You can mail the author at: frangible2@yahoo.com
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Nobody ever used her real name. She hardly even remembered it anymore, so long had it been since she'd heard it. Her two stepsisters, beautiful but cruel, finding her one day cleaning the fireplace at their mother's order, had dubbed her "Cinderella". In time, this epithet, used exclusively by her stepsisters and stepmother, and tolerated by her father, became, for all intents and purposes, her only name.
Her father's lack of support did not greatly surprise Cinderella. His wife's death had broken the man's spirit, and left him vulnerable to the sinister influences of the woman who seduced him. Oh, he had never been a perfect father; distant, perhaps even cold, but always punctiliously correct in his treatment of her. But now it seemed as though he had forgotten her entirely. He was hardly ever at home now, and Cinderella's stepmother controlled the household. She arrayed herself and her daughters in dresses made from silk and brocade, and paid for from his labors.
Cinderella herself was hardly more than a slave in her own home. She spent all her time slaving over the stove in the kitchen or breaking her back scrubbing the floors. Meanwhile her new stepfamily spent their days lounging, chatting, picking out clothes and arguing about who would marry the prince first.
Ah, yes, the prince. Prince Reynald, tall, handsome and possessed of an extraordinary prowess and stamina not only in the joust but also, by all accounts, between the sheets. Rumors of royal discontent were beginning to be heard. It seemed the king believed it was time for his son to consider settling into a somewhat less flamboyant lifestyle. The prince had to find a wife.
The grand ball the prince had decided to throw was supposedly to honor his great-uncle's birthday, but everyone knew it was just an excuse for the brightest and most beautiful young ladies in the city to parade themselves before him, and perhaps for one of them to become the next princess. And of course, Cinderella's stepsisters would be there.
As she stitched their dresses, Cinderella rubbed the expensive material against her skin. She knew it was the only chance she would have to know what it felt like. She would never get to wear the beautiful dresses she herself had made. She tried to choke back a sob.
"Keep the noise down in there!" shouted one of her sisters from their bedroom next door. "And turn down that lamp," called out the other (to Cinderella, they looked and sounded the same), "we need our beauty rest!" Cinderella wiped her eyes, dimmed the lamp and continued sewing in near darkness.
The next morning the house was bustling with activity. The girls and their mother were rushing to and fro, fixing their hair, checking their makeup and, of course, trying on the dresses Cinderella had made for them. "You made it too wide around the waist," complained one. "It makes my butt look wide" whined the other. Cinderella clenched her fists and began to tell her stepsister why her butt really looked fat, but then she took a deep breath, and took the dress back to her sewing table.
Finally, Cinderella stood at the door and watched grimly as they rode away inside the carriage they had rented for the occasion, still tittering and laughing all the while. At least she was finally alone. Wiping her nose on the stained rag that served her as a dress and letting out a quiet sniffle, she trudged back into the house. She sat on her bed in the corner of the kitchen and cried.
"What have I done to deserve such treatment? Why can't I be at the ball, dancing the night away in a beautiful dress, like my stepsisters? What have they ever done to help anyone? Why are they, who always treat me so badly, rewarded, while I rot here in this miserable house?" She was a sorry sight indeed. Seldom has such desperate wailing been heard - but when a person is that desperate, sometimes, just sometimes, help may come from an unexpected source. This was precisely what happened to Cinderella.
As she sat there with her face in her hands, weeping, Cinderella felt the lightest wind, as if a little bird had passed her by. But she was inside. Startled, she raised her head and beheld the strangest sight. A pudgy old woman in the most ridiculous dress stood, no not stood, hovered before her! Oh, yes, she hovered, her little fat body buoyed into the air by a pair of buzzing little wings on her back! On her head was a glittering tiara, and in her right hand was a sparkling gem-encrusted wand. There was no mistaking this woman.
"You're a fairy!" gasped Cinderella. She had of course heard of them - everyone had. But never before had she imagined that they were anything other than mere stories. Now she was face to face with one, a real, living, breathing, glittering magical fairy.
"I'm not just any fairy, Cinderella," the pudgy creature solemnly intoned, "I am your fairy godmother. Your mother's dying wish was for someone to look after you, and that is why I am here."
Cinderella instantly grasped the situation, and understood exactly what kind of looking after she needed. "Can you grant my wish?" she whispered, fearing that even asking the question might somehow make her lose her chance.
"Of course I can, dearie, that's just what I'm here for! But there are rules - rules you had better understand before you ask me for anything. Now listen closely. First, advice - that's free. You can ask me as many questions as you like and I will give you honest advice that will help you. Second, your wish. You only get one, so you'd better use it wisely. And you may only use your wish for good. If you make your life better with it your mother, looking down from heaven, will be pleased. But if you try to use your wish to make someone else's life worse, you'd better know it'll backfire on you! That's just the way magic works. Now, would you like to ask my advice? Ask me anything at all."
Cinderella leapt from the bed and knelt at the fairy's feet. "I don't need to ask anything, just please grant me my wish!" she wailed.
"I'm sure you have some questions to ask, honey," the godmother said, a bit peevishly, "Trust me, I've seen it all and I have a good answer to just about any problem you can think of."
But Cinderella could not be persuaded. "Just grant my wish, please!" she pleaded. "Humph!" grunted her fairy godmother, "If that's how you want it, but I'm warning you to think through what you're asking for and make sure it's what you really want."
"Oh, with all my heart, I want to go to the ball and be so beautiful that Prince Reynald will want to marry me!"
Cinderella's fairy godmother seemed a little distraught at this request. "Listen, I don't know if that's the best idea..." she began.
Horrified, Cinderella cut her off. "It's because I'm ugly, isn't it? I'm fat and short and I have bad hair!"
"Oh, no, no, dearie..." attempted the godmother, but Cinderella's wailing cut her off before she could get the words out.
"And I'm flaaaaat - I have no boobs at all and my face is covered in pimples and I'm hideous!"
Her fairy godmother had had enough. She whacked Cinderella on the head with her wand to shut her up. Startled, Cinderella stopped wailing and looked up, still whimpering a little.
"Now listen to me, young lady. There's no problem granting your wish. It's just a question of whether it would work out for you in the end. Whether it'd be in your best interests, you know? I've granted a lot of wishes an I will tell you, this kind of thing usually doesn't turn out well."
"You mean you can do it?" Cinderella's eyes, still full of tears, now widened to double their size. You can make me beautiful?"
"Yes, dear, of course I can but --"
"Then do it!" Cinderella demanded, "Make me beautiful right now!"
"Fine!" shouted the fairy godmother, perhaps a bit more loudly than she'd intended, but she was beginning to lose patience with this reckless, whiny girl. "You will be beautiful, but remember you must use this wish only for good and never for ill. For this reason, we'll put you on a kind of probation. Go to the ball and enjoy yourself, but you must not do anything bad to anyone while you are there, or the magic spell will come to an end. If you can be good until midnight, the spell will become permanent. If not--"
"I understand!" interrupted Cinderella breathlessly. "Now wave your wand, or whatever. When will you start making me beautiful?"
With a sigh, Cinderella's fairy godmother began floating up toward the open window. "It's already begun, Cinderella. Now remember what I told you and enjoy your ball." And with that, she drifted out the window and flew away.
Cinderella ran to the full-length mirror in her sisters' room to look at herself. Despite what her fairy godmother had said, she looked just the same! She was crushed. Could it all have been a dream? But wait a moment, somehow it almost seemed as though she was... taller? Yes, yes, now she could see it - she was clearly growing! And there were other changes, too. Her pimples seemed to be diminishing, and her dull, thin brown hair was becoming fuller, lighter and longer all at once. Her flabby midsection was visibly shrinking under her dress. She threw it off and saw that indeed, her torso was slimming, lengthening and becoming perfectly toned. And her chest - where she had had only small brown nipples on an empty expanse, her breasts were slowly filling in, growing first perky, then round, then full and finally, as her areolae dilated, large and heavy. They were huge! Huge and perfect! She looked at the image in the mirror and could hardly recognize herself. From a short, pudgy, flat-chested girl she had suddenly turned into a gorgeous tall, leggy, blonde woman.
Suddenly she realized there was a problem. She had nothing to wear to an occasion such as this! All she had was her dirty house dress. But when she turned to look at it it, too, had changed. The dress was now a beautiful evening gown. It was simple but elegant, designed to show off all her new-found curves. She put it on immediately. Long and white, it extended from her shoulders to the floor, leaving her arms bare and displaying a healthy amount of decolletage. In the back it was slit up to mid-thigh to allow her to dance.
The whole party ground to a halt when Cinderella entered the ballroom. The moment she was ushered through the huge entry way by an awe struck doorman, every head in the place turned and every mouth fell open in amazement. She was the very picture of feminine perfection. Every man was suddenly excited - every woman was suddenly jealous. Certainly no one missed her entrance. Certainly not Cinderella's stepsisters.
They had been chatting with the prince when she arrived, having backed him into a corner of the ballroom. But perhaps he had allowed himself to be backed into that corner - after all, the sisters were certainly beautiful, and definitely available. In truth, his only problem had been deciding which one he wanted for his princess - until Cinderella walked in.
She came to him instantly, walking through the crowd as though it wasn't there, unerringly approaching him like the magnet approaches the steel. And to the two sisters' dismay, their prince, completely ignoring them, walked to meet her. They tagged along behind, hoping the moment would pass and they could still salvage the situation. Cinderella saw no spark of recognition in their eyes.
Prince Reynald tried to blurt out some sort of greeting when he was standing in front of Cinderella, but his usual suave demeanor somehow failed him in the face of her beauty. "Wha... what's your name?" was all he could come up with.
"That's not important," said Cinderella, realizing from the first that she was in complete control of the situation. "I heard this ball was being thrown by a Prince looking to marry."
"I am that prince, lady," piped Reynald, "I am Prince Reynald and as you say, it is time I was wed. I need only find the most perfect woman in all the land."
Cinderella smiled at this. "Then I am your princess," she stated. "You will marry me, Reynald, and someday I will be Queen!"
She didn't know what had come over her, but she knew she now had the power to make such predictions come true. Never before had she experienced the power that beauty could bring, but she grasped it intuitively. Reynald could not resist her, that had been obvious from the beginning. The only ones who could possibly stand in her way were her two trollop stepsisters, who even now were rushing forward to try to hold on to their prize.
"But... but Prince Reynald!" shouted one of them, "you told us you would surely marry one of us!" "Yes," the other hurriedly interjected, "you said we were the most beautiful of all the ladies in the town!"
The prince looked thoughtful. "It would be unseemly for me to break my royal word. I did tell you I would marry one of you." But Cinderella wasn't having any.
"Reynald, darling, it's not as though you signed your name on a contract. You told these... girls that you would consider them as potential mates, that's all. You couldn't have known there was another, much more beautiful woman available in the town. Now that I'm here, of course you must reconsider. There's nothing duplicitous about it!" Cinderella was astounded to hear these words coming out of her mouth. Her beauty so far surpassed that of her step-sisters, though, that she felt she had the right to force the prince to see that he had to marry her. For a moment she felt a twinge of guilt, but then she thought of all the horrible things her stepsisters had done to her and she hardened her heart. She would take this man away from them and no force in nature could stop it.
Reynald seemed to be wavering. The ladies were pleading with him not to break his word. All the while, he kept glancing at Cinderella, tall, thin, blonde, beautiful Cinderella. She had to do something to make sure he would come to her. She knew it wasn't right but she decided to do it anyway. She had lived in the same house as these girls. She knew their weaknesses.
"Reynald," she cooed, "before you make you decision I think there are a couple of things you should know about these two 'perfect' ladies you've found. This one," she jerked her chin dismissively at one of her stepsisters, "you like her beautiful golden hair, I suppose?"
Reynald could hardly disagree, and besides, her hair was rather nice. "Yes, she has such beautiful golden locks."
Cinderella stepped up to her stepsister and, grinning wickedly at the prince, suddenly grabbed the girls hair and pulled it back so the roots were clearly visible. "Without the coloring she puts in it, her hair would be as black as jet!" she laughed. "And this other one, with the flawless skin? Look!" and with that she pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the makeup away from her other stepsister's cheek, exposing the rosy birth mark there. "Without her makeup," she crowed, "her face looks like someone just slapped her! Are these the kind of false women you want to have as the mothers of your children, Reynald? You have only one choice - you must choose me!"
At that very instant, the clock bell began to ring. With a tone that seemed to Cinderella to grow more and more ominous, it rang out twelve strokes in the suddenly silent ballroom. When it was finished, Cinderella took a deep breath and looked down at herself. Had she gone too far? Had she abused her beauty and lost it? But she looked the same! Under her dress she still saw her jutting breasts and slender waist. Her blonde hair still curled around her face. The midnight hour had come and gone and she was still beautiful! She gasped in relief. It seemed a little difficult to take in the breath, she thought. Ah, probably nothing - she was just so nervous.
Reynald seemed to have come around. He didn't look unsure anymore. Instead he was gazing into her eyes as though hypnotized. The two stepsisters looked like they were ready to burst into tears at any moment. Good, thought Cinderella, serves them right for all they did to me. She turned to the one with the birth mark.
"Why don't you go away now and leave me and my husband alone?" She made a dismissive gesture. To her surprise, the girl didn't just walk away. She just stood there, fists clenched, and then... BANG! She slapped Cinderella right in the face!
Cinderella staggered back from the force of the blow that had jerked her head to one side and nearly knocked her off her feet. She recovered as quickly as she could, expecting her stepsister to be coming after her, but the girl was just standing there, looking at her palm. It seemed to be covered with some kind of gooey, flesh-colored substance.
"It's makeup!" cried the stepsister, "She's wearing some kind of pancake makeup!" Cinderella put her hand to her face, about to protest this lie, but then she felt the same substance... it was all over her face. But she hadn't been wearing any makeup when she came to the ball - she hadn't needed to.
"Look at her face!" shouted the stepsister, peering closely at the suddenly dumbfounded Cinderella. "It's all pimples!"
No, thought Cinderella, no - the pimples were gone! My face was beautiful! She rushed over to the nearest table and grabbed one of the silver platters. Looking at her reflection she could see that indeed, her pimply face was clearly visible under a thick coat of makeup. Then she noticed something else. Her hair looked strangely awry. She reached up to adjust it and felt something.... God, no! It was a wig! But the magic had turned hair beautiful! Then she saw her blonde stepsister's reflection behind hers in the platter. Had she noticed too?
Indeed she had. Cinderella's stepsister tangled her fingers deep in the wig and pulled. Cinderella grabbed it and struggled to keep it on her head. "Reynald, look at... ugh... THIS!" the stepsister shouted, tugging at the hair, "she laughed at me for...urgh! bleaching my hair, but look... argh! at... ugh! HERS!" And with the last word she gave a powerful tug and ripped the long blonde wig right off Cinderella's head. Cinderella's short thin brown hair was revealed for all to see. She put her hands to her head in a vain effort to cover it. As she did so, the dress rode up, revealing her feet. Her stepsisters both noticed immediately.
"Look," one screamed in delight, "she must be wearing six-inch heels!" Immediately they grabbed at her feet, ripping off her shoes and sending Cinderella crashing to the floor. The prince looked on, dumbfounded, as the beautiful woman he wanted to marry was deconstructed before his eyes.
Cinderella struggled to her feet, hands still vainly trying to cover her head. She was actually quite short now, several inches shorter than either of the sisters, especially without the several inches of hairdo that had crowned her head. But the sisters weren't done with her. Apparently they had seen something while she had been lying on the ground with her legs sprawled out in every direction. They were conferring with each other in whispers now.
As Cinderella looked around for the nearest exit, the two sisters rushed her from either side. Each took hold of one side of her dress and they pulled with all their might. The dress, slit up past the knee, tore from the top of the slit all the way up, into two pieces. These the sisters tossed in opposite directions. They pointed at Cinderella, faces red with laughter. In fact, the entire ballroom was filled with the laughter of the guests.
Cinderella could hardly bear to do it, but she looked down. There, her worst fears confronted her. Her figure, made so slender by the magic, had clearly returned to its original proportions. The appearance of slimness was now provided by a heavy girdle that stretched from just above her knees to just under her bra, where a roll of fat was now clearly visible. And the bra, which earlier in the night had been filled with her own large and heavy breasts, was now filled with a pair of absurd looking pillowy falsies. It was evident to everyone in the room that her real breasts were small and saggy.
It was the final straw. Cinderella couldn't take any more. She ran for it. Away from the shocked prince, and her evil stepsisters, past the jeering and booing crowd, past the giggling servants and all the way home she ran. Her fairy godmother's magic spell had done its worst - she was completely humiliated.
The next morning the sisters returned home. What a story they had to tell their ugly stepsister! How they had exposed a charlatan trying to unfairly steal the affections of the glorious Prince Reynald. How he had been so impressed with their actions in his interests that he had decided to marry both of them! It took a little arguing and the discovery of some obscure legal precedents, he had told them, but they were worth it. If only they knew, the sisters said with an evil glint in their eye, who that harlot was who tried to dupe their prince, they would have her tarred and feathered and hung in the stocks. A tear fell down Cinderella's cheek when they told this story, but she never told them.
