Discovery and Disclosure
Jareth had been watching Sarah for years. He had seen her grow from pouting girl to shapely woman. It galled him that he'd been bared from interfering in her life for twenty human years. Nevertheless, rules are rules, and even a Goblin King must obey the rules. He was only allowed to view her from windows in owl form or though a mirror or crystal. Yet being resourceful, and scheming, he found way after way round the rules. He sent little anonymous gifts from time to time. In twenty years he'd never once been caught.
He had been there when she graduated high school, and collage. He had been there on the day she had gotten married in the big back yard of the old Victorian house. Jareth had found it awkward to watch Sarah date. He had found it disturbing to watch men other than himself teach her how to kiss. It was vexing when some other man's hands were on her, bringing her pleasures that he felt belonged to him alone. However, to watch her wed, that was the most provoking. Watching from a tree limb was all he could do. She had won, Gods in the heavens knew how, but she had won. In winning, she won back not only her brother but also a twenty-year period when the Goblin King could not interfere in her life. Unless that is, if he was call upon. It was clear after the little victory party she and her 'traitors' had thrown upon her return Above, that was not going to happen. So to watch was all he could do.
He made sure his little gift to the bride was hand delivered by Toby. It was a perfect heart shaped crystal on a delicate chain of Fae Silver. Had Sarah known the pretty bobble was from the Goblin King and not her beloved baby brother she would never have worn it. Yet she wore it over her heart on the day she wed, and it was the first of many thorns the King was able to inject into the relationship. Not that it needed much to begin with, from the start it was not a good match. It seemed everyone but Sarah had seen that too.
He had witnessed the birth of both her children and the betrayal of her faithless husband. It had pleased him to see her crushed, and he was not sympathetic even to the tears she had shed when her husband forced her to sell the little cottage she so loved and split the proceeds with him. He had been there the day Sarah had found the townhouse she now rented. He was there when she moved in watching from his limb.
He had stepped though the mirror on her closet door, it was after all a full-length looking glass and less trouble to step through. The furnishings in the apartment were old, but cared for with loving hands. He had known that Sarah had lived quietly since the divorce. She was being a good mother, if nothing else. Even though it had been difficult, and Paul was not the timeliest with support check. Jareth had seen Sarah do without over the last two years so her children could have what they needed.
Sarah worked in a graphic arts firm, doing copy. On the side, she had done some illustrations for a book that one of her father's clients had written. The extra money from her illustrations that paid for the things Paul kept trying to take from them.
Jareth knew her bedroom, he'd looked in on it often enough. He had watched her sleep for hours, knowing she could not possibly know he was watching. He had listened to her tears and her talking to herself late at night. He looked now at the bed that Sarah slept in, alone. He smiled. It was fitting punishment, she had after all rejected a chance to be in his bed.
It was not a big apartment, just two bedrooms, a living room, bath and Kitchen. Jareth wondered for a moment if they could fit the entire thing in his bedchamber. He let the thought pass and went to the living room, to where Sarah's desk was. There beside the desk was a large portfolio He raised it up, released the clasps and opened it. The first page was a striking drawing of the Labyrinth Gate, and a dwarf taking a piss into a green watered pond. Jareth laughed and forgot for a moment the anger he had been carrying. The next drawing was of a shaft of hands, some of the expressions were questionable. Jareth wondered if Sarah realized how closely she had captured the character of the shaft of hands.
Jareth carried the portfolio to the coffee table next to the couch. Taking a seat, he began to spread the drawings out. Some were in ink, some in colored pencil. Others were chalk, still other's were water colors. Each one depicted some event that had occurred on Sarah's last visit in vivid detail. Some details were a bit more vivid than others were. A chalk drawing of the Ballroom that drove that home. It depicted a wanton Courtier chased by a masked man whose shirt was open and nearly falling off his shoulders. The woman's dress was revealing and she was spilling out of it.
"So you were not nearly as innocent as I was lead to believe you were." Jareth said as he studied the picture. "Or you understood more than you wanted to at the time."
In the back was a stack of suggestive sketches and pen drawings. Different characters she had encountered were the subjects. The last thing in the stack was colored illustration of a man leaning on a wall in a tunnel, behind the man a large clock. The man had a leer on his lips, a wild mane of blond hair. His garments were fitted, the pose suggested the fit was at that moment a bit tight in one area. His linen shirt was open nearly to his waist. Drawn from the perceptive of the person the man was leaning toward, it was a powerful drawing.
Jareth placed the drawings back, and felt he must have misunderstood the child. Nothing he had seen was too adult for young eyes. Then he saw the little sketchbook that lay hidden. He opened it and his mouth dropped. The first picture was of a disrobed Goblin King, lounging on his throne. "Good God!" He snapped the book shut and looked at the cover. "Sarah, you little pervert."
Jareth arranged the pillows behind him, raised his feet up and reclined the length of the couch. He opened the sketchbook and began to look at the secrets Sarah had drawn. The first sketch dated just days after her first visit to the Goblin Realm. As the sketches progressed the style became more developed and the subject matter became more than suggestive.
One not familiar with Sarah, would not know the date and time of each of her disappointments with human men. They would not know what they were seeing. Each drawing represented what had been missing. From the first kiss, to the night she'd had too much to drink and things got out of hand in the back seat of a car. Jareth knew, he was looking at her sexual regrets and her darkest needs. So dark were the needs, they brought a sinister leer to his lips. He would more than happy to provide what had been missing, and her sketches gave him the ammunition he would need to beat her. He closed the book and drew a crystal from the air, "Just where are you, pigeon?" Looking into the sphere, he located the woman in the Oubliette. He looked at the portfolio, gathered all her sketches, confiscating her years of work. Armed with Sarah's dark desires he returned to the Underground Kingdom he ruled.
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Sarah had been sitting in the dark Oubliette contemplating. Her watch was useless here in the Underground. She was tired, perhaps more out of shape she thought. Walking though the Labyrinth had not been nearly as tiring the first time. Of course, she had been much younger then. She stood up and dusted off. Turning she felt her way in the dim room to where she thought she remembered Hoggle putting the slats of the cot to form a door. It was still there. She thought about which way to open the 'door', one way led to a broom closet, the other freedom.
Standing back, in case she had chosen the wrong way, she pulled the 'door' open. Light from the tunnels spilled into the cell. "Thanks Hoggle." She said aloud, stepping into a dimly lit corridor with walls of grotesquely carved rock. She paused and thought about the direction Hoggle had taken her.
"DON'T GO ON!" a voice boomed.
Sarah jumped violently, and looked at a craved face right beside her. "Don't do that!" she shouted back at the face, whose lips dropped in shock.
"Go back while you still can!"
"This is not the way!"
"Take heed and go no farther!"
"Beware! Beware!"
"It will soon be too late!"
Sarah crossed her eyes, and put her hands to her ears. "Enough." She cried out. "I've heard it all before."
One face looked at her with disgust. "Yet here you are again, girly."
Sarah looked down, half expecting a crystal orb to roll by. No such orb appeared, and Sarah was not sure if she was relieved or disappointed. She rounded the corner and again didn't find what she'd been expecting. There was no blind beggar squatted, his back to the wall, his hat upturned on the ground in front of his feet. On the dirty floor of the tunnel lay the remains of the disguise the King had used to trick her and Hoggle. She stooped down, picked up the beggar's rag body. For a moment, she hugged it to her. The next moment in anger, and frustration she flung the rag doll as hard as she could to the wall and let out a blood curdling howl. Her fists were balled up, she turned and beat them on the wall.
"So what have we here?" Jareth asked in a saucy tone. "Are you inflicting more damages on my domain?"
Sarah turned and glared at him. "Have you any idea of what I've just been though?" She snapped. "The entry to your so called Labyrinth is next to impossible to get into. The guards at the ruse are rude and your helping hands helped themselves to a quick feel."
"Ah." He smirked at the thought of her having been man handled, as it were, by the shaft of hands. "Well I did warn you that things were different now."
Sarah was about to tell him off when his attire drew her attention. The bastard had gone and dressed in the same thing he'd worn the last time she'd met him in this tunnel. "Here to steal hours from me?" She accused trying to keep her gaze on his face.
"I've no need to." He informed her. "You're much slower this time round, wonder why that is." He teased.
Determined not to allow Jareth to intimidate her, she affected a nonchalance she was far from feeling anytime he was near. "We're all a little older." She batted her lashes at him.
"Yes, we are." Jareth leaned toward her, braced his one arm on the curved tunnel wall beside her. He smiled at Sarah. " Sarah, are you enjoying the Labyrinth?" His voice was almost purring.
She swallowed hard, stared into his eyes, forcing herself not to look down. "It's a piece of cake."
Jareth raised one elegant eyebrow, intrigued. "I'm so glad to hear you say that."
Sarah found her eyes drifting down, she raked them back up and focused. "Are my children all right?"
Jareth smiled. "They are fine! Having the time of their lives." He boasted.
"If you've done anything to either of them, I swear!" She warned him.
"Sarah, I've done nothing more than behaved like a good host to young visitors." He assured her. "I've no reason to want to harm them."
If she could have, Sarah would have become one with the wall. "You intend to call the cleaners on me now?"
"No, this tunnel was cleaned about a month ago, no need for them to come and do it again." He leaned closer, his breath bathed her face. "I do find, however, I have need to have a discussion with you about the unlawful use of my image." He produced the portrait of him from her portfolio. "Who gave you permission to use my image?"
Sarah looked from him to the paper in his hands. "How did you find that?" She reached for it, only to find it yanked away. "No one Above knows you're real."
Jareth looked at the drawing. "It's not a true likeness, I find you've taken certain liberties… proportions are wrong."
Suddenly defensive about her skills as an artist she lashed out. "I may have exaggerated a few things, after all a codpiece is deceptively large." She pushed her way past him. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've a ladder to find."
"Oh Sarah." Jareth called as she walked away, when she halted he purred. "I thought you'd like to know. I don't employ a codpiece." He laughed and vanished.
Knees shook as the woman took steps down the tunnel toward the path she'd been chased twenty years before.