Cinderella

Looking back, it was his expression that gave it away.

The smile, a delicately crafted façade dripping with malicious and cruelty. The air around him feels stiff, his very presence pulling the oxygen from the air, slowly suffocating them. The cold eyes seem to gleam over the lights of the crowded bar. Brighter than any police siren.

Bodies, pressing together into a solid wall of sweat, alcohol and those trying to repress the realities of their lives, just for one night. She moves swiftly, blonde hair swaying, dancing to a song heard only in her own mind. She shifts through the crowd, her blue dress pulling his attention away from the brunette in front of him. He looks at her immediately. Noticing the way her hips sway gently to the music and the soft curve of her lips. His own lift in a mocking imitation of a pleasant greeting, moving towards her like a cat towards a mouse.

It works.

She accepts the offered hand, like a princess on the night of her ball. Only he’s no Prince Charming. Instead of waiting for the love of his life, he waits in the shadows, pouncing on his target with lips stained with lies. The two begin to move then, pressing together, creating their own world within the sweltering crowd that tries to pull them apart. His hands land on her hips, hers on his neck. The music blares, but all they can see is each other.

Her hair slips from where it had been swept behind shoulder, clothed in silky blue material. His hand reaches forward and tucks it back behind her ear. The redness that floods her cheeks and shy glance up to his face let him know, that he has gotten what he came for. He moves again, not to touch her delicately, but pull. Her wrist tightly held in his hand as they move together. What once was delicate and soft between two acting as once reduced to two disjointed, harshly connected individuals.

They reach the bar and he’s leaning down. Whispering in her ear. The fearful expression slips off her face briefly and her smile returns. She whispers something back, biting her lips. With a hint of unsureness lingering behind her wide eyes she ignores the gut feeling and laughs. He joins her, wrapping an arm around her.

To any outsider, it appears as if he is protecting her, a loving gesture between a couple. She seems to believe it as well, leaning into his embrace with delight. Unable to understand that the arm is like the 12th chime on a clock. Breaking down the delicately created façade he had been wearing.

The bartender doesn’t even spare them a glance, maybe if he had, he would be able to remember her the next day, instead of the shoe she would unwillingly leave behind. The man gestures again, at the bartended who, with an annoyed expression, makes two drinks.

The bartender slides them across the bar and the man grabs them both. She turns around when someone bumps into her back. Hoping it is nobody she recognizes, she looks both ways, sighing in relief when she sees nobody she recognizes. She turns back at her date for the night. Her prince, just until morning. Never noticing the way his hand lingers ever too long over her drink and the sinister gleam in his eyes.

He hands her the drink and his arm wraps around her once more, whispering things in her ear that make her cheeks go red, and a wide smile spread across her face.

She sips the drink. Once. Twice. Then half. She is mumbling slightly now, her eyes glazed in a way they hadn’t been. In a way they shouldn’t be. He tosses his drink back quickly and, like vines, his arms wrap tighter and tighter around her. The bartended disappears, never noticing the concerning way her body begins to slump sideways, or the fear pulsating behind her drugged gaze.

He begins to lead her out, she tried to fight him. Stumbling and muttering, as loud as she can, a scared ‘no’ that is quickly silenced in the loudness of the club. Nobody notices.

She loses her shoe, the ratty converse, it’s comfortable, kicked uselessly among the bar’s drunken patrons. The man pulls her outside. The cold air is a shock to her drugged body, and she begins to fight again, struggling as uselessly as one does against time. The man’s prince like appearance begins to disappear, leaving, in its place a cruel imitation of the man he was.

Her dress begins to disappear, torn into useless rags lying scattered among the cobblestone at the back of the bar. He grabs her blonde hair, pulling, ignoring her scared cries and frightful whimpers. He doesn’t care. He has what he wants.

She begs, making pleas heard only by cruel ears. The man is like an animal, scratching and biting and hurting. Hurting her so bad. Her heart and her body ache, with a pain not felt physically and emotionally.

A noise in the back alley makes him freeze. His hand wraps around her mouth. Stopping her desperate pleas. Two drunk girls stumble by, never noticing the struggling girl beside them. Never caring. Sinister eyes lock back onto fearful ones. It’s like looking into the eyes of a person doomed to suffer a fate worse than death.

It feels like hours in the cold. What had passed by so quickly in the club was a memory tainted by the salty tang of tears and the sharp smell of copper. Her dress was reduced to rags, her personality reduced to a fraction of who she had been before.

When he’s done, he leaves her. Lying, hidden behind a dumpster, shivering. Her entire existence reduced to pain. She lets out a bitter laugh at the one shoe still on her foot, the only thing to have survived the horrific ordeal in one piece. Exhausted, unable, and unwilling to move, she drops her head back to the hard stone. Tears leak from her closed eyes.

How could she have been so stupid. Caught up in the fictional wonders of a fairy tale. There were no Prince Charming’s in real life, only those that pretended.

But maybe… if she closed her eyes and ignored the pain and the cold, she could pretend. Pretend the smile he had given her wasn’t one practically dripping in malicious. That his arm around her felt like the comforting touch of a friend and not like vines that had ripped and clawed at her very soul. That the drink he had given her was not drugged, that what he had been leading her outside towards was a taxi.

A broken smile crosses her face as she slips into her own mind. Maybe if she just pretended. She could allow herself, for once.

To be Cinderella.

Written by Abbigail Hollett