Jareth's hands slid gently over Sarah's as she flipped idly through the pages of a divan of poetry.
His chin pressed softly against her cheek.
Sarah closed her eyes as he nudged her lightly before looking back down at the page. Then a memory flared up from the depths of her old life aboveground.
"Jareth," she queried, seeing if he would respond. After all he might very well be lost in the book he kept trying to read over her shoulder!
"Yes," he breathed. No, he was paying attention to Sarah.
"When I was a young woman my mother took me to a potter. The potter taught me how to throw on the wheel, but under one condition."
"What was that?" the question echoed darkly sensual from the hollow of his throat.
"You see, he told me he would teach me to throw clay on the wheel. That he'd have me make my best pot. That I would sense it was my best. And then he would have me destroy it with my own hands. Those were his conditions for teaching me."
"And you accepted?"
"Of course…"
There was an intervening silence that fell upon the two. His hand moved lightly, reaching up to turn the page.
Sarah started again as Jareth's cheek resumed its position brushing lightly against her silken brown tresses.
"So you see, anything I make, anything I create, I have been trained from the beginning to detach myself from it, even if it is my best, even if it is what I hold dearest."
"So you crushed the pot."
"Yes and my mother cried as she watched, for she had fallen in love with it. I never made a more perfect bowl than the one I destroyed that day."