Chapter 1

Cinder Whore is a rather bawdy, “adults-only” version of the popular Cinderella story. I hope you like my take on this classic!

Once upon a time, there was a wealthy man, Phillip, and his wife, Eleanor, who had a beautiful little girl, Bella. They lived in a nice house at the edge of the woods. They were very happy together, the three of them and it looked like they had a wonderful future together. But one day, Eleanor got very sick.

Phillip called the doctor to help his wife but the doctor didn’t know what to do. So he packed her and Bella into his car and they went to the City to find help for Eleanor. They saw doctor after doctor but no one could help her. And despite all of Phillip’s wealth and money, his beloved Eleanor finally died of her illness.

Grief-stricken, Phillip and Bella returned to their home, but their house was no longer the happy home they once knew. Phillip fell into a deep, dark depression and nothing that Bella could do would make him crack even the tiniest of smiles.

Unable to care for Bella while he worked (which he did a lot of these days just to stay away from the place where he once was happy), Phillip called his sister who lived in the City to come to stay with them and help out. The young Bella had never met her Aunt Hilda, but she looked forward to her arrival, hoping that it would cheer up her father some.

Aunt Hilda arrived a few days later accompanied by her two daughters, Agnes and Muriel. Aunt Hilda was an older woman, around fifty years old, and Agnes and Muriel were thirty and twenty-six years old respectively. Bella’s father had explained that Hilda was actually his stepsister – Bella’s grandfather died in the war and her grandmother remarried to Hilda’s father when Phillip was only a child.

At first, Bella didn’t quite know what to think of her Aunt and her cousins. They did things a lot differently than she was used to. While Bella’s mother liked a comfortable house where things might not always be spic and span and there was the occasional dirty laundry or dishes in the sink, Aunt Hilda despised any kind of disorder at all. Everything was very orderly and regimented, and the house had to be immaculate at all times.

Her presence didn’t seem to do much to improve her father’s depression, either. Phillip took to drinking to forget his lost love. He had always enjoyed a beer or two after work and Bella loved getting his beer and then getting a “beer kiss” from him after the first swig.

But now his drinking had taken on a darker, more desolate and almost sinister air about it. He drank a lot and more often than she cared to, Bella would have to help her inebriated father to bed.

One dull gray day the inevitable happened. Phillip was coming home from work and got into a terrible accident. He had stopped off at a local pub close to his work to get some “liquid courage” and gather himself to come back to the place where he was once happy and carefree.

As he drove home from the pub, he misjudged the distance to the car ahead of him. Realizing he was about to hit the car, he swerved to miss it. He launched off the road and over the deep ditch running alongside, finally plowing full speed into a huge oak tree, killing him instantly.

And so, within the span of a year, Bella went from a young happy, sixteen-year-old girl with two parents to being orphaned and living with an aunt and cousins she knew practically nothing about.

Because of the nature of her father’s death and the condition it left his body in, Bella was not able to see her father for the last time. She did go to the funeral and watch as he was lowered into his grave and after the funeral, she went back with Aunt Hilda and the girls to her house. And that’s when things took a sudden and alarming turn.

Hilda and her daughters wasted no time in taking control of the household. And despite Bella’s objections, they quickly made the place their own. While Bella sat by the window staring out into the front yard wondering what had happened to her loving family, Hilda and her daughters began taking over.

Hilda called her school and said that she was removing her from school, making the excuse that Bella would be moving back with her to the City (which was a lie – she had no intention of going back to the City). They sold all her belongings as well as most everything she got from her mother and father.

The only things they left her were her clothes and the mattress from her bed, which they pulled onto the floor in a corner of her room. The sisters would have gone through and taken her clothes except for the fact they were both much bigger than she was and the clothes would never fit their oversized frames.

Hilda was quite miserly and didn’t like to spend a penny more than she absolutely had to. She turned the heat down in the house and, while she and the daughters wore sweaters, Bella was forced to move her mattress-bed close to the fireplace just so she could warm herself a bit by the fire. She was forced to cut wood for the fireplace if she wanted to have heat and even then only after her other chores had been done. “If you are busy working, you won’t notice the cold!” her aunt would always say.

And Hilda did keep her busy. Bella did almost all the household chores while Hilda and the girls sat around the house, laughing and enjoying themselves. Bella would have to bring them food or drinks whenever they wanted, and then the girls picked on her sending it back sometimes because they “changed their minds” just to see her work harder. They laughed and jeered at her, calling her the vilest names and saying terrible things to her.

“Your daddy drank himself to death because he didn’t want to be stuck raising you!” they would say. Or “Your father wished it had been you that got sick and not your mother!” or even “You killed your mother because you didn’t help out enough around here!”

All these things and more were meant to hurt her and make her cry so they could laugh and pick on her more. And when she went to Aunt Hilda for help, Hilda only said that her daughters would never say such things to anyone. Hilda accused Bella of lying and trying to get her daughters in trouble.

Bella quickly learned that she could not win when it came to Hilda or her daughters. She was stuck in a terrible situation and didn’t know how she was going to get out. But little did Bella know that her situation was about to get a lot worse...

“BELLA!” Aunt Hilda yelled one afternoon as Bella was cleaning the bathroom. Bella left what she was doing and went into the kitchen where Hilda was sitting at the table.

“Yes, Aunt Hilda?” Bella said.

“Come here, girl, and sit down. I want to talk to you,” she said, pushing out a chair with her foot. Bella took the seat indicated and Hilda began talking to her.

“Bella your family wasn’t rich – not nearly as well off as me and my girls. In fact, your parents were idiots when it came to money. They spent it like there was a never-ending fountain of it. Consequently, when they died, there wasn’t much left to care for you.

“What little they did leave in life insurance and things we sold off has been just about used up feeding you. There’s barely enough to buy food for everyone here. So you are going to have to start working to support yourself,” she said.

“Working? Doing what – I don’t have my diploma ... what job would hire me?” Bella asked.

“What job indeed. You have no real talent or skills, you are terribly lazy, and you don’t even have the schooling to do the simplest office work. But there is a way that you can still earn your keep. You will start using the one thing you have that men will pay for,” she said.

Bella was horrified. “You mean...?”

“That’s right, young lady. You are going to go to work as a whore. I have a friend in the City who has been looking for a tender young thing like you for some time. You ARE still a virgin, am I right?” she asked.

“Yes, but Aunt Hilda...” Bella protested.

“No buts! You are going to have to start pulling your weight around here. You are old enough to start paying your way now, and the sooner you start acquiring some marketable skills, the better off you will be. Now tomorrow you and I are going into the City, and we are going to meet with my friend so we can discuss putting you to work. Meantime, you have chores to do here, so get back to them!” Hilda said angrily.

Bella ran back into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her and sank down onto the floor, laying there and sobbing uncontrollably. She couldn’t believe what her aunt was suggesting – whoring her out to strange men for money! What had happened to her happy world? What was going on?

Bella stayed on the floor crying her eyes out until a pounding on the door forced her to get up. She wiped her eyes and opened the door. “It’s about damn time – what have you been doing in here anyway?” Muriel hissed. “Now get out of the way – I have a date to get ready for. Go clean something someplace!” Muriel shoved Bella out of the bathroom slamming the door. Bella walked back to her mattress-bed and lay down. This was all too much! She cried herself to a fitful sleep.

“Get up you lazy bitch!” Aunt Hilda yelled, kicking her mattress. “Don’t you know what time it is? Hurry up and fix dinner – we’re starved!”

Bella got up and sadly went into the kitchen to fix dinner. When dinner was done, she served up Hilda and the girls then herself last. As she turned to get the last item for her plate, Agnes poked Muriel in the ribs with her elbow.

“Watch this!” Agnes whispered and pushed Bella’s plate off the table. “Oh no! Bella what did you do?”

Hilda turned her head “Bella, you clumsy fool! Look at what you’ve done! A whole plate of food on the floor!” she yelled.

“I’ll clean it up, Aunt Hilda,” Bella said.

“No, you’re not going to throw that food away! Food is expensive and we don’t waste food in this house – you will eat it off the floor right where it’s at! That will teach you to be more careful next time!” Hilda said, pointing to the floor.

While Agnes and Muriel laughed at her, Bella sank to the floor and began eating the food off the floor – thankful, at least, that she had just mopped the floor that day.

The next morning bright and early, Hilda woke Bella from a miserable night’s sleep. It had gotten colder that night than it usually was that time of year and her fireplace fire had gone out. So Bella woke up shivering and very cold. That didn’t matter to Hilda though, who was already dressed in several layers of clothes.

“Get up you lazy girl! We need to eat breakfast and get going – you have to meet my friend and see if he can use you!” Hilda said, kicking her mattress again.

Bella got up and got dressed. She had hoped that last night was just a bad dream and things would be different in the light of day, but it was not. Sobbing quietly to herself, Bella fixed breakfast for the three of them, then for herself – this time choosing to eat standing up at the kitchen counter so another “accident” wouldn’t happen.

After breakfast, Hilda took Bella into her room and in the very back of her closet, showed Bella that some of her clothes were still there. “Get out of those cleaning woman rags and start getting dressed. And do a good job of it – I know you don’t have much to work with as far as looks go, but I need you to look as good as possible for my friend. So put on something that will attract a man if you can find anything in all this mess and let’s get ready to show you off!” she said, and left the room so Bella could get dressed.

Bella looked through what few things still remained. There wasn’t much to choose from, but there was one old summer dress that her father had bought her just before her mother got sick. Bella held it up to her and looked at herself in the mirror. She remembered the day she had gotten the dress and it brought tears to her eyes as she imagined her mother and father standing next to her as she wore it.

But Bella had to hurry and had little time for memories and daydreams. She put on the old dress hoping against hope that it still fit her. Fortunately, with the hard work and little food she had gotten since her father passed, Bella was thin and the dress did fit. It was a little shorter than she would have liked or that she remembered it being, but that she figured would work to her advantage too, considering why she was wearing it.

She put on the dainty heels that went with the dress and looked at herself in the mirror. The dress fit her fine, but she looked at her face and hair. She had a worn, haggard look about her these days; not at all the look, she had when she put on that dress the first time. She had bags under her eyes, a gaunt, dreary look to her face, and dirty, straw-like hair.

Bella sighed and set about to do what she could with her looks. She knew that she would be expected to impress Aunt Hilda’s friend and if she didn’t, it wouldn’t go well for her. So she brushed her hair and scrubbed her face clean. Then she took what little makeup she had and tried to make herself look her best.

When Bella was satisfied that this was the best she could look under the circumstances, she came out of the bathroom to a very angry Hilda. “It’s about damn time Bella! We are going to have to hurry if we are going to be on time now! Get in the car and quit wasting time!” she said.

Bella got in the car and looked back at the house sorrowfully. Agnes and Muriel were in the front window making lewd gestures at her and laughing, knowing that she was going off to become a whore.

It took about thirty minutes to get to the man’s house in the City. They pulled up in front of a large, very nice-looking house with a big well-groomed yard and trees lining the sidewalks that ran up and down the wide street. Bella had never seen a neighborhood like this and she looked around in awe.

“Wow, this friend of yours has an amazing house Aunt Hilda!” Bella said.

“Close your mouth, you silly girl! Do you want him to think you are a damn fool?” Hilda barked. They got out of the car and walked up to the front door. Hilda ran the doorbell and presently a very pretty young woman, about twenty-four years old, opened the door.

“Can I help you?” she asked Hilda.

“Yes, we are here to see Mr. Johnson,” Hilda said flatly.

“Of course. Right this way please; he is in his office right now. I will announce you,” the woman said.

She led Hilda and Bella through the house to the office where Hilda’s friend was. Bella looked around amazed at the opulent furnishing and decoration of the man’s expansive home. This man must be very rich, Bella thought to herself.

They followed the young woman to Mr. Johnson’s office at the back of the house. “Sir, your guests are here,” she said quietly.

The high back of the desk chair spun around when the woman spoke. Seated in it was a distinguished, serious-looking man about 40 years old with a short salt and pepper beard, collar-length hair to match his beard, and piercing blue eyes. He was impeccably dressed in a finely-tailored business suit.