1: Thirteen O'Clock

A strip club wasn't the first place Sarah Williams thought she'd end up in. It also wasn't the last. It was probably somewhere in the middle of the list, slightly below a thrift shop and a tad above a sushi store. All things considered, there's worse places to be when you end up in that part of town.

It had started out with a friend and some friendly chit-chat. Howard 'Hoggle' Smith, a friend from college had stopped by for their bimonthly drinks, and as usual, they started talking about this and that. Whatever it is friends talk about (gardening was a popular choice of conversation).It was tradition not to ask about each other's lives until at least round two, and both of them abided nicely to it. The second that Sarah's empty glass hit the table, Hoggle dropped the question

"So, did you get the role or not?"

Sarah paused to glare across the table at the little man, then shook her head, "No. They said they wanted someone with 'more experience' and a 'different mindset.' You know how it is."

Hoggle snorted and and buried his face in a frilly Pepto-Bismol pink drink, "Idiots, the lot of 'em."

"Oh, lay off, Hoggle. They were quite nice, even called me in to audition for another part."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah."

"What part, then?"

"Oh, nothing major..."

"Come on, share."

"Well, if you must know..."

"I must, yes."

"I'm the stepmother."

"Aren't you a bit too young?"

"Not really. It's that sort of play?"

"That sort of play?"

"I didn't tell you, did I?"

"Tell me what?"

Sarah smiled smugly, "You know Rocky Horror Picture Show?"

"What of it?"

"You know Cinderella?"

"Well, yes?"

"This play is their bastard child, conceived after one too many margaritas at one too many burlesque shows."

Hoggle looked like he could use some brain bleach. Lacking that, his pink monstrosity seemed to do quite nicely.

Sarah laughed, "He's kind of big in the local community."

The man muttered something quiet and vaguely offensive, "So what's your part like, then?"

"One too many plastic surgeries and an overt fondness for young men in speedos and the clubs in which they reside."

Hoggle sighed. "How's your character study coming along?"

"Well, I'm not sure. Frankly, I don't know where to start, and-"

Looking vaguely pained, Hoggle put up a hand to shut her up, "You want my help?"

"Please!"

"I know just the place..."

xxx

'Just the place' happened to be a strip club in a very specific part of town where Hoggle just happened to be the bartender. Small world.

"I reserve the right to make terrible jokes about this for a decade," said Sarah, sliding onto a barstool.

Hoggle scowled at her from across the bar, clambering up onto a stepping stool. They made quite the pair. A young woman, dark hair shining under the pulsing lights, eyes sharp, gaze slightly cynical, worn down but not worse for wear at the end of a long week, and a dwarf, features almost cartoonish but no less real than the next person with a matter of fact air and quick, if heavy, hands.

"I do have to give the place points for the theme, though," Sarah continued, fluffing up her long black hair, "'The Glass Bauble'? Vaguely Renaissance themed Venetian Carnival erotica?"

"Yeah, yeah. It sells, so they do it," muttered the dwarf, pulling his apron tight around his waist, "Want me to mix you a drink?"

Sarah nodded.

"Too bad," said Hoggle, "It's all nonalcoholic. I can get a juice instead."

"That would be great."

"Alright," Hoggle clambered off of his stool, "I'll be a bit. Everyone here's nice. In a certain definition of that word... Go socialize. Mingle. Something. Whatever you do, though, don't talk to Jareth. He's an ass."

The young actress gave a mocking salute and settled down to watch the crowd mill around. Most patrons (almost completely women) were crowding around the main stage where the expected was happening. The expected being a bunch of scantly clad men getting even more scantly clad by the second. It took some force of will for Sarah to tear her eyes away from the display, but she eventually succeeded, turning her attention to the women around the stage. How they dressed, how they carried themselves, their age, their attitudes, everything she could gleam with a (ha) naked eye.

And so Sarah spent a nice couple of minutes before someone slid onto the stool next to hers, leaning in a bit too close.

"You're watching the wrong thing, love," that someone said sardonically.

Sarah eyed the man sitting next to her. Sharp cheekbones, bright mismatched eyes, a platinum blond mullet, frilly poet's shirt with cleavage way down low, a pair of very very tight pants, and an accent that spoke of the other side of the pond and Union Jacks.

"Depends what you're here for," she replied, turning back to the crowd.

"Middle aged housewives with depraved sex lives?"

Sarah raised her eyebrows, "If that's your attitude towards your clientele, I can see why you're not up there working."

"Strange. That pick up line usually seems to work," said Mr. Mullet in a vaguely sarcastic monotone.

"Oh, I'm not like most girls," Sarah said in an overly breathy voice, putting a hand to her heart.

"I can see that," smirked the man, "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm the Goblin King."

"That's got to be a euphemism for something," muttered Sarah.

"Probably. Now this is the part where you introduce yourself, I say something witty, and you fall in love with me and stuff singles down my pants."

"Hi, Goblin King, my name's Jennifer, and I'd need to break a ten first," said Sarah, giving up on all hopes of crowd watching.

"How cheap," said the Goblin King, sliding his hand onto Sarah's knee, "Might there be anything more likely to make you give me the ten outright?"

The woman thought about it for a moment and settled with tilting her head to the side. "What, is it a slow night for you?"

The Goblin King shrugged, "My slot's not until later, I got here a bit early, and you seemed like an easier customer than what you turned out to be."

The actress let out a snort, "Alright then, amuse me."

The man gave Sarah a slow once over from under hooded eyes, slipped his hand off her leg, and snapped his fingers. The gesture was followed by a complicated flick of his wrist, and the Goblin King proudly presented a crystal ball. Long, white gloved fingers sent the crystal dancing around, bobbing over and around his hand. Gently, he produced another crystal and added it to the first. The patterns grew more and more complex. The glass spheres caught the glare of the club lights, muting the multitude of colors and bouncing them around. Another ball was added, and the spinning and weaving grew hurried and frantic, reflections a blur, one crystal barely distinguishable from another. Until it stopped. Absent of fanfares and pomp, the devilish spirals simply stopped. Finished. Ended.

The Goblin King placed the crystals on the bar with a gentle clunk and turned to grin at Sarah, whose eyes were still locked on his spindly fingers, mouth agape, trying to shake off the remnants of the entrancing performance.

Once she came to, Sarah whipped out her wallet in a businesslike fashion and slapped a ten down on the table in front of the spheres.

"Nice to know at least one man here knows how to handle his balls," she said.

The Goblin King bared his teeth, "Do you have any idea how many times I've heard that joke."

"Well, you haven't heard it from me, so take the compliment."

"That's not fair."

"You're welcome."

They sat in silence for a few moments until the Goblin King started glancing around the room. After a couple of quietly frustrated moments, he turned to Sarah, "Mind telling me what time it is?"

"There's a clock right there," said Sarah, waving at the wall above the bar, "Three whole clocks, actually."

"Fat lot of good they do, just tell me the time."

What a spoiled brat. Sarah glanced down at her watch, "Ten forty five."

The man sighed and slipped to his feet, collecting the balls off the table and hiding them... somewhere, "Pleasure doing business with you, lovely conversation, got to run. Good bye, Jennifer."

"Bye, Goblin King."

"If you stay until eleven, you'll catch my dance."

"Looking forward to it."

"I live to serve."

The stripper gave a mocking salute and made his way to one of the side doors, no doubt leading to the changing room.

Sarah watched him go. Well, mainly she watched his ass go, but that was almost the same thing in this situation. Sighing wistfully, she turned back to the bar and came face to face with Hoggle.

"I told you not to talk with Jareth and here we are," grumbled the dawrf, slamming down a peach-flavored soft drink.

"Can't see why you don't like him," Sarah said, "He has a lovely personality."

"And an even lovelier bod, I'm aware."

"Why Hoggle, I never thought I'd hear you say that word!"

"What, 'lovelier'?"

"No, 'bod.'"

"Well, this place has the tendency to wear off on you."

Sarah hummed in agreement and looked up at the clocks above the bar. The hands on them were gone, and each had thirteen hours.