The Stroke of Midnight: Cinderella's Desires

Cinderella couldn't believe she was really at the ball. Oh how lovely everyone looked! The women with their hair in tight little ringlet curls and exquisite gowns of every color and texture imaginable...rich red velvets...billowy emerald taffeta...brilliant sapphire silks. And the men! They were the landowners of the region. Burly proletarian specimens with massive arms and heavily muscled chests. Each one exquisitely restrained by the severe black breeches and white ruffled tunic trappings of civilized men.

She pictured herself being tacked to a feather mattress by one of these adorable brutes, hands stroking the flame between her thighs, teeth grazing her tender breasts. A hard body looming over her as she writhed from his ministrations. Suddenly, her bosom felt crammed into the gown, her waist itched under the corset.

"Soon enough, my beautiful one, you will have the kind of man you desire.", her fairy Godmother whispered in a soft resonant voice. It was heartbreakingly sweet, this voice, and it came at her from everywhere...yet no one else seemed to hear it.

"I can hear you.", she whispered.

"I would never leave you my child. There is no place for me in all the world tonight but at your side."

"My good fairie, I thank you from the bottom of my heart that I may have this fantasy. But, what pray tell, is the price?" She nervously clutched the pearls at her throat. So tight.

"Shhh my child, you've paid the price in the misery inflicted by your stepsisters. But, be warned, at the stroke of midnight all shall be as it was."

"I know.", she whimpered, "But, I have till then."

"Look at the women gathered across the room, listen to the high seductive ring of their laughter. There is a man among them with whom you should be speaking."

She glimpsed the frock-coated adonis among them. His face was long and slender with high dramatic cheekbones. His hair a lion's mane of spiraling reddish-blonde, dappled with flecks of golden sun. Suddenly, the prince gazed back at her, igniting her passion.

She quickly turned from him.

"That's the prince!", she cried. "What interest could he have in a peasant girl like me?"