There was a time in New York where Sarah realized something about herself.  It was one of those epiphanies that come on you slow and hard, and have a funny way of changing your life, making you cry, or making you run away from yourself.  It had not been long since she started the road to her career; there was a seduction to the city that she could not ignore.  It called her into some dark places, some places filled with flashing lights and sweaty bodies, places unfamiliar to her small hometown.  It was a world where a true actress found her spotlight, where seduction was the name of the game, and you had to know how to flaunt it.

Many an “acting opportunity” had not panned out; in truth, she had made many a wrong turn in her search, finding lots of perverse men waiting behind yet another door, telling her that she would have to remove her clothing to be successful.  Some of them had beer bellies and smoked cheap cigarettes; still others wore their hair slicked back, polyester shirts sparkling under the dim lights.  They all made her sick to her stomache, but she kept looking anyways, looking always, it seemed, in the wrong places.  She never told her parents about these incidents.

It was one Saturday evening after she had gotten off work, leaving yet another long shift at the diner where she waited tables, that she went to pursue another of these opportunities.  She took public transit, changing from bus to bus, until she found her destination.  When she got out, she stood before quite a regal apartment building, white stucco climbing the sky, with accents of gold trim.  It looked promising.  She walked up three flights of stairs with a newfound hope.  Maybe this one would be different.

When the door opened, a beautiful man opened the door.  He looked positively evil, but left Sarah entranced.  He asked her in, his black hair fluttering about his face like feathers whenever the fan blew in his direction.  As he escorted her into the room, he took her jacket and apologized for the heat…  The Laundromat was a floor above, and the heat was filtering through; unfortunately, his air conditioner had picked the worst time to break, leaving him and his guests to suffer.  She smiled and made a witty comment, feeling quite sexual under his gaze, and eerily powerful in that sexuality.

What was it that made him so beautiful and evil at the same time?  She wasn’t quite sure.  She had at that time almost convinced herself that the whole episode with Jareth had been some sort of figment of her youthful imagination at that time.  But, as far as she could see back, to past relationships, to her fascination with fictional characters, and especially her fascination with Jareth, she knew she was obsessed with dark men.  There was an air of adventure in the infatuation, a worldliness that implied to her that there could be a great deal she could learn about herself and the world at their hands.  The suffering, though she knew it was a factor, rarely came into the equation.

Why would a reputable talent scout invite potentials into his home?  It was a fact she ignored time and again, and this time, a fact that she forced out of her mind entirely.  The detail was a trifling one, a detail that would cost her an adventure, she was sure.

He chatted her up for sometime, didn’t get straight to business.  She was utterly charmed.  Spiced cider, candles (she noticed after some time), and even some lazy music.  Surely it wasn’t a ploy, she assured herself.  Everything was black, much black satin, smooth, black leather sofas.  Oriental tapestries hung from the wall, as well as a silver, Japanese fan that filled the wall.  It all made Sarah want to don the white facial makeup  of a Kabuki dancer, to finesse him with a rice paper fan and the subtle, calculated motions of a Geisha.

These feelings, of course, were not unfamiliar to her.  She had a vivid imagination, and had always imagined such a man that would make her feel this way.  Someone like Jareth, yet unlike him in one crucial aspect… Someone who was real and attainable, and put to danger only those things which she possessed and could risk.

He didn’t lead to the point directly.  Smoothly her relayed to her the knowledge of his profession.  A high class clientele with a taste for the sensual, is that how he put it?  But he said it so sweetly.  She removed her shirt for the first time, despite the nagging voice.  She bared her breasts in the hope that this would be her big break.  Kal – that was his name – was too nice a man to hurt her.  Oh, but wasn’t he evil a moment ago?  That didn’t matter.

And he photographed her, considering her carefully, respectful in his regard for her.  He didn’t say anything.  And, after a few minutes of regarding her nude form, he did the most evil thing possible.

“I’m sorry, dear Sarah.  You are a lovely woman, but you are not quite what we are looking for.  You are, well, frankly, you are not sensual enough.”

She was shocked.  What did that mean, she wondered?  Did she look too young?  Was she not lovely enough?  Her breasts too small, or her expression too nieve?  He looked at her in a funny way, sort of knowingly, but of what he knew, she wasn’t sure.  He helped her don her shirt again, talked to her a few more moments, asked if she would be ok, and let her out.  He knew what he had done, but she was not sure for many years to come.  He had baited her, hook line and sinker.

He wasn’t just trying to find girls who would strip for the camera.  This was a man with a personal mission, one that was much like the job of a sculptor, to make works of art for his own personal enjoyment.  Sarah went home and cried that day.  He knew she did.  She showered for a full day, had dinner, then took another bath.  Something had made her feel dirty; she looked in the mirror, suddenly uncomfortable with the body she had so long never given a second thought to.  For days after that she tried to block the whole thing out of her mind; people noticed, though, when she started wearing a t-shirt and jeans all the time, or when she refused to go to parties.  But that phase didn’t last long.

One Friday, Sarah had been home the entire day, staring in the mirror and talking to herself, like she used to do in high school, when make believe had been so much easier to engage in.  “It’s going to be different from now on,” she said to her mirror image in a regal tone.  “From now on I will be what men want to see.  I can be sensual.”

How did he know she would be at this particular party?  Maybe he fully understood in great detail the timeline that usually ensued after his first act, and that party invitation…  He could have dropped it anywhere.  Kal was there.  He wasn’t too far in the back of the coffee shop, sitting with a glass of some alcoholic beverage, his eyes on her knowingly, slanted mischieviously, the line of sight a sort if parabolic journey that fell on her like a bombshell from a great height.

The veritable Cinderella of the ball, she entered; yet something was wrong, something horribly askew in the realization of this ballroom dream.  Unlike the ballroom she had entered years ago in Jareth’s dream domain, she was no longer entering as the innocent woman, wearing white, the youthful and nieve beauty in a room of harlots.  Many of the other women her age were semi-conservatively dressed at this party; Sarah was the closest to the harlot out of all of them.  Boy oh boy, did she look good.  Every man’s gaze fell on her at some point or another. But Kal was looking at her the entire time.  He took in the long legs that protruded from the short skirt, carefully considered her soft ankles, made love to her every body part with his eyes.  She pretended not to notice.  Her acting skills were quite amazing; instead of following her initial urge to pull her arms tight around her chest to hide the low neckline, she let them down at her side, and swished to the other side of the room, taking on a catlike gaze that made her seem in control.  She wasn’t, but she had fooled even herself into thinking that she was.

She chatted people up, held the regard of the men with a seductiveness that only Michelle Pfeifer could equal.  She was the center of attention, even if she was only followed by a few people at a time.  And, because of this, she expected him to finally come and speak with her, to make a comment on her change.  Instead, she looked across the room to find him still staring at her, a cigarette swirling smoke above his head.  He met her gaze, which he held for sometime, carefully finishing the cigarette, putting it out, then walking out.  She wanted to follow him, but that would be giving him exactly what he wanted.  She held back and stayed inside, drinking a little more than her usual, and getting a bit tipsy.

Then something quite unexpected happened.  She met Grayson, a tall, handsome fellow with long blonde hair and a funny little British accent.  He danced with her, and seemed to regard her for herself, to see past the appearances that this scared little girl had put on.  When they talked, she felt that she was wearing the white cotton dress of a maiden, not the trappings of a harlot.  As if he saw deep inside of her, saw that she had only taken the garb of a worldly woman to make sure that no one trifled with her.  She felt like herself around him, and soon forgot about Kal.

They sat and talked for an hour.  Sometimes he would look off into the distance, as if he were observing the actions of some fairy companion across the room, flipping his hair over his shoulder with the turn of his head.  Then he would laugh at some shenanigan of his invisible friends, and turn to face her again, an angelic smile playing on his lips.  He was most charming at these moments, and made Sarah’s stomach fall low inside of her, making her certain that she must be in love.  She would ask him what he was laughing about, and he would always tell her, “It’s nothing.”

Soon enough, she had lost her catlike walk and gaze, her lipstick licked off completely in her nervousness over the presence of this lovely man.  She finally felt like things were back to normal, like she would go home and undress comfortably again, wake in the morning with a warm and fuzzy feeling, call Grayson and have coffee somewhere in the city.  Maybe they would go to a movie, and he would kiss her goodnight on her doorstep.  It could be the beginning of a sweet romance.

She had a half hour at least before she had to go home.  At one lull point in conversation, Grayson turned back to her smiling after some musing, grabbed her hand, and walked her outdoors in order to get away from the noise.

It was a little dark inside, but it still took Sarah’s eyes a few minutes to adjust.  She could faintly hear people scattered all about outside, some making drunken shouts about something or other, others chatting in twos in dark corners.  To her immediate left she could see cigarette smoke as the blacklight from the doorway reflected off of it.  In the corner her eyes began to perceive the shape of a man dressed in black.

Oh right, Kal.  He was still here.  She had completely forgotten.  And he was watching her.

It should have given her the creeps, made her instinctually ask this nice young man to drive her home.  Maybe she should have thought of the police.  What was she going to do if he started stalking her?  But none of these things crossed her mind.  She resumed her catlike walk, eager to prove herself.  She looked up at Grayson with different eyes, almost became another person entirely.  She pretended like Kal was not there.  But in her heart, he was suddenly omnipresent.

Grayson asked if he could drive her home.  He was a gentleman in his tone, and Sarah knew he had no intentions for her, not yet.  He wanted to get to know her, as a gentleman would.  But she had intentions.  She knew he had fallen in love with her, too, as quickly as she had with him.  But, suddenly, love was the last thing on her mind.

“I was wondering if we might go back to your place,” she said, brushing her fingers across his jacket, looking up at him with slowly closing eyelids.

He seemed a little surprised, looked off into the distance and laughed a bit at the notion, as if she was playing a little game with him, maybe she was joking, or just wanted to come over and watch movies all night and talk.  Of course, something in him knew differently, wanted differently, but it was unlike him to follow this course of action.

“Please?” she asked.  He was unaware of the effect the tone of her voice had had on him.  It was a subtle intonation that only a true actress, a true seductress, could have pulled off with success.

“Okay, sure,” he said.  “Back to my place it is.  Though I warn you, there’s nothing for us to do there.  I’m a terribly boring guy.”

But she kept him entertained.  She attacked him with such determination, that he had no time to catch his breath.  She had no idea what an amazing lover she could be, the kind of eternal scars she could leave on a man, to make someone so gentle and kind as Grayson have something to hold up as a basis of a comparison, a high place to hopefully one day again achieve.  To make him think he would never find such a sensual and seductive woman again was her goal.  She would be his Venus de Milo, she would be the painting he hung in his heart to gawk at from time to time, to feel his stomach sink and his groin hot with longing.  And she was.  Not only this, she had performed an even greater sin; the had showed him the innocent side of her, as well, and had made him fall in love with her in every way possible.  He was her slave.  It made her feel powerful.

And in the middle of the night, she was overcome with the crime she had committed.  She dressed quickly and quietly, crying all the way home, walking forty blocks in the dark, mascara dripping down her face.  A cop even stopped by her, thinking she was a prostitute, until he saw her young face and her tears.  It was something unexpected in the city, but he took pity on her and drove her the rest of the way home.  He gave her sagely wisdom, like how unwise it was to be walking on this side of town in that kind of outfit.  How she could get herself hurt. He even found the courage to ask if she had been raped, if that was the reason for her tears.  She shook her head “no” and didn’t speak again until she thanked him for the ride when they finally reached her apartment. 

One thing she knew when she got inside her place was that she had truly achieved her utmost ability to seduce.  But she also knew she had been able all along.  It had been her choice, and her choice only, when it would be appropriate to show this side.  She had chosen the wrong moment.  She had fallen for Kal’s trickery in believing that she had something to prove.  Maybe this was a realization he didn’t expect the girls in his little games to come upon.  This was the only reason she could come up for his showing up at her job the next day.

He was sitting at a table, waiting for coffee, waiting for her.  He smiled at her knowingly, asked her how she liked the party.  “Just fine,” she told him, and poured the coffee so violently into his cup that it sloshed out and onto his pants.  She had to pretend like she cared, and cleaned it up with the napkin, her bitter face and sweet voice at complete odds with each other.  She wanted to hit him, or pour the coffee right onto his crotch.  He obviously had a woody over the whole circumstance.  Maybe she could give him something to really get hot about.

“You’re looking awfully sexy today,” he said while taking a drag on his cig. 

“Oh, you would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” she said hatefully. 

“You know, I came to let you know that I wanted to apologize for that time at my place, when I told you that you weren’t good enough.  I just realized how young and innocent you were, and I didn’t want you to lose that.  You were definitely a sensual woman, but I just didn’t want you to get hurt.  You know, this business can hurt a good girl like you.  But last night… Well, I thought maybe you were ready, after all.  You could be very successful.”  He said his last words carefully, oh so seductive in the pronunciation of each word.  “You looked the part, last night.”

And it was every day for three weeks that he engaged in such visits as these.  Each time she ignored him, pretended like he hadn’t spoken, and did not make any reply, other than to ask for his order.  He always left a big tip, or a businesscard; if it wasn’t his businesscard, it was the card of one of his seedy friends.  He’d wink at her when he left, reminding her in that wink that she was he personal project, the one that would try to get away, but couldn’t.  It took Sarah three weeks to realize what was going on.

This is really what you get when you engage in any type affair with an evil man.  Evil, though seductive, is a bad thing for a very good reason.  It makes you worldly beyond your years, and highly unhappy.  Instead of seeking the refuge of home and family, like she felt like doing, she ran away from them, to avoid their scrutinizing gazes.  She gave up acting, and went into advertising.  She moved up fairly quickly in the business, a workaholic to avoid her pain, and missing the joy of innocence that had at one time made her excited about life and her career.  Kal had inflicted major damage upon her existence.

As she had on Grayson’s.  She saw him walking down the street one day with a woman who was presumably his wife, and a little baby in the stroller she pushed.  As they passed, his eyes turned toward her.  He flipped his hair over his shoulder, but he was not smiling at what he saw, like he would do before.  Years of pain reflected in his eyes, as he had obviously come to yearn darker things because of her.  She had been able to give up the desire for an insatiable lust because of that night.  She had only spurned that desire within him.  She tried not to meet his gaze, pretended like she didn’t know him.  He turned back to his family, and smiled wanly at some words from his wife.  He was happy, despite his longing.  This gave Sarah some measure of peace.

She knew what it was that he had wanted with her, and what she had often sought herself – a perfect paradox of a human being, who could at once be innocent and dark, to make love like an animal, but to love like a child.  Funny though it was, they had found that in each other.  A conglomeration of dark and light, a perfect balance that found an honest expression in the other person.  But she had ruined it with her actions, by engaging him as she had, all because Kal was watching.  Grayson was probably happy in his marriage, but did not have what he truly desired.  She was not happy in her job, but it made her forget she was a woman, and was sexually frustrated.

*       *       *

And this is what she thought about when she looked at Kaleb.  She knew how the Underground and Aboveground balance worked… Sometimes things from one world would reflect in the other, like a distorted image.  Perhaps Kal and Kaleb were the same.  Maybe Jareth and Grayson were also mirror images.  It was an opportunity to make a decision over again, in a way.  She knew what kind of man Kaleb was, now.  He wasn’t smoking a cigarette, but he was swishing that wine around in his mouth, cocky and in control of his aura.  Even after all this time, after all she had learned, Sarah found a part of herself slipping into the old fascination, her stomach falling in the same old thoughts.  Unlike before, she did her best to suppress it, to let her knowledge and wisdom prevail.

She knew what he was up to, he didn’t need to explain.  Crows perched on the various small windows in the throne room, making it quite obvious to her that he was the one who had started the issue with the crows.  For all she knew, everyone in her kingdom was in a fit of hatred, tearing at each other, trying to kill each other for no good reason.  Maybe she’d get back and they’d be dead, all of them.  She had great faith in their ability to rule themselves, to find a course of action; most of all, she had faith in Sage’s wisdom, and his ability to find a way out. 

“You know, it caught them all by surprise,” he said, finally turning around to speak to her.  “My minions have sent word back that all of your people are fighting.  Especially interesting to you might be the fact that Sage unwittingly led all of the kings and queens of the other nations outside to engage in battle.  They are all dead, now, some at the hands of their own people.  I hear that Sage was quite close to you.”

Sarah knew he was lying, of course.  She wasn’t a fool.  If Leah, who was there as well, had died, Sarah would know.  According to myth, if a person’s shadow dies, they die as well.  Sometimes that is the reason for inexplicable deaths on earth.  But she didn’t answer him with surprise, because she had no reason to play his game.

“Oh, really?” she said, and turned her face away from him.  She didn’t remember how she had gotten there, only remembered waking up sitting in this plush throne, looking out into the small chamber, where black silks draped from the ceilings, and hand-woven tapestries adorned the walls.  She rubbed her bare foot against the rug, barely amused by the whole circumstance.  She remembered those years ago that Jareth had put her under similar circumstances, trapping her against her will.  She had been frightened of him, and too afraid to be obstinate, in avoidance of his wrath.  Now she was equally powerful, and only remained long enough to be amused, to gather information.  She tried hard to be focused on the situation, to not think about what was going on with Jareth, or where they had been heading before Kaleb pulled his stunt.  But then again, she should be somewhat wary; he had a majority of the amethyst in his possession, and could be more powerful than she supposed.  He did, after all, have the power necessary to create the crows, and to cast the spell that made them harbingers of doom.

He tapped a bit of ash off the end of some burning incense, then continued, “Well, if that gets no response…  You are aware that I am in possession of the remaining piece of the amethyst…”  he looked up knowingly, “aren’t you?”

She raised a brow at this.  “Hmm.  And how did you do this?”  She knew she had it so well hidden that it was unlikely he had found it.  He was probably baiting her for its location.

“You think that you have hidden it too well for me to find… But I have spent the past four years watching you closely, lovely Sarah, and I am in possession of all the secrets of your boudoir.  In the wall, two bricks back, underneath the owl painting on the east side.  And that blue nightgown you wear on the weekends is particularly striking.  I like it best when you are changing into it.”

She did not even notice the nightgown comment, she was so busy mulling over the implications of him having possession of the amethyst.  He was now the most powerful man in the Underground.  He could do whatever he liked, with her, with anyone.  It was an extreme insult to her abilities as a ruler to have lost control so completely, for her people, and the people of the entire Underground, to be at such a risk due to her inability to protect such an item.  But she mustn’t be too harsh on herself. Not only would it not do any good, but she had no idea she was dealing with such a resourceful and powerful individual.  Indeed, she had been unaware of his existence until today.  Was it the same day?  She wasn’t sure how long she had been out of it.

Suddenly he appeared to her immediate left, his face only a centimeter away from her own.  He took in her scent with much display.  “Mmm, how long I have wanted to be able to smell you.  You smell like…  Crysanthemums.  My my, how you have filled your role as a woman in the past four years, Sarah.  You have no idea what your presence can do to a man.”

“I can’t begin to tell you what the lack of your presence would do for me.” 

He chuckled at her response, grabbed her by the wrists, and started swinging her about the room in dance, as if she were a rag doll.  She tried to resist, but it didn’t matter much anyway, as they were floating half a foot above the ground, and her feet were without power.  “Ah, it is no matter, we sometimes do not realize how badly we want something until our defenses are stripped completely down.”

“I want none of this, and you know so.  Please don’t play your little mind games with me, I tire easily of them these days.”  She looked him in the eye.  “I know who you are.  Jareth told me.  You and I met long ago.”  She wasn’t yet sure that she believed Jareth’s story, but, if it was true, perhaps she could get some more out of him by surprising him with her own knowledge.  “I’m not the same girl.  I don’t play along with your games as I once did.”

“Ah, but Sarah, I know you are not the same woman.  I would not want that nieve little child.  But to have the impulses of a child again… That is what you would want.  A mature woman inside the spirit of a child?”  He pursed his lips sensually.  “Hmm, there are different games for you and I to play, my dear.  And I am not the same, either.  Being insanely powerful does a little something for the little streaks of violence, does it not?  It has helped my sense of humor tremendously.”

Sarah rolled her eyes.  “What do you want from me, then?”

He stopped the dance, holding her at arms length, backing away a great distance.  His seductive smile only increased in his movement.  “I can have whatever I want, now.  But I shant tell you what I want from you.  You already know that.”

“Please spell it out for me, then, I am dense.”

He was behind her now, his whisper of a voice startling her.  “I want to break you.  Mmm, and you can be broken.  Don’t think otherwise.”  Suddenly he bounded across the room to lunge into his throne.  “Or do think otherwise.  It will certainly make you a much more interesting playmate.”

That was when Sarah got pissed.  She mustered all of the magic she could handle, and threw an energy burst straight at him.  A smoldering pile of ash was all that remained when she finished.

“That was way too easy,” she mused, unconvinced.