The Cinderella fairy-tale is universal. By the time the
Grimm brothers told their version of the story, it was
already centuries old in China, India and West Africa.
There was almost certainly an Assyrian tale similar to
it contemporary with the Epic of Gilgamesh – there are
even traces of such a tale in the Epic itself. There
are recognizable parallel elements in the Esther/Ruth
narratives of the Old Testament.
‘The wife of an exceedingly rich man fell mortally
sick, and when she felt that her end was rapidly
approaching she summoned her only daughter to the
deathbed. “Always, above everything else, be a virtuous
child,” she instructed the girl, “for I shall be
looking down from heaven and shall be watching over
you.” Shortly afterwards, the woman died and was buried
with loving ceremony in a favorite corner of the
garden. The little girl went every day to the grave
where she wept and placed flowers, and remembered her
dear mother’s advice and was kind and courteous and
good to everyone around her.’
This is how the brothers Grimm start their account of
Cinderella. Now, I don’t want to knock morality or
ethical instruction of the young. But it can hardly be
morally right to take a genuine original thought,
preserved in the form of a fairy tale, to knock the
shit out of it, to squeeze it dry of any individuality
and realism, simply to make it do a job for which it
was never intended. This is exactly what the prudish
Jakob Ludwig Carl and his brother Wilhelm have done for
posterity. But it is not entirely their fault.
For the story of Cinderella lost its virginity, so to
speak, as soon as it came into contact with the
Christian world, first in Byzantium then in Rome. And
once it was sanitized to suit Christian sensibilities,
it was knocked unconscious, stripped, ravished, then
anointed with sweet balm, reclothed in shining raiment
and let loose on an unsuspecting public. In the
original story there is no golden slipper, no prince
charming and hardly any fairy godmother! The story as
we find it in the original Arab collection of tales by
Scheherezade (omitted for some obscure reason in the
Richard Burton translation) is a rehash of the sterile
Christian version suitably subjected to further
grievous bodily damage to suit Moslems.
As a matter of fact, Cinderella was a spoilt little
upstart. She looked down on the other kids in the
neighborhood and treated the servants in her parents’
household abominably. Because the family was rich,
seriously rich beyond the dreams of 99.9% of the people
who shared the planet with them, they thought they were
above the law.
Consequently, when Cinderella committed a felony or a
criminal misdemeanour, which was every other week, the
family name alone was more than powerful enough to
wriggle the brat free of any legal proceedings and
punishment. The little bitch was selfish, greedy,
acquisitive, noisy, totally insensitive and ungrateful
for anything that was done for her, indescribably rude
and ill-mannered. But like most little bitches who are
in possession of most of these characteristics, as in
Hollywood or Bollywood, she was an extremely good-
looking little bint.
There was never any lack of suitors after her hand, for
in those dark, far-off days kids were married off as
young as ten, and if marriage were to be delayed until
a girl was eighteen people began to wonder what the
hell was wrong with her. The most beautiful woman in
history, Nefertiti of Egypt, married her brother or
cousin when she was in her eleventh year, and Roxanne,
the fiery Sogdianan princess became the wife of
Alexander the Great when she was nine or ten.
This last marriage was a surprise to everyone, not
least to the grooms many boy-friends! Aisha was
contracted to marry the Prophet when she was six, and
their marriage was consummated when she was nine. When
the future king of England, Edward I, married Eleanor
of Castille when she was eight, it was written into the
nuptial contract that he would not engage in full
sexual intercourse with her until she was thirteen, and
it is a well-attested fact of history that the Hammer
of the Scots kept his word in everything! Absolutely
everything!
So, Cinderella had many suitors! So? Well, it has to be
said that most of these suitors, well, all of them
except one, were only after one thing – the fortune
than went with her. She was definitely not an ugly
bitch, and there would be no difficulty in taking it to
bed and having a good fuck. But there was no possible
way that what she had between her legs could make up
for her foul temper and her egomania.
Only one man, Buttons, was willing to overlook all her
faults just to get under her knickers; he was even
prepared to do some really hard work on finding a good
trait among all her evil failings. Now you know what
kind of people we are dealing with; they were all evil
bastards. Except Buttons – he was a fruit cake!
Cinderella lived in this little word of self-
gratification until she was fourteen, and her father
decided it was time that she got married. The girl had
no intention of marrying anyone but the richest in the
land – she was far too fond of her creature comforts to
intend otherwise. And since it was a period of great
affluence in the world’s history there seemed little
problem in securing a suitable match.
Indeed, one was made with the oldest son (hence heir)
of a family that was even richer that her own, and the
engagement was announced at a party that would easily
have put the worst excesses of Nero’s orgies to shame
for their niggardliness. It was at this party that what
has to pass for a fairy godmother appeared.
Out of keeping with the rest of the guests, she wore
white rags. She told a rather pointless story about the
lion who married a leopard; the marriage was doomed
from the very start because, said this old hag, the
lion roared and the leopard was spotty. And while the
assembled guests were trying to work out what the hell
that was supposed to mean, the fairy godmother screamed
laughter and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
It was shortly after this, before the actual marriage
date had been arranged, that tragedy struck. First of
all, there was a downturn in the economy and millions
of gold pieces were wiped off the stock market. The
price of gold, silver and bronze went through the
floor, there was mass unemployment, unprecedented
flooding, the harvests failed, there was hyper-
inflation, general unrest among the plebeians, and the
land where Cinderella and her folks lived went steadily
to the locusts.
But troubles such as these never come alone.
Cinderella’s father drank heavily to numb the effect of
his losses on the stock market, he became a bit over-
zealous with his latest girlfriend, who was a familiar
entertainer and society celebrity, and put her in the
family way.
There was nothing at all unusual in that, people did it
all the time, but not as the father of poor Cinders did
it – in a public thoroughfare at the busiest time of
day. Eyebrows were raised and allegations whispered
when the pregnant broad was found dead in her sprawling
mansion on the other side of town, and Cinderella’s
father found it prudent to disappear for a time. The
family name had lost much of its magic.
Then her big brother was involved in a similar piece of
scandal with an under-age kid (and in those days that
was saying something!) whom he had also made pregnant.
The conception was not quite so public, but it was in
the bicycle shed during the elementary school prom. By
a strange but predictable coincidence, as the brother
was taking the kid to a doctor who specialised in
childhood complaints, his horse accidentally slipped as
they were crossing a river in flood.
Both the brother and the little girl were plunged into
the foaming deep, and try as he would, by another odd
coincidence, he could not save her from drowning. He
survived. And the horse! And it could not have happened
at a worse time, for the power of the family name had
worn so thin that people started to snicker and scoff
if any mention was made of it. There was an outcry, and
a demand for a fair trial with a public hanging at the
end of it. So Cinderella’s brother joined his father in
obscurity.
So Cinderella was left on her own with a house to look
after and bills to pay and no money to pay the
servants’ wages; so the butler and the chauffeur and
the chamber maids and scullery maids, the cooks and the
gardeners all found jobs elsewhere, where they could
actually get hard cash in return for their labor. Bit
by bit the dust gathered, the cobwebs thickened, the
roofs leaked, the rats and the mice nibbled at what
little food remained. She made several attempts to
contact her fiance, but she found that every time she
visited his family they were always away on holiday or
on business and never left a forwarding address.
It was at that critical moment in the narrative when
things just couldn’t get any worse for Cinderella, they
did! She had taken to living in the
kitchen/scullery/wash-house among the rats and mice and
cockroaches where before, in the good old day, the
humblest of the servants shacked down, huddling close
to the fires for some warmth and looking for scraps of
food left over from the frequent banquets. Now there
was very little warmth and no banquets.
Suddenly, in the midst of her feeling sorry for
herself, there was a knock on the door leading to the
back alley where all the rubbish was put and where the
poor hungry beggars used to come in the vain hope of
finding a crust of bread. She peeped out and saw some
of the former servants.
“Ah, good! They have taken pity on me and have come to
serve me and minister unto my needs.” The poor bitch
was still living in a fantasy fairy tale world of make-
believe. It did not strike her as unusual that they
were all hunky males who were outside the door and the
fumes penetrating the woodwork were alcoholic rather
than charitable. “I shall let them in and forgive them
for their abandonment of me.” Boy! Was she to learn the
meaning of abandonment!
Once inside the house the men pretended to make
obeisance to her as they went through the motions of
deep curtseying, bowing and scraping. They kissed her
hand daintily, and her feet, which she considered
rather impudent and improper. They danced around her
and sang rather naughty songs. It finally penetrated
her calloused brain that their intentions were not
entire altruistic, nor were they honorably respectful
when one of the men slipped his hand inside her shabby
dress and began to maul her tits. Another guy kissed
her on the mouth and filled her maw with tongue, while
a third hauled up her skirts and licked her pussy.
When she finally understood what was happening, she
protested with flailing arms and legs and tried to
wriggle free. The biggest of the assailants, a man who
had previously been the family coachman, gripped her
throat and smashed a fist into her face. She lost
consciousness. He lifted her and threw her across the
kitchen table. He ripped the remnants of her clothing
away form her front.
“Now, who’ll pay me a copper or two for the privilege
of popping this little cherry?” He laughed like Jasper
in a school melodrama. “We’ll start the bidding at…”
“Get lost!” rejoined one of his companions. “Like her
cherry! She lost it years ago when she was eight to
Prince.. Prince.What was his name? It’s on the tip of
my tongue. Prince!
“Charming!” exclaimed another intruder. “These rich
buggers ain’t got no sense of right and wrong.” He
wiped the slaver from his toothless jaw. “Let’s just
fuck her!”
And so they did. Cinderella lying across the kitchen
table was cruelly violated and each man in turn emptied
the day’s production of semen into her aching void. One
man, after the second round, went to the door and
whistled for the dogs of the district to come and share
the goodies.
Poor, poor Cinderella lost consciousness again and
again and woke up with the breaking of the new day.
Amid the cold ashes in the fireplace, she wept for the
glories that were now long gone, and for the burning
pain between her legs and in her belly and her butt.
Now Buttons enters the story, and the kitchen basement.
The nut had always fancied the ill-mannered little
tart, and even forgave her frequent jibes and insults
whenever he had tried to be friendly in the distant
past. In a kind of joke she once told him that she
could never marry him because he was not nearly rich
enough even to pay for her face rouge. She told him to
go away and make himself the richest man in the world.
And, being the nut he was, he did exactly what she
commanded – for her wish was his command, and all that
shit!
He now took Cinderella in his arms and kissed all the
sore bits. Much more importantly, for her, he paid off
all her family debts, refurbished the house, bathed her
in scented oils, dressed her in the finest silks and
gave her the sweetest and most expensive foods, and
asked for her hand in marriage! Of course she agreed
instantly. Christ! What the fuck do you think she would
do? So they were married right away, since the laws of
the land were not quite so strict in those far-off
days.
A funny thing happened during the wedding festivities:
this old crone appeared from nowhere in a puff of smoke
and told a rather silly story about a lion that would
marry a leopard (she had a limited repertoire) then
laughed hysterically and went, as she had come, with a
wave of her wand and in a puff of smoke. The guests
were too pissed out of their minds to notice; at best
some of them thought it was part of the cabaret and
dismissed it as a second rate rubbishy turn.
They applauded, however, when Buttons carried his bride
off to the bridal chamber for the traditional three
days and three nights of mad passion. He had her: back,
front and sideways. To quote a certain Roman historian
(referring to a certain emperor’s wife): if she had had
more orifices, he would have had them too! He surfaced
to smoke the odd joint before getting on with the
business of being married to one really hot bitch.
Now, after all that she had been through, we should not
be surprised if the girl had learned from her
experiences and had decided to be a dutiful wife and a
considerate mistress to her servants. But this is the
story as it was told long before the Grimm brothers got
their clinically sterile fingers on it.
The fact is, once restored to power, Cinderella became
ten times worse than she had been before. She beat the
hell out of the weaker servants, she complained about
everything and everyone, and appreciated nothing that
was done for her. But having acquired a taste for cock
after that gang bang in the kitchen, she started
spreading it around.
She slept (or rather she didn’t get a wink of sleep)
with the butler and the other menservants, their sons
and brothers and fathers, the butcher (who knew quality
meat), the mailman, any Tom, Ted or Harry who had a
dick! She also had a liking for those boyfriends with
dogs! And all this time Buttons thought of himself as
the luckiest man in the entire world.
After all he was extremely wealthy, had his health, a
beautiful house, servants to run at his beck and call,
he had a beautiful wife and three wonderful children –
admittedly none of them looked the least bit like him;
as a matter of fact, two were black – he wondered about
that – and one had a distinct oriental appearance,
whereas he was pure Nordic stock: fair-haired, blue-
eyed, tall, firm jaw, muscle-bound and not very bright.
His wife was economical and very kind-hearted; several
times she had been found in bed with a servant to save
on the expense of heating or buying extra bedding for
guests or the staff.
She was so kind-hearted that she often took the odd
stray dog to bed with her to give it some pleasure and
loving in an otherwise bleak existence. It was a pity
about those blinding headaches she had been having. But
we can’t have everything all the time, and all things
considered life had been pretty good to them.
When the trade cycle took another turn for the worse,
(or was it an invasion of barbarian tribes from the
north?), Buttons found himself without a bent cent. He
had mounting debts and hounding creditors. His wife was
on holiday when disaster struck and no matter how hard
he tried he could not seem to get in touch with her.
When the truth finally dawned: that she was off with
another man, other men to be cruelly correct, he
decided that enough was enough and that there was only
one honorable way out. So he became a male prostitute.
Cinderella, meanwhile, was jazzing it up as if there
were no tomorrows, without paying particular attention
to her bank balance. And as the cash became scarcer,
she found that the friends became fewer. And so it came
to pass that in the last days, she found herself again
penniless and without a friend. Like her husband, she
sought an alternative life style, and decided to spread
it around again, but this time in return for a token
payment or a crust of bread. To her surprise, she
discovered that no-one wanted it.
“Fuck off, you worn-out old crone,” she was told by the
local whore-master. “Who the hell do you think is going
to pay good readies to fuck an old dried-up bag like
you?”
“Yes, off with you, you unmitigated piece of trash, off
we say!” echoed the populace. Even the dogs ran for
their lives when she appeared.
And so, sad at heart, with tears in her eyes, poor
Cinderella turned her footsteps homeward. She would
seek out dearest Buttons, and tell him how much she
loved him, and would forgive him his shortcomings and
give him all the encouragement he required to become
rich again and they could live in their grand house and
eat the finest foods and dress in the purest silks and
beat the hell out of the servants!
She never did find Buttons. But she never could get out
of her mind the story told by the fairy godmother on
two separate occasions. What was it now? Something
about a lion and a leopard. The lion was a lazy bugger
that scavenged a lot more than it killed, and the
leopard never did change its spots.
‘And a dove came and settled on her shoulder and sang a
beautiful song, and when it had finished its song they
turned homeward.’ This is how the Grimm brothers end
their version of the story.
Sad! For the poor old bitch had no home to go back to!
Just memories to fall back on, and for the life of her
and for the rest of her life, she could not find any
fault in herself – for all the evil that had befallen
her, other people were to blame! For of such stuff
fairy tales are told!