Rodential Housing: New Landlords

Chapter 2

CW: Temporary Violence

Alex awoke to a prickling sensation on his arm. His eyes opened, and he looked at it. To his horror, he discovered an enormous black ant standing on him, its body a collection of round shiny obsidian segments and pointy legs. He shook it off his arm, and the insect crawled away. Once it was gone, he let out the breath he had been holding in a big sigh.

He looked to his other side, finding his other arm pressed beneath the mouse sleeping beside him. Marianne was covered in dust and stray bits of dirt, same as he was. His powerful nose smelled pungent rot and damp earth. He could not remember waking up in a more unpleasant way. Then, Marianne grunted pleasantly, and he realized that it was not all bad.

To think that a couple of days ago he had woken up as a human in a bed, it felt like a lifetime ago. He reached behind himself and lifted his worm-like tail in his paw-hand. He flexed and watched the tail move, marveling that something so inhuman was a part of him now. He scratched his snout and pondered what had happened to his life.

“Are you awake?” Marianne asked him.

“Yes,” Alex said and kissed her neck. “How are you?”

“Stiff,” she said, stretching her legs. “I’m not a fan of sleeping in the dirt.”

“Neither am I,” he replied. “This is all… very new to me.”

She rolled over to look at him. “Oh, my,” she said, sadly. “Your apartment, all of your stuff, your whole life…”

“Gone,” he said. “I’ve lost… so much.”

“I’m very sorry,” she said and sighed. “You didn’t deserve this.”

“I wonder when everyone will realize I’m missing,” he said. “Probably tomorrow, when I don’t show up to work. Someone will try to call me. No one will answer. Eventually, they’ll search my apartment. All they’ll find is my clothes in the kitchen. I wonder if Granny Westwood will realize what she did to me. Maybe she’ll come looking for me.”

“Maybe,” Marianne said, but she sounded as doubtful of it as he was.

“I’m lost now, just a rodent hiding under someone’s porch.”

“We’ll get through it together, all of us,” she said, giving him a hug. “You’re not alone.”

He looked around at the other mice waking up around them. They were his folk now, his village. It was some consolation but only a small one.

“And,” she added, “inside this house, we might find the source of magic that we need.”

“More magic?” he asked. “Is it really a good idea to go looking for more? Didn’t work out so well last time.”

“It’s our only hope to become human,” she said. “Besides, The Old One needs it to replenish his power. You know that orb he has? He uses it to siphon magic from his surroundings. The closer he is to a magical source, the easier it is for him to collect magic. If his magic fades completely…”

Alex waited for her to finish her thought. “What is it?” he prompted her after a few seconds.

Marianne explained, “Without The Old One’s magic, eventually, we’ll become ordinary mice. We wouldn’t even be able to think like humans anymore. We’d just be dumb animals.”

“I see,” Alex said, dreading the possibility. “Well, I hope we find what he needs, then.”

“We all do,” she said. “But, don’t worry. He’s been keeping us going for centuries. He’ll find a way.”

Alex nodded, feeling only slightly comforted. “Sure he will,” he said, trying his best to be optimistic.

***

They discovered a window to the basement that had a loose latch and opened it. Then, they cautiously entered the house. As the morning went on, they began their exploration within the walls of the building. Much like Granny Westwood’s home, this building was at least a century old and had actual plaster walls. There was ample space behind them to travel and build. No doubt, in time they could build a community inside there as they had done many times before.

They then expanded their search to the rest of the building. They sought out holes in the walls, places from which they could get a look at the interior of the house. The rooms were furnished with antiques, but it was all clean and seemed well lived in.

Soon, they discovered the three occupants of the home, a woman with a pair of daughters, one nearly middle-school aged, the other just old enough for grade school. All of them had dark hair and pale skin. As night fell, the mice watched hungrily while the small family ate their dinner in the dining room.

With great patience, the mice waited for the family to go to bed before making their move into the kitchen to steal their first meal of the day. Not wanting to draw suspicion after just having arrived, they only scavenged from the garbage can for discarded scraps. It was a sad meal, cold and messy, but they were too hungry to turn up their noses at it. Then, with surprising efficiency, they set up a space to rest above the rafters and fell asleep up there in the attic.

***

The next morning, Alex woke up early, feeling a need to relieve himself. Half awake, he sought out a place some distance away from the other sleeping mice. Just after he had emptied his bladder, the wood he was standing on dropped out from beneath him.

He lost his balance and tumbled backwards, rolling off the wood moving under his falling body. Then, he was in free fall, dropping through the air. Below him, he had a quick glimpse of something soft that he hoped would break his fall. He bounced off a padded surface and was catapulted into some kind of box, where he came to rest with a jarring thump that knocked the wind out of his little lungs.

It took several minutes for Alex to get enough air back in his chest to breathe properly. As he recovered, he tried to overcome his disorientation and make sense of his new surroundings. At first, he thought he might still be dreaming. Somehow, he was lying on a couch, but it was sized to fit his mouse body perfectly. In fact, all of the furniture in the room he had fallen into was proportionately the right size for him.

At last, the obvious explanation dawned on him. “It’s a dollhouse,” he said, once he could get the words out. He peeked out of a missing wall to see a titanic teddy bear outside and recognized it as the padded thing that had broken his fall from the ceiling. In fact, the floor of the larger room outside the dollhouse was full of toys. No doubt the owner of the toys would be somewhere nearby. “I need to get out of here,” he said and started to look for an exit from the dollhouse.

The ground began to shake beneath his feet, one thump after another, getting closer and heavier each time. Footsteps, he realized, coming his way. He looked around for a good place to hide, but the best he could do was duck behind the toy couch.

“Hello?” said a young girl just as her tree-trunk-sized legs came into view outside of the dollhouse. “Who’s there?”

Alex held his breath, hoping that she would just go back to bed and leave him alone.

Instead, she crouched down and started searching the floor, giving him a good look at her head. The girl had dark hair and green eyes that scanned around curiously with no trace of fear in them.

Alex wished that she would overlook him, but his bad luck showed no sign of letting up. The girl spotted him and gasped. “Oh!” she said. “Is that a mouse?” She smiled hopefully at her discovery.

Alex took off running, but the girl caught his tail in her giant fingers, which she used to drag him out of the doll house. Then, she lifted him up, letting him dangle from his tail as she held him up for inspection before her emerald eyes.

“It is a mouse!” she cried, gleefully. Alex watched in silent terror as her other enormous hand encircled his body within her surprisingly strong fingers. He struggled a moment against her but gave up as soon as he realized that he had no chance of escaping her iron grip.

“Where did you come from?” she asked, looking around the room and then up towards the ceiling.

Alex followed her gaze upwards to a half-open hatch and folded up ladder that allowed access to the attic above them. Of course, that was where he had been standing before he fell. His little body must have provided just enough weight to open the hatch beneath him. Of all the places he could have chosen to relieve himself…

“Do you live in the attic?” the girl asked him.

Again, he squirmed helplessly in her clutching hand, hoping to escape the question and the betrayal it would cause.

“My name’s Esmeralda, but you can call me Esme. Do you have a name? Can I name you?” The pressure of her grip had become unbearable.

“P-please,” Alex grunted. “Put me down.”

“Oh!” Esme cried. “You can talk!” In her excitement, she squeezed him even tighter.

“You’re… crushing… me!” he groaned.

Recognizing that he was in distress, the girl turned her hand up and released her fingers to let him rest freely on her palm.

He lay there a moment, taking deep breaths, waiting for the circulation to return to his limbs.

“Are you a boy?” she asked him.

He nodded, “I am.”

“Hmm,” she said, sounding disappointed. “What’s your name, mouse boy?”

What reason did he have to lie? “Alex,” he said.

Esme frowned and considered him for a quiet moment. “You know what?” she said. “I think I’d like you better as a mouse girl.”

Her eyes became laser focused on him, staring at him and into him. Their green irises grew more brilliant and began to glow, emanating a power that penetrated his fur and skin, feeling just like the magic that had transformed him into a mouse. With increasing worry, he felt that familiar hot and cold sensation flow through his body, but rather than shrinking him, this time it seemed to target distinct parts of his body. His chest swelled, growing a pair of fleshy lumps on it. The weight around his waist shifted downwards to expand his hips and butt. The human-like hair on his head sprouted longer, draping down past his chin. Then, most alarmingly, he felt his crotch pull inwards, sucking his genitals inside his abdomen, leaving behind a slit where his dick and balls had been.

“There,” the girl said, as the spell faded. “Now, you’re Alexandra.”

“What?” he replied, discovering that his squeaky voice had become even squeakier. One hand gripped a massive new breast as the other hand felt the smooth space between his legs, confirming the truth: his body had become female. “What have you done?” he asked, the shock at his sexual reversal momentarily making him forget the danger that the giant girl posed for him. “You!” he said, accusingly. “You’re a witch!”

The girl smiled and nodded proudly. “I’m still learning, but I can do little spells,” she said. “And, you’re really little… and cute.” She chuckled, sounding so carefree at how she had just violated him.

Controlling his fury, Alex begged her, “Esme, please turn me back to how I was.”

“Hmm,” the little witch said, considering his request, doubtfully. “Nah,” she said. “I like you much better looking this way.” Her eyes went wide as an idea came to her. “Wait a moment,” she said, setting him down in the dollhouse again and running over to a toy box across the room.

Alex thought about running, but his body felt so strange that he was uncertain about even standing now. Instead, he sat and watched as she flipped open the toy box lid and dug around inside. Finally, she retrieved a doll from it and carried it over to Alex. It was a little girl doll about the same size as him. He watched as the witch girl removed the red polka dot dress from the doll. Then, she handed the dress to him and said, “Alexandra, here, put this on.”

“I don’t want to,” he said, still trying to resist her, but gently now. “Please, listen to me. I don’t want to be a girl.”

Esme appeared to be confused. “Why not?” she asked. “Being a girl is great.”

Alex sighed. It was quickly becoming clear how pointless it would be to argue with Esme. He clearly had no chance at convincing the witch to change her mind. Better just to give in for now, he decided. He took the dress, set it on a chair beside himself, and started stripping off the mouse clothes he had worn since yesterday. When he was down to his bare fur, he was forced to face the reality of what Esme had done to his body. Though not human, his figure was unmistakably female now. The breasts in particular seemed absurdly large and perverse on his petite mouse frame. He hesitated to touch himself at all.

However, sensing Esme’s growing impatience, Alex continued changing and pulled the doll dress over his head, slipping it into place. It fit him well enough even if it was a little too tight around his chest. He tried to button up the back, but it was awkward to reach behind himself.

“I’ll help you,” the witch girl said and roughly pressed the buttons into place. “There,” she said when the job was done. “Don’t you feel pretty, Alexandra?”

Alex stood there, his mind still reeling from what had happened to him. He was a mouse and a girl, and now he had been dressed up like a doll by some young witch. He had no words.

“Well?” Esme prompted him.

“S-sure,” Alex stammered. “Very pretty.”

Again, her eyes went wide when a new idea entered her mind. “Hold on,” she said and ran off to her dresser to retrieve a hand mirror, which she stood up on its side in the dollhouse. Clearly, she intended for him to observe how he looked in the dress.

Alex walked up to the glass, coming face to face with his new feminine reflection for the first time. The mouse that gazed back at him was unrecognizable, but it was true, the girl he had become was quite pretty, maybe even better looking than Marianne.

Marianne! he thought with a sudden panic. Oh, no, how will I explain this to her? Will I ever get to see her again?

“See how pretty you are?” Esme said.

“Yeah,” he replied, seeing the worry and weariness on the face of the pretty mouse in the mirror, wondering when he might wake up from this nightmare. “I see.”

“Here,” Esme said. “Let me get rid of those dirty old clothes.” She scooped up the outfit he had been wearing and collected it all in one hand. Then, it pained him to watch as she dumped his only remaining belongings into a waste basket. “There,” she said. “All gone.”

Alex sighed, thinking back to when Marianne had helped him get dressed.

“Oh, I’ve got so many dresses for you to try on, so many styles! Mom can buy more. Shoes, even! Maybe a hat. The tea set!” the excited girl jabbered on, oblivious to his suffering. “Oh! Oh! We’re going to have so much fun together, me and you.”

“Right,” he said with forced enthusiasm, “fun.”

Esme clapped her hands happily and said, “Wonderful! I can’t wait. Let’s do it. Let’s play.”

Alex sighed, sensing that his nightmare had only just begun.

***

What seemed like hours later, Alex was exhausted and Esme was showing her first signs of fatigue. She had made him pantomime a whole day of activities, starting off with “cooking” breakfast on a toy stove. Next, Alex had been forced to “eat” the toy food with some of her dolls, which she used to play the roles of Alex’s pretend husband and children. A car ride with the family had followed the meal. After plopping him in the front passenger seat beside his doll husband, the girl had pushed the toy car around the floor of her room in a harrowing race around and over all of her other toys and furniture. It had been all Alex could do to hold on for dear life until the wild ride was over. After that, he had become so stressed and exhausted that he barely had enough energy to keep standing as she moved him through a shopping trip involving a lot of trying on clothes and toy shopping with the toy kids. When it had come time to put his pretend children to bed in the dollhouse, Alex had been ready to collapse on a bed, himself. However, instead of resting, he was ordered to dance for Esme. She wound up a music box and set it on the floor beside the dollhouse so that they could listen to the plinking music from it.

“How should I dance?” he asked her as he stood there in the dollhouse. He did not feel like moving at all, let alone dancing.

Esme yawned and said, “Do a pretty dance.”

Alex tried to remember the kind of moves he had seen ballerinas do. Then, doing his best to follow the music, he attempted an imitation of a ballet with all the strength he had left.

“Nice,” the witch girl said as her eyes drooped shut again and again. “You’re a pretty dancer, Alexandra.” She yawned again, her eyes shutting as she leaned back against her giant teddy bear. “Such a pretty… girl,” she muttered as she drifted off into a nap.

Alex stopped dancing and watched Esme breathe for a while as the music box slowly wound down. When he was confident that she was totally out, he hurried down the dollhouse stairs. When he was on the floor, he crept past the witch girl's bare feet and then ran for the door to her room. There was just enough space beneath it for him to crawl under the door out of her bedroom, although his huge breasts and hips made it a tight squeeze. Now, out in the enormous hallway, he started hunting for a way to escape from the girl altogether.

Alex started jogging down the hallway towards the staircase, hoping that he might find one of the holes that they had used in the kitchen, if he could make it that far. Behind him, he heard the music box stop playing, then he heard movement in Esme’s room.

“Alexandra?” Esme called out in a sleepy voice. “Where’d you go?”

“Damn,” Alex cried and took off running.

The door to the girl’s bedroom swung open, and she stomped out into the hallway. Esme took one look in the wrong direction and then over to where Alex was running. “There you are!” she said, taking several booming steps to close the gap between them. “You naughty girl!” she cried. Soon, she was right above him. In a blind rage, Esme stomped her foot down onto Alex’s back, flattening him on the floor.

The pain was unbelievable. He was quite literally crushed under the weight of her bare foot. One arm was broken. He thought that his legs had been broken too, but he could not feel them anymore. In fact, he could not feel anything below the waist now. Dimly, he reasoned that his back must have been broken. His ribs were in agony, and every time he tried to breathe, the excruciating pain got worse and worse. Then, he started coughing up blood.

Esme lifted her foot from him and looked down at his mangled body, most likely seeing the blood coming from his mouth. The realization of what she had just done hit her suddenly and sent her into an immediate guilty panic.

The girl let out a horrified shriek and yelled, “Mommy! Mommy! Help me! Mommy! Please! Come quick!”

Alex felt his life draining from him, but he had sense enough remaining to notice as another huge pair of feet approached.

“Fix her,” he heard Esme cry to the one who had just arrived. “Fix my Alexandra. Save her! Please!”

“Where did you find this mouse?” a woman’s voice replied. “What have you done?”

“She’s dying! Please, help her now.”

The woman, Esme’s mother, sighed and said, “Very well, then. First, a quick repair. After that, I’ll be needing some answers, young lady.”

Just as Alex thought he was on his last breath, magic flowed into him again. He felt the pain in his body replaced by a tingling sensation as energy flowed into every injury to cure it. First, his ribs were made whole as were the vital organs beneath them. Next, his broken spine was healed, returning sensation to his lower body. All his remaining broken bones set back in place and mended themselves immediately. Finally, the blood he had coughed up vanished, and he felt invigorated throughout his whole body.

Alex rolled over and looked up at the gigantic woman who had saved his life. He had an impulse to thank her, but he kept quiet when he saw the way she glared down at him, dispassionately.

Sounding quite irritated, the woman said, “You two have some explaining to do.”

***

Sitting on the living room couch downstairs, Esme did all the talking. Cupped gently in the girl’s hands, Alex just rested there and avoided making eye contact with her mother. He listened to the conversation while holding the front of his dress in place, as the back of it had torn apart when he was stepped on. Esme described how she had found Alex after he had fallen from the ceiling hatch, although she left out that she had transformed him into a woman. Her mother listened patiently as Esme described in detail all the time she had spent playing with him. By her reckoning, it had been the most fun she had ever had with a toy. At last, she recalled having dozed off and woken up to find that her toy had gone missing. How she had feared for him and raged at him when she had caught him running away. She left her attempted murder out of the story.

Esme’s mother was quiet for a long while.

“Please, let me keep her,” Esme begged. “I love her.”

Her mother replied, “Show me where this mouse fell into your room.”

Alex was carried up to Esme’s bedroom with her mother following behind them. Esme pointed to the half-open hatch in the ceiling. Her mother walked over to it, examined it, and opened it all the way, letting the ladder fold out. Then, she climbed up into the attic.

Alex wished that he could do something to warn the other mice, but there was nothing he could do while being held in the girl’s hands. He could only listen as hundreds of tiny paws scurried around above them.

“Stay right where you are, mice,” Esme’s mother demanded, and the house went silent. “I will speak with your leader, now.” Moments later, the woman climbed back down the ladder with the rat wizard gripped in one hand. She set The Old One down on her daughter’s dresser and asked, “Why have you intruded in my home?”

The Old One recounted the story of his mice people, just as Marianne had told Alex before. He explained how they were searching for a way to break their ancient curse or, at the very least, a way to keep their minds intact. As he spoke, Alex noticed that some mice had gathered around the edge of the hatchway to listen. At last, The Old One, sensing the witch woman’s power, begged for her forgiveness and placed himself at her mercy.

Esme’s mother looked over at her daughter and down at Alex, held tenderly in the girl’s hands.

“I have every right to destroy all of you,” the woman said. “You have entered my home without permission, and you are vermin, deserving of extermination.”

Esme gasped and held Alex to her chest, protectively.

“However,” Esme’s mother continued. “My darling daughter has taken a liking to one of you. She would keep the mouse as a pet. If I should wipe the rest of you out but leave my daughter’s pet alive, then, in the absence of your magic, her pet in time would lose her intelligence and become only a wild mouse. Is that not correct?”

“That is correct,” The Old One confirmed.

The woman considered what to do next for a long minute. Then, she said, “I would propose a deal with you, rat.”

“I will listen,” The Old One said.

“Here are my terms,” Esme’s mother said. “I will permit you and your mice villagers to live under my roof, on the condition that my daughter may keep the one she found as her pet. However, you will not attempt to become human again while living under my roof. If any of you do attempt it, then you will no longer live under my roof. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” The Old One replied.

“Also, I expect the rest of you to remain silent and out of sight. Other than my daughter’s pet, any one of you that I find will be at risk of immediate extermination. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” he said. “We can keep silent and out of sight. These terms seem fair to me.”

“We have a deal?” the woman confirmed.

“We have a deal,” The Old One replied.

“Good,” she said. “Now, I will return you to the attic. I recommend that you all run and hide somewhere I won’t find you.” The mice surrounding the hatchway retreated into the darkness as she carried the rat back up to the attic. Moments later, Esme’s mother climbed back down, empty-handed. Then, she folded up the ladder and shut the hatch.

“So,” Esme said. “Does that mean I can keep Alexandra?”

“Yes,” her mother replied.

Esme beamed with joy.

Her mother stared at Alex and said, “I expect you to be on your best behavior with my daughter. I know she can be difficult at times, but you must respect her as your owner. Do you understand, mouse?”

“Uh,” Alex said. “Yes, I understand.”

“Now, Esmeralda,” the woman said. “I have one final gift for you. Place the mouse on the dresser.”

Esme carried Alex to her dresser and set him on top of it between her hair brush and hand mirror. Before the giant woman’s gaze, he felt particularly vulnerable and held his torn dress in place a little tighter. The woman’s blue eyes began to glow as Esme’s eyes had done when transforming him into a woman. Once more, Alex felt magical energy flow into him, sinking into his flesh and bones, which absorbed the power like a sponge. Almost as soon as it had begun, the spell ended. Alex looked down at his body, trying to figure out what the magic had done to him, but he saw no sign of any change.

“What spell did you cast on her?” Esme asked.

“I made her less fragile for you, my dear,” her mother explained. “You will not be able to break her as easily as you did in the hallway.”

“She won’t get hurt now?”

Her mother picked up Alex and handed him to Esme. “Go ahead. Give my magic a test. Step on her again.”

Esme hesitated a moment before setting Alex down on the floor. “Okay,” she said. “Sorry, Alexandra.”

“W-wait,” Alex pleaded as he watched Esme raise her foot above him. “Stop!”

Esme lowered her giant foot down slowly but firmly on top of him, knocking him onto his back. Her sole pressed down on his whole body with increasing force. Just when he was sure that his bones would break, they lost their solidity, becoming pliable like rubber. As his whole skeleton bent painlessly, his flesh became elastic, and spread out like dough squashed beneath a roller, tearing off the remains of his dress as it went. Despite being literally flattened by her foot, he felt no pain. There was intense pressure all over, but it did not hurt him. At worst, he felt discomfort at being trapped under all that weight. Then, when Esme sensed that his body had become as flat as possible, she lifted up her foot.

Even with all that weight removed, Alex remained as thin as a piece of cardboard. Esme reached down and peeled him off of the floor. Then, she giggled as she lifted him up in front of herself, letting him hang like a piece of cloth strung between her finger and thumb on both hands. “She’s like a flat lump of clay, now,” Esme observed as the scraps of his dress fell away. “I squashed her like a cartoon.” She giggled again. Then, she began to look worried. “Is she going to stay like that?”

“Give her a moment,” her mother replied. “She’ll return to her normal shape in a little while.”

Sure enough, seconds later, Alex felt his body begin to thicken up again as his flesh and bones slowly pulled back into their regular shape. When he was back in his normal mouse form, he felt relieved to be three-dimensional again, even if his bare fur was totally exposed now. Suddenly, he took a deep breath, having just realized that he had not been breathing at all while he was flat.

“You won’t need to worry about her suffocating, either,” her mother explained. “Breathing is optional for her now, but she will still need to eat and drink as any living thing does.”

“Okay,” Esme said.

Alex could see the gears turning in Esme’s mind as she imagined new ways to have fun with his seemingly indestructible body. She immediately tested one idea. Grabbing him by both of his wrists, Esme pulled Alex’s arms in opposite directions. Instead of dislocating bones, his arms stretched like rubber bands, until the girl had pulled his hands a few feet apart. As with before, there was no pain, only the sensation of being stretched to his limit. Esme set him down on her bed and let go of his wrists. His noodly arms just lay there beside him like a pair of long limp ropes. He tried flexing his fingers and moving his arms. In the distance, he saw his hands move, but the arms attached to them felt completely powerless. A short time later, his long arms slowly shrank back to their normal length, as if they were being reeled in like fishing lines. Once they were back to their correct size, he could move his arms again without any problem.

“Thank you, Mommy,” Esme said, running over to hug her mother. “I love her. She’s perfect now.”

“You’re welcome, my dear,” her mother replied, hugging her back. “You take good care of her.”

“I will,” Esme said. “I’m going to play with her all the time.” She turned back to where Alex sat on her bed. “Did you hear that?” she asked him. “We’re going to have so much fun together.”

Covering his naked chest and crotch, Alex forced a smile and said, “I can’t wait.”