So Sarah has some issue, but who wouldn't after something like that? The language is a bit rough, but then again we are talking Sarah here. After all these years she is still feisty and has a mouth on her. One reason I also rated the story mature. Leave a review and let me know how you like it so far. We're only getting started.


Chapter 1

Sarah's Dreams

Sarah had turned twenty eight only a month ago, and life had been pretty good to her for the most part. She had a few rough teenage years, but after ten years of weekly sessions with a child psychiatrist, she had gotten a good handle on her life the past couple of years.

She had earned herself an academic scholarship at her local university after high school, and had graduated with a bachelor in literature a few years back. She now was working as the head research librarian at her university library, making enough of an income to afford a small, but nice apartment, of her own.

Her teenage trouble had all begun when she was sixteen years old. She had been plagued by nightly dreams, dreams she had insisted were real. Not ordinary run of the mill kind of dreams, but excruciating vivid ones, to where she could no longer discern between reality and fantasy.

They had always been of the same nature, like a movie on automatic rerun. She was searching for her stepbrother Toby who had only been one year old at that time. It had been her fault she was looking for him.

She had wished him away, to be taken by goblins, and more specifically the Goblin King. The reason for her wish had been her being tired of having to babysit a screaming baby all the time.

Her school therapist had contributed this to a guilt factor in her subconscious. She was feeling guilty for not liking her half-brother, so she had wished he would disappear. Perfectly normal for a teenager she had been told. Nothing to worry about.

"Sarah is a perfectly normal teenager. I understand her mother has left the house a couple of years back, and she had issues adjusting to it?"

The school counselor sat back in her chair and glanced at Mr. and Mrs. Williams over her spectacles, who sat nervously across from her, twiddling with their hands. Both nodded silently with worried faces.

"Sarah has some serious underlying issues, and her mind's way of dealing with them is via dreaming about it. Deflecting her issues onto others, as in this case the goblins and this Goblin King.

She is most likely attributing her mother's leaving as a form of guilt. Maybe she left because of what she, Sarah, had done? She is questioning herself. And now you have another child with your second wife whom Sarah has a hard time of accepting. And then there is Toby.

I think, deep down, Sarah really loves her little brother, but she also feels like she comes second now. She feels she doesn't matter as much to you anymore now that you have another child to give your love to.

So she resents Toby for it, and what better way to deal with inner resentment than to wish the person of your dislike away? I would not be too worried about this part."

Mr. Williams shook his head in disbelieve and Mrs. Williams only pursed her lips with a look of discontent on her face.

It was the other part of the dream they had found more disturbing as the dream went on. A wonderfully handsome and mysterious man with two different colored mesmerizing eyes had made her run a maze, a labyrinth of his, to retrieve Toby. Thirteen hours he had given her, and he had claimed, he was the Goblin King, and that his name had been Jareth.

Her dad and stepmother had been worried she actually had met some strange man at her school, or somewhere else, who was influencing her in some fashion. She had told them he had been older by quite a few years in her dream, and their biggest concern had been that some perverted pedophile was on the loose and going after their young daughter.

The therapist once again dismissed their concerns and found it perfectly normal for teenage girls to fantasize about older men, like pop and rock icons, or movie stars.

Jareth apparently had made her an offer of marriage and she had refused it, but had somehow felt guilty over it ever since. She didn't know why that was.

The therapist again had told them it was nothing to be worried about, and it was part of growing up. Sarah was transitioning from a little girl to a young woman, and adolescence was always the hardest period of the growing up process.

"Sarah is a very conflicted young lady, which is normal for being an adolescence. She is at that age where she is neither a child nor a woman. Her hormones are all over the place right now.

Teenage girls have a vivid imagination especially about older role models. One reason older movie stars and music singers like rock stars have such a huge following of teenage girls. You would be extremely distraught if I would tell you all the things that go on in a teenage girl's brain at this age.

Her dreaming about a mystic fairy tale man who is perfect in every way is only a fantasy. Rest assure, there is no one out there stalking your daughter. She is creating her stalker as you call him within her mind to feel good about herself. She is growing up. Her dreams are a safe place where she can experiment with her feelings."

The counselor gave a sly smirk with quirked eyebrow as Mr. Williams' eyes opened wide with shock. He did not feel comfortable thinking about his little girl fantasizing about older man in such a way. Mrs. Williams seemed to be more understanding in that matter.

It was not until Sarah would call out Jareth' name in the middle of the night and wake up in a pool of sweat that her parents had decided to make her go to a special child psychiatrist.

At first she had objected, but after a few months, the dreams became less and less common, and after a couple of years they had stopped altogether. Now, they had been erased from her memory all together.

Sarah had not experienced any dreams until last night. The first in ten years, and it had shaken her to the core. It had been so real, so vivid. She had seen him and his intoxicating eyes, as if he had stood in her room and looked deeply into hers.

He hadn't looked human, but otherworldly, ethereal, and so incredibly alluring. She had dismissed the dream to her reading of folklore books with goblins and faes, and other mystic creatures.

"I need to lay off the magic books late at night", she joked with herself. "Then again, if all mystic creatures looked like him, it wouldn't be all that bad."

She blushed at her own thoughts and went back to placing books back in their designed slots on the bookshelves.

"Well, hello there Sarah, my girl?"

A young dark haired man came rushing in with a backpack slung over his shoulders and a big smile on his face. Sarah looked up and heaved an annoyed sigh, her eyes rolling to the back of her head.

"Hey there, Richard", she replied with a somewhat cool undertone.

She did not care much for him, but for some reason he insisted she was his girl. He had gotten the notion after they had gone out a few times, and then had made out in her apartment one night after a wild evening of partying, and a bit too much wine. Now she could not shake him, and she was much too nice to tell him how she really felt about him.

"Oh, take a fucking hike, you loser", her brain yelled at her to tell him, but she only gave him a smile as he placed a peck on her cheek.

"Wanna go out tonight? Some of us are meeting at the Uni Café down on sixth. I thought maybe we could have a few drinks and meet up at your place again afterward?"

He put his arm around her shoulder and gave her an expecting grin raising his eyebrows. Sarah wanted to crawl out of her skin.

"It's been three months since we hooked up last. I thought we had a thing going here. You know I like you girl."

Sarah worked herself out of his arm and continued to placing her books back on the shelves.

"We had a one night thing, nothing more. I'm sorry if I led you on to think that there was more to it. I had too much wine, and I won't make that mistake again."

She looked at him with stern eyes and a "back up dude or I'll slug you", look on her face. Richard only laughed. He never got it. She had told him the same thing a million times over, and yet, he kept chasing after her.

"He must be living in his own delusional world", Sarah thought to herself and decided to ignore him.

"Look I have to finish this work or I'll be stuck here until midnight. Maybe another time."

She turned and left him standing, as he waved at her, yelling he would pick her up around eight and to wear something casual. She only rolled her eyes and kept going.


Well, Sarah had done it again, and she was already hating herself for it. She and Richard once more had hooked up after she had some wine she should not have had in the first place. Why did all her judgment fly out the window after a couple glasses of wine?

He had left only a few minutes ago with a happy grin, and she threw her hairbrush angrily into the corner.

"Why do you always fuck up, Sarah?" she yelled at herself in the mirror. "Why can't you just control yourself and wait for that special guy you know will be coming. You are such a push over. Nobody wants someone who is easy."

Worst of all, Richard was not even good in bed. He did not care about her feelings and needs. It was always a slam bam thank you ma'am sort of deal with him. Sarah wanted to cry. Why couldn't she find a nice guy who actually loved her for who she was?

She had lost her virginity when she was barely eighteen to a guy in a band she had met during a party. She couldn't even remember his name anymore, but at the time she had thought it was love. It hadn't been.

Then there was the guy in her study group who turned out to be a total jackass. They had dated for six months, and then he dumped her for some other girl who had joined the group. Later she found out that this was his method of operandi. Always lay the new girl.

She swore off from men and succeeded for about a year, until some guy swooped her off her feet, in a literal sense, during another wild party at the university. A frat party it had been. By then she had already gotten a reputation she was unable to shake. Easy they called her.

The next few years she did her best to find Mr. Right, but there was always an issue. Nobody ever fit her category of what Mr. Right was supposed to be, and none she ever was in love with.

And then, along came Richard a few months ago, and she felt herself falling into her destructive cycle all over again. All she wanted was to find that one special guy, just for her. She knew he was out there somewhere, waiting just for her. At least that is what she wanted to believe in her heart.

"Isn't that how it works in fairy tales? Happily ever after? I wish I would find my happily ever after, the one guy who loves me only because of who I am."

She usually did not talk to herself, but she needed it tonight. She stared in the mirror and thought of the fairy tales in her books. How easy it was in them to get the guy.

All she had to do was eat a poisoned apple, or lose a slipper at a dance. Grow her hair out long to dangle them out of a tower. She gave a light chuckle.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, I wish I would find my true love to be happy with forever", she murmured looking at her reflection. For a moment she thought the glass had swirled and nearly turned to liquid, but then it was back to normal.

"Ok, I had way more wine than I should have."

She took an ibuprofen for her headache and laid in bed. She needed to get her sleep as she had a full shift tomorrow. As soon as she had drifted off she found herself gazing into two mismatched eyes who hypnotized her to the point of total melt down.

He took her gently into his arms and danced with her at a fancy ball. She in her white long baroque style dress, and he in a glittery blue frock, his eyes locked on hers as he softly sang a beautiful love song.

So close, and so wonderfully erotic. His face right in front of hers, with his lips parted as if he was going to kiss her. He leaned in as her heart nearly jumped out of her chest. She closed her eyes and...the alarm went off.

"Freak out in a Moonage day dream oh yeah..." it blared at high volume.

"Damn you", she groaned and was about to toss her small radio clock into the corner. "You have to go off at the wrong moment, you son of a bitch."

She was frustrated, she was highly aroused, and she was left hanging with unfulfilled desires for her dream man.

"This is going to be the worst day in my life, I already know it", she moaned with self-pity, rolled out of bed, and dragged herself into the bathroom to attack her miserable day ahead.