DISCLAIMER - I don't own Sarah or Jareth or the Labyrinth (unfortunately) they belong to Jim Henson & Co, and I'm definitely not making a profit from this.
All other NPC's are a figment of my own imagination.
Sarah stood in the shadows watching the guests arriving in their finery, it reminded her comically of a great ball where all the players were pretending to be other than what they really were. High pitched laughter from Cassandra across the other side of the room made her wince before the soft orchestral music from the stereo system managed to reassert itself. They had arrived back to the gallery to find chaos, Cassandra had thrown a last minute wobbler and had demanded several changes, meaning that Sarah's own artwork had once again been taken down and hidden in her office apart from 3 small pieces in the back room, dwarfed by Mrs P's murals. In the disorder one of the large canvasses had been torn, probably by Ollie in retribution for her speaking to him earlier. Sarah was gutted, she'd worked for weeks on the oil and was quite fond of it. She'd have to take it home and try and repair it somehow.
"Are you going to stand here all night?" Sarah gasped and turned to find Chris standing behind her with 2 glasses of champagne, one of which he handed her. "You look beautiful, don't let catsknickers take all the limelight, its your gallery." Sarah frowned sipping the champagne watching Cassandra shrewdly. The woman was dressed in what could only be described as a meringue. The red dress clashed horribly with Ollie's dark blue suit and tie, and whilst she had obviously gone to some effort for tonight the result was stunning, in all the wrong ways. Sarah unconsciously smoothed her own dress, classic black, floor length with v neckline showing a tiny bit of cleavage and a side split to show off her long legs. Anita had done wonders with her hair as usual putting half of it in elaborate braids twisted around the crown of her head leaving tempting tendrils down her back. Jareth's spell seemed to still be working; she only wished she felt as good as Chris and Anita had told her she looked. If only Ollie could care less to tell her the same, though she had heard him complimenting Cassandra outrageously earlier in the evening. She followed Chris from the darkened corner and plastered a polite smile on her face as she began to mingle. Names and faces blurred in her vision but she mentally damped down on her nausea and made small talk with admiring posh folk as they learnt from Chris she was the owner of the gallery.
"We are of course very pleased to have Miss Harper exhibiting here. In fact we have another launch party booked in 2 months as well to introduce another young artist and sculptor."
"Sculpture you say, what kind of sculptures?" Asked an aged lady wearing cerise, her champagne glass wearing more lipstick than the woman.
"Classical, Grecian inspired for the most part. They are a delight I assure you. We'd be delighted to have you come along for the launch Lady Prescott."
"Send the details to my aide Miss Williams, I have a great interest in the classical arts. None of this namby pamby modern stuff." The old lady nodded before waddling off to get her glass refilled.
"Nicely added." Chris remarked smirking as he walked past behind her adding a note to his list.
"I'd like to have Ambrose's launch twice as good as this. Is that evil of me?" Sarah grinned at Chris as he looked over his notepad at her. He gave her a slow wink before turning to interrupt another group of people to introduce Sarah to them.
As the evening wore to a close Sarah found herself again in close proximity to Catsknickers. Mentally she chided herself for using Chris' nickname, but unfortunately, it fit. She was giggling and hanging on To Ollie's arm as she flirted wildly with an old gentleman who's wife looked as furious as Ollie at her behaviour. Sarah rolled her eyes.
"Sorry to interrupt Mr and Mrs Hawkins, I must borrow Ollie from you for a moment." She said touching Mrs Hawkins on the arm in sympathy. The woman looked relieved as both Cassandra and Ollie turned away from them allowing the poor woman to make an escape, dragging her husband away.
"Shop talk Cassandra, won't take a moment." Sarah smiled through gritted teeth as she managed to deposit the foul woman on a handy chair. Ollie followed her up the stairs taking a moment to fondle her ass which made Sarah cringe.
"You should start that diet again Sarah, don't want you going completely to seed before you're 40." He said as they entered her office ignoring her glare.
"To business gentlemen and lady, I just wanted a review of sales you've made tonight before we have to go through them tomorrow." Sarah said turning to face Ollie, Chris, Anita and the other 2 sales reps they employed for launches. Silence eschewed and Sarah waited, a small part of her feeling extremely smug that they had sold nothing of Cassandras rather mediocre work. She let Ollie sweat a few more minutes.
"Nothing. You've sold nothing between all of you?" She asked finally.
"I have a few leads." Ollie said defensively.
"Unless those leads have dollar signs on them in blood I'm not interested. This launch party has cost this gallery over $2500 dollars, and sales are needed in order to cover our costs if nothing else.
"I sold one of Mrs P's murals." Piped up Dominic from the end of the row earning a look of daggers from Ollie.
"Anything else sold not Cassandra's?" Sarah asked again a little impressed Dom had managed to sell one of the huge murals which would free up some more room. Mrs P would be delighted.
"I sold 4 prints from Roberts landscape collection. I didn't think we were counting those." Anita confessed.
"Better than nothing though I am disappointed about not selling anything of Catsk Cassandra's." Sarah sighed automatically correcting herself. "Lets call it a day then, try and get at least 1 sale before everyone goes home else she will be crushed." She said sitting down at her desk in a sign of dismissal.
Annoyed she found Ollie still stood watching her as Dom closed the door behind them. She leant back and watched him watching her.
"That dress suits you." He said sliding round the edge of the desk like a snake uncoiling.
"Don't change the subject." She said sighing again. "It was a mistake to bring her to the gallery Ollie. Why the hell you fell for her asslicking I don't know but what I do know is we are out of pocket right when we seriously can't afford to be. I need sales to keep this place running else we're all going to be out of a job. We can't keep running artists who just aren't going to give us any returns."
"She told me she was good."
"They all tell you they are good."
"You told me you were good."
"I am good." She knew where this conversation was heading, every time she realised with a feeling of horror. He wheedled, he plied her with compliments then when she relented he dropped her like a brick.
"You'd better go and sort her out, she's drunk. Don't take her back to the apartment tonight."
"I'll drop her off at her place. You know Sarah things could be so different between us."
"This is not the time or place. We talked about this. You told me you'd wait. You promised."
"Waiting is hard with you Sarah. You try my patience."
"I can't be anything other than me Ollie. I've never given promises I can't keep."
He grunted and pulled her from her chair; kissing her deeply whilst undoing the zip of her dress so he could caress her back giving her goosebumps from his cool hands.
"I'm tired of fighting with you, I wanted this to be good for both of us." She said struggling to release herself from his grasp.
"Then you know what I want."
"No. Go. I don't want to talk about this now." She said pushing him away from her.
The crystal ball smashed into a billion motes of glitter on the polished marble floor of the throne room as Jareth sat back in his throne speechless.
"Well I never." He said before throwing his head back and laughing.