Esteemed Malevolence

XV: A Little Lie

Ever since Mr Todd's accidental murder away from his usual prowling grounds, everything had been running rather smoothly, much to the dark couple's surprise. Throats were being slashed left, right and centre, customers were actually queuing just get a seat in Mrs Lovett's Meat Pie Emporium - and poor Eleanor Lovett had never been down the bake-house stairs so much in her life!

The partners in crime weren't just focusing on keeping their morbid businesses going either.

Since that eventful night of a few days prior, Mr Todd had made it in his routine to close up shop and head down his stairs. Eleanor had been a little more than delighted to see that it hadn't been a one-time event.

The two of them would just sit in the parlour together for an hour, perhaps even two.

Sometimes they talked. Sometimes they drank. Sometimes they were completely silent.

Their lust was always there as background noise, but it was not so deafening that it would take them both over. The habitual exhaustion after their long days of killing, wearing masks and dismembering - all of it pegged them down to being just murderer and accomplice, and nothing more. Even though their apparent affair had seemed to taint into something faded and forgotten, the baker knew that if Mr Todd wanted something as badly as he did her, it wouldn't be so easy for him to just put a pin in the idea.

He was biding his time.

Because if Sweeney Todd wanted something, he'd snatch it.

After the hour (or two) was up, Mrs Lovett would always give him a hopeful glance as she bid him goodnight - she'd wish the two of them weren't so fatigued, or at least kid herself that she had enough energy in her to initiate an advance towards him... but her self-esteem was slowly diminishing with each night that went by... and with each chop she took to each gargling corpse that dropped down from the shop above.

The blood was starting to stain her cuticles.

She wouldn't complain, she would always set her desires aside.

She'd give him the warmest, kindest smile before she closed her bedroom door.

And he would be silent, his eyes always so unreadable as they hovered over her door. He'd stay sat there for quite some time, just staring at it like he expected the blasted thing to fling open any moment.

He'd urge it to open.

At least if it was open, he'd have an excuse to visit her in the middle of the night...

It wouldn't be long until his mind would trail to the endless, vivid fantasies he had of her...

Tearing away the undergarments from her. Teeth tugging on her lips roughly. Mischievous fingertips running over her deathly pale skin...

He would wish for his thoughts of grief and murder to return, for the tempting thoughts of her were almost too much for him - mind and body - to handle. The baker was unknowingly tormenting him, unaware of what effect she had on him every night - unaware that the spell she had him under burst its way through him to veil his true ambition, causing his plans of vengeance to be interrupted.

He'd lay back over the settee, faintly aroused, the fire still roaring away next to him. He'd chant his late wife's name as his eyes would close in a futile effort to keep his desires away. He'd fall asleep to the monotonous sound of Lucy's name, the flickering flames casting diagonal shadows over his pallid features.

Even in his land of dreams, the sound of his angel's name couldn't protect him. Because Eleanor was the only thing present in his crooked mind's eye. Her entire aura surrounded him - the imaginary feel of his hands over her, the illusion of her wrapping her bare form around him, her breath exhaled in rags, her face reddened with arousal, her eyes pleading for him to take her...