Chapter Four
Cinderella's Sacrifice
And so, Cindy's life slowly began to form a set pattern. After dinner that night, she had begged Stepmother to allow her to work into the evening, after dinner, but her request was firmly denied. It became evident that she would be working Sunday, as well ... and most probably, EVERY Sunday. She went back to her room, stripped, put on her robe, and curled up in her chair, thinking about her day. The exertion from the workout, however, had left her very tired, and so she rose, set her alarm clock, hung up the robe, and climbed naked into her bed. As soon as she closed her eyes, she imagined her metronome, and she was instantly asleep.
Breakfast the next morning (and every morning after that), consisted of a small bowl of high-fiber cereal with skim milk, non-fat yogurt and fresh fruit. Lunch was a salad. The workout was, if possible, even worse than the day before. With the addition of the sports bras, she worked out hard on the tread mill, the stair machine and the elliptical ... but at a pace that had her stopping every thirty seconds ... then starting again ... and again ... and again. Her stomach muscles were so sore that she couldn't do ANY crunches ... but that didn't stop her from trying ... over and over and over again. It was agony!
And now, on top of everything else, she was hungry. Almost all the time. She complained to Bonnie, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. Bonnie pointed out that she could eat all the carrots and celery sticks she wanted. But Cindy HATED celery! Or, at least, she DID hate celery. Just after the next "Mental Conditioning" session with Stepmother, she decided to try it just one more time, and oddly, it wasn't nearly as bad as she remembered. So now, she found herself eating an awful lot of carrots and celery.
Every Wednesday night, Cindy bathed in scented soap, primped in front of the mirror in her bathroom, and presented herself to Daddy in his room, where his lovemaking would be exquisitely tender and gentle, and he would always make her cum using his stroking fingers or lapping tongue.
Twice a week, Pablo would find her at odd times during the day, usually while she was cleaning, and he would lead her to his rooms below-stairs and make love to her savagely, taking her with an intensity that left her breathless and tingling.
The best part of her day, by far, was the hour she spent in Stepmother's office, floating, dreaming, thinking of absolutely nothing at all, not caring a bit if her thoughts or actions were being manipulated. After the second week, Stepmother loaned her a book ... a romance novel ... the type of book she normally didn't enjoy; but she read it twice during the next week, dedicating an hour after dinner, before bed. She was worried that she might not get another when she returned it, but she was always given a replacement ... a book chosen by Stepmother ... and she was always reminded that this was a privilege that had been earned by her dedication and loyalty. Cindy didn't mind. To her, reading was heaven.
This was who she was. Work, sex, surrender, pain, hunger, submission. And, oddly, this was EXACTLY who she wanted to be. On and on her life went. Day after day. Week after week.
The change was so gradual, she didn't see it coming until it was already there. The reason for that, of course, was that her workouts never got any easier. They were ALWAYS painful. They always left her panting and shaking and drenched. She would work on the stair machine as long as she was able, and be forced to stop when she absolutely could go no further. On the treadmill, she would run, seemingly at a sprint, for as long as she could, and she would only stop when it was positively impossible to go on ... knowing that she would have to start again ... and again and again.
And so, it was with a sense of absolute shock that, sometime after she had been doing this for almost a month and a half, she had reached the end of a cycle on the treadmill and realized that she had not stopped even once! Within the week, she had accomplished the same feat with the stair machine and elliptical. And she could now do at least fifty of the dreaded crunches! She didn't mention these things to Bonnie ... she didn't boast or revel in these achievements for fear that her tormentor would simply increase the speed ... would demand more and more.
But Bonnie did notice, of course. Cindy hadn't really discerned when it happened, but Bonnie had stopped calling her the endless string of derogatory names, though she never really called her by her REAL name. And now, sometime nearing the two-month mark of her time here, Bonnie told her to follow her after the workout session, and took her to a room she had never really noticed before; one that was adjacent to the laundry room where Cindy spent at least an hour every day cleaning the family's clothes. She had always assumed the door led to a storage area, but it was a sewing room! She hadn't even known it existed!
"You know how to use one of these things?" Bonnie asked her, her hand resting on a sewing machine.
"Yes!" Cindy responded, checking out the attachments.
"Well, you need to take up all your blouses. They're too big on you. And probably all the waistbands in the skirts, too. You know how to do that?"
"I can do the blouses," Cindy responded. "I've never done a waistband."
"Well, go get one. I'll show you how. There's a little trick to it. It'll take two of us, anyway. You'll have to try it on while I pin it up."
And so, flabbergasted, Cindy ran up and got one of her skirts and brought it back, and she and Bonnie worked ... worked TOGETHER ... at a common task! She stood, in just her panties, sports bra and the skirt, while Bonnie pinned and marked the garment, and then she was sent scurrying back up to her room to change into one of her regular bras so that she could model properly for the blouse, while Bonnie did the same for that. It took almost two hours ... two hours that Cindy would have to make up on Sunday ... but it was worth it. Oh my, it was worth it ... to be working WITH someone ... to experience a little companionship with someone near her own age.
The next day, at the end of an intense exercise period (that was painful but oddly satisfying), Bonnie asked Cindy if she could see her room. This proved embarrassing, somehow. Bonnie, living in the other wing of the upstairs section, and staying almost exclusively in her room, obviously had no reason to venture into this area of the mansion. And despite Cindy's having been there two months, Bonnie hadn't been down this section of hallway since her arrival. "What the fuck happened to your door?" she asked, walking into Cindy's room.
"I'm not allowed a door," she explained patiently, blushing despite herself.
"Not allowed ...?" Bonnie for once, was obviously speechless. She looked around at the bare walls, simple bed and dresser. She picked up the book on the small reading table beside the chair. "Nurse's Dilemma," she mumbled, reading the title, her lip curling slightly into a sneer. She walked to the only window, and looked out on the driveway below, while Cindy followed and stood beside her. "Why do you do this to yourself?" Bonnie asked quietly. "Why do you let her do this to you? Take away your privacy? Your freedom? Your happiness?"
"She's given me my happiness," Cindy replied soberly. "This is who I want to be. I want to serve. I think I always have. I want to surrender. I want to please others."
Bonnie shook her head. "You and I are complete opposites, you know that? We have ab-so-fucking-lutely NOTHING in common! I think a woman should be strong, independent and autonomous. You want to be meek and docile and submissive and compliant."
