Chapter 4
THE DREAM SEQUENCE PART 1
The ballroom had known opulence. Between glittering cornices hung many long sparkling blue & brown gemmed chandeliers where the wax, dripping for a hundred years, had formed stalactites. The deep red silk covering of the walls had faded and, in places, worn threadbare. Bubbles decorated the room. A tall, gilt, thirteen-hour clock stood in a corner. It was almost twelve o'clock.
Sarah watched the dance, and the dancers watched her, from behind their masks. The men sported silken shirts open to the waist and tight black or midnight velvet breeches. Some of them wore wide-brimmed, plumed hats; others had capes or carried mystical staffs.
The women's gowns left their shoulders bare and dove low between their breasts all of dark almost Gothic colors. They had their hair coiffed high, and many wore long black gloves.
The dancers moved in a ring around the ballroom, with a kind of lethargic brilliance, as though the party had been going on all night. Men who were not dancing lounged indolently against the columns, or in a cushioned pit in the center of the ballroom, in the company of women. Maids and footmen, with skin the color of old parchment, served them trays of fruit and refilled their goblets from decanters.
And always the dancers were watching through the eye holes in their cruel half-masks, from which snouts projected and horns sprouted above. Moving together or elegantly reclined, they watched Sarah, or watched each other watching, and beneath the masks the mouths smiled at each other like daggers.
Sarah's gown was a rich almost unnatural white, strapless and hugged her every curve. She had a pearl necklace on with a single black diamond dangling in the center above her breast. Her hair was loosely curled framing her face. Her eyes were wide. She was the picture of innocence in that setting, a picture that excited the dancers, who never took their masked eyes off her, while they moved with weary grace to the cadence of the sinisterly beautiful tune.
The people passing behind her, in the mirror, were watching her like ravishing birds of prey. The dancers swayed and swirled. Then Sarah saw something in the mirror that made her gasp. She had caught a glimpse of Jareth, entwined with a voluptuous woman, dancing past. All of this reminded her a bit of the Ball she had earlier been to with Jareth. Only this time she didn't fight any of it she was in fact hungry for more.
She whirled around, but he had vanished. She stood there, peering through the throng for him so intently that she did not notice the young man leaning against the column beside her. He had his head held back and was staring brazenly at her.
He relished her face, then her white shoulders, her breasts, hips, and legs, and moved closer to her. He murmured into her ear, "You are remarkably beautiful, my dear girl."
Sarah spun around to face him, her mouth open. At the mixture of surprise and pleasure on her face, the young man threw back his head and laughed. She smiled back at him nervously. Blushing crimson. Hidden behind another man's cape, Jareth had watched it all, but Sarah had not seen him watching. His eyes tainted with jealousy were following Sarah wherever she went in the corrupt ballroom.
She was tense now, self-conscious, among people she could not understand but who behaved as though they knew something that she didn't know. She moved hurriedly around the ballroom looking for Jareth. She did not know why she wanted to find him, or what she would say to him. She just knew that it was vitally important that she should find him.
When she spun around saw him, he was whispering something to his beautiful partner, who responded by smiling knowingly from beneath her mask and licking her lips, slowly, with the tip of her tongue. This time she was the one filled jealousy.
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