Cinderella
Thinking about that Sleeping Beauty retelling where it’s a gay prince who’s put to sleep until true love’s kiss wakes him, and imagining other variations on fairytales - now I want a trans Cinderella retelling. Think about it.
Cinderella shut out of the family, away from the public eye, because she won’t wear boys’ clothes or let anyone call her Jonathan, and her stepmother won’t see her as Lucinda. Her sisters’ mocking when they find her dressing up in their old gowns, the child they’ve thought of - reluctantly - as a little brother. The nights she curls into her blankets in the empty kitchen, staring blankly at the fading embers, wishing for anything but this.
And then the night of the ball, she sees a shooting star and makes a wish in the garden, and her fairy godmother appears. Spins her tattered shirt and ash-smeared trousers into a beautiful gown. Pulls her hair into an elegant up do, for the first time in Cinderella’s life, because she hasn’t figured it out herself, and certainly no one else has ever been willing to show her. Takes a few minutes to practice dancing in the garden, with the godmother leading (in vest and breeches, long hair in a simple ponytail, top of head just reaching Cinderella’s chin - once those beautiful glass slippers are on her feet), so Cinderella can know what it feels like to dance backwards in high heels.
At the ball she hangs back, worried that she’ll see her stepmother and her sisters (though, she realizes, they might not even recognize her like this). Knowing there are a thousand other girls who (she thinks) have a real chance with the prince. It’s not even about him, truly - the important thing is that she gets to be herself for a night. But then she does catch his eye, from clear the across the room, right over the heads of all those noblewomen who came here in search of a husband. The prince walks forward, the men bow, the women curtsy. Cinderella moves a beat later than the others because she has to remind her body to perform the gesture she usually practices alone in the attic, not the one she’s always been forced to do in public. And just before she lowers her eyes, cheeks burning with embarrassment over her misstep, the prince grins at her. Seconds later, he is taking her hand and asking her to dance.
They dance, and talk, and laugh. The time flies. It’s the most wonderful, magical, amazing night of Cinderella’s life. She could have sworn she was paying attention, but somehow she’s lost track of time, and the clock begins to strike midnight. And she runs, completely heedless of her shoes and her dress and her hairdo, because in a few seconds she’s going to be without any of those things anyway, and the prince will see her as she’s not, and that can’t happen. She trips, twists an ankle, loses a shoe, but doesn’t stop. Not until she’s back in her magicked coach, and then home, in her trousers and shirt, in her attic, sobbing.
The next day, all her sisters and stepmother can talk about is the mysterious woman who danced with the prince. Tall, and beautiful, and no one had ever seen her before. “Like a goddess,” says the kinder of her sisters, and the meaner one scoffs while Cinderella herself barks out a short, harsh laugh that she tries to turn into a cough.
The day after that, of course, comes the announcement that the prince still has one of Cinderella’s shoes. Throughout the kingdom, girls line up to try on the shoe, but it fits none of them. When the royal entourage reaches Cinderella’s family’s estate, she herself is in the attic, trying on an old dress she’s altered to fit herself - though she’s fighting back tears, fearing that she’ll never again have the chance to be herself in public. The kinder of her sisters has seen it, and raised an eyebrow, but apparently she hasn’t told.
In the parlor, the two sisters try on the shoe, each in turn. “It’s too big,” whines the meaner one, and she crosses her arms angrily. “Perhaps the mysterious lady was wearing three pairs of socks.”
The kinder sister stops, blinking. She remembers her youngest sibling, years ago - before her stepfather died - wearing three pairs of socks and trying on her mother’s shoes, swaying in the dressing room to music no one else could hear. She remembers the old dress, her step-sibling’s long fingers stitching late into the night. She remembers the mysterious lady, tall like a goddess, eyes shining like she had just seen the key to the universe. And she puts it all together.
“Wait!” she shouts, jerking her leg away from the slipper they’re moving toward her foot. “Wait. I won’t fit that shoe. But I know who will.”
As she runs up the stairs, the whole entourage follows - the stewards, the footmen, the prince himself, along with her mother and sister.
From her attic, Cinderella hears shouting, and running footsteps, and her stepmother’s shrill voice. “Don’t listen to her. It’s nothing, I promise-”
And then the prince interrupting (and here Cinderella’s heart flutters, knowing he’s so close, and yet so far): “Let her show me.”
“My son-” says her stepmother.
“My other sister-” says the kinder sister.
“What?” says the mean sister.
And the door bursts open.
Cinderella would have changed out of her dress; or brushed her hair, washed her face, shaved; or jumped out the window, but there wasn’t time. So when the door opens, she’s standing in the middle of the room in a patched dress, hair loose around her shoulders, face stubbly and tear-streaked, holding one glass slipper.
The crowd of people stop abruptly, just inside the door. For a long moment, no one speaks, or even moves.
Then the prince comes forward, takes the other slipper from the steward charged with carrying it, and crosses the room. He bows, takes Cinderella’s free hand in his, and kisses it. Then he holds out the slipper, so it’s beside the one she’s still holding, and says, “Madam, I believe this is yours.”
She’s so startled, the slipper she didn’t lose slides from her fingers and crashes onto the wooden floor, shattering into a thousand pieces.
By then it doesn’t matter. Her prince is right there, looking at her with a stupidly besotted grin on his face. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“I’m not usually-” she begins, and then stops, unsure how to finish the sentence. She gestures, futilely.
“You’re you,” he says. “Lucinda. That’s all that matters.”
Then she’s in his arms, and they’re kissing, and laughing with joy, while everyone else gapes. But he’s right: she’s Lucinda, and nothing else matters.
And they live happily ever after.
