress; I kept it boxed up just in case?—

I cough as Sweeney pulls free. He releases my trembling body and pauses, his breathing ragged and harsh, and his cock thrums with energy, inches from my lips.

He clutches it, pumping his fist over the length. “I could—no.” He slips his hand beneath my neckline, his pall hot on my cold breast. “What does my slutty little Nellie want?”

As I check in with myself, I realize my pussy is acting out, twitching and gushing with an unseemly amount of juice. My clit is too fat, too rude in my underwear, needing attention.

“Will you eat me?” I ask.

Sweeney repositions himself between my thighs, adjusting the chair flat so I’m less liable to slide off. “Eat you?” he says. “I’d be delighted. Unaccompanied? Or do you, Mrs. Lovett, offer any condiments for my delectation?”

“There’s a lot of sauce just lying around, sir,” I venture, sitting on my elbows so I can see his face. “You know. To add flavor.”

Sweeney’s eyes are dark and mirthful between my milky thighs. With a rummage and a tuck, my skirts are out of the way, and my knickers turn to rags with a nick of the cutthroat razor. The damn thing seems to emerge from his hand like another finger, an extension of his hand.

He rolls the flat of the razor over my mound, the cold making my skin pucker. The sensation travels as he draws it down, cresting my labia and pressing the relentless hardness to my turgid little button. I’m breathing through the exquisite pressure when I feel a wet hand on my thigh.

Sweeney has reached beneath him and gathered a good handful of blood, and I watch in sickened arousal as he spreads it methodically over my skin.

What was pale and dry becomes a claret-colored canvas of death, and he nudges me with the razor, never stopping the smooth motions of his other hand.

Dip and paint, dip and paint, like an artist, until everything from breasts to knees is vermillion.

The blood is still warm, but chills fast, giving me a creeping feeling of weakness. It’s as though it’smyblood, coming up from within like a ground spring and oozing from every pore. Sweeney sits back and surveys his work with a look of satisfaction.

“Beautiful,” he says, more to himself than me. Then his face disappears between my legs, and his mouth is hot on my needy pussy lips, his tongue replacing the cold steel on my clit.

“Ohh fuck!” I cry, arching my back, but he drops a heavy hand in my stomach and holds me down. “That’s so good. Do it more!”

“Needy little whore you are, Nellie,” he murmurs against my wetness. “Whatever you say. You like my mouth on your cunt?”

I nod frantically, and he lashes my clit firmly, replacing it instantly with the flat side of the razor. I still my movements, afraid to be cut, and he laughs deep in his throat as he slips two thick fingers into my steaming hole.

“You look like meat, Nellie,” he says, his voice warm with amusement. “It’s fucking sexy. You want me to lean you out?” He slips the razor along my folds, just too lightly to cut, and I shudder. “Take down a few trimmings?”

“Don’t tease me,” I sigh. “You’re insane, and I don’t care. Make me come. I deserve it, don’t I?”

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