Chapter 4: That Blasted Mortal
"What have I gotten myself into?" Jareth asked himself aloud, throwing his slender frame onto his throne. Fairies, goblins, dwarves, he could deal with them all and barely break a sweat, but one infernal mortal woman had him reeling like a tiger on Vaseline. Rapping his favorite riding crop frustratedly against his left thigh he allowed the delicious sting it gave to distract him momentarily, but nothing could keep her from his thoughts for long. Pathetic really, he'd loved her for far too long. Sick too when he thought about it, the age difference alone should make him shudder. And think about how young she was last time, Egads! I am a creeper, he thought to himself. He'd known she was too young to love him, known it the second he'd seen her and heard that pugnacious tone she often used. It was that very tone that had started it all, no one was as stubborn as Jareth the all powerful Goblin King, no one except Sarah Williams. He left out a discontented sigh. . . stubbornness was one thing, but why did she have to be so bloody difficult? He knew she wanted him by the way she had responded in her world. So many years he'd been waiting for her to call him, so long had he sat and brooded, hoping for any utterance from her lips that might even remotely be construed as "Jareth". Nothing ever came. Nothing until the day before. Somewhere in the back of his mind Jareth had known, known that if he swaggered in, The High and Mighty Goblin King, the very rebelliousness he loved about her would hasten his cause. Still. . . he hadn't been able to control himself. After so many years, watching her grow more lovely, wanting her more each passing of the seasons, it had been hard enough not to tie her to that blasted four poster bed she loved so much, let alone not try and force her hand. "it wasn't all bad though was it?", he grinned wickedly remembering her small frame pressed so deliciously against his own. There was no doubt in his mind she's felt the raw hunger as much as he had, if only that were enough. The womanizing braggart in him wished it could be, but the soft poetic dreamer he tried so desperately to keep hidden knew it would never sustain him. He needed her to love him. Sometimes he was almost certain she might, but he couldn't allow himself to be wrong again. The last time he had given her his soul, his very kingdom as a plaything, she had dismissed his exclamations of love with the ease one rids themselves of a soiled napkin. Jareth had learned that day, oh so long ago, that while love made one invincible, full to bursting, it also made one weak. The Goblin King abhorred weakness. Sarah would be his, the stubborn finality in all his actions decreed it, but he would not give her the power he had so easily bestowed on her before. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Jareth continued with his self implemented cropping.
