It was the first night of Ann's fairytale; all it had cost her was five feet and three inches.
When she was finished paying, Ian rooted through her clothing until he found her trapped under what had been her underwear. He palmed her nude body in the soft of his warm hand. He placed her on his desk. There was music playing. It was impossible. It was happening.
The lit candle towered above her taller than her house, blazing like an old time streetlight without the glass. She could feel his gaze over the three inches of her that remained. He could see her everything. She needed to show more.
Ann danced for him that first night. She couldn't remember the song; only the way it made her feel. Her steps were timed, and perfect, and lewd. She worked the candle like a stripper worked her pole. Like Gene Kelly worked his streetlight. Lewd. Perfect. Timed.
He called her doll, and whore, and lovely.
Most importantly he called her his.
She felt his strength, his adoration, and his lust as her body dodged the hot wax trails that streamed down from the fire above.
The candle, unbalanced slightly with her weight on the holder, puddled wax on the desk beneath. She could have jumped past it, but that would be boring. She wasn't boring.
She landed on all fours in the warm wax. Palms down. Heels flat. Like the Chinese theatre stars. She lowered her breasts and let the wax cool around them. Her haunches were pushed towards him presenting herself as she knelt in miniature. She watched him over her shoulder, her mouth hidden.
He wasn't looking at her mouth.
He'd taken his shirt, shoes, and stockings off while she was dancing. The pants joined them. It wasn't her first nude man; just her first nude god.
He lumbered towards her. She walked away from a memorial Grauman's couldn't imagine, to meet him at the edge. She knew exactly where she wanted to be put next.
She thought he was bending down to pick her up, but his hand didn't even reach the top of the desk. His body followed the hand downward and out of her sight like a whale diving back into the sea.
He was laying there face up staring up at her. A perfect nude target.
She wanted to jump on his manhood. Land on the top and work it like the candle, but her aim was off or she jumped wrong.
She didn't miss by much. His pubic vines rose to her breasts. She could pinch the undergrowth between her toes. Feel his musky heat penetrate her soles. She was so close to him she could count his pulse in the throb of the veins in his manhood by hearing it.
It was the first night of her fairytale and Ann was going to enjoy this.
* * *
Logs were blazing in the dollhouse fireplace when Ann entered the parlor hours later. She plopped onto the oversized chair and spread herself open to the warmth. She was covered in his lust. His love. She didn't care if it stained the fine upholstery. It was just doll furniture. Easily replaced.
His cream was still hot and syrupy on her skin. It clung to her hair, coated her breasts, and dripped down her belly. She collected handfuls. Put them to her nose and breathed in their ammonia scents. Massaged a thick coating into her cheeks and neck. Tasted it on the sides of her tongue as it trickled through her half closed lips.
She didn't hear the old woman come in; just looked up and saw the dowager standing in the door staring down at Ann's splayed body. If she disapproved, the old woman didn't show it in her face.
“I'm sorry.” Ann pulled her legs together and crossed her arms over bare bust, blushing furiously under a layer of Ian's seed. “I wasn't told anything about …”
“Your bath is ready.” The old woman didn't seem to care about Ann's breasts or blush. “I've laid out a nightgown.”
“Who are you?” Ann felt very small in the chair.
“All the mirrors broke a long time ago. Even the glass is gone.” The old woman ignored the question. “I'll tell you if you look presentable.”
“Who are you?”
“The kitchen's through there. You can feed yourself when you get hungry. I won't.”
The dowager left.
* * *
“I put Jillian there to help you.”
Ann lay spent on Ian's neck. He lay naked on the desk. His chin was an outcrop of flesh rising above her bleary eyes. His face somewhere behind the crest. In the distance she could make out his fallen manhood twitching on his hip. It made her proud to think she'd put it there. Like a lumberjack felling a sequoia.
He rewarded her with a ride on his stallion tongue. Her legs were spread further than she thought possible. She rode him till her thighs burned then stayed mounted until he spit her out and she tumbled down his chin.
“You could have told me.” Ann placed a hand on the wall of his throat.
“I thought you liked surprises.” His teasing words tremored in the ground beneath her before booming out in the air above.
“Not like that.”
“I'm sorry.”
“I know.”
“Forgive me?”
“I don't have much choice.”
“I love you.”
“I know that too.”
“We're gonna be together forever.” He said. “What do you think about that?”
“I think it's a good thing you got me those fancy doll dresses; after a ride like that I'm never getting these legs closed again.”
* * *
“How do I look?”
Ann asked the question to the dark silhouette on the other side of the mostly closed door.
“Like I'd expect.”
It was the same answer Jillian gave all three times Ann had knocked on her door. The same three words said just outside the light. It was the fourth night of Ann's fairytale. She hadn't seen Jillian's face since the first.
“I've been exploring the house.” Ann said.
Ann didn't know why she wanted to connect to Jillian, but this was the only time they even got this close. The old woman kept to her room during the day, refusing to answer the door even this much until Ann was almost ready to play with Ian.
Jillian stood silently in the darkness inside her room.
“This place is a real mansion, isn't it?”
Ann paused to give Jillian a chance to speak. The old woman did not.
“The thing is I could get into all the rooms no problem, except for the the one door at the end of the top landing. I think it goes to the attic. It won't open. It's going to sound crazy, but I think it's locked. I mean who would put a lock in a dollhouse?”
Jillian once again refused to step into the awkward pause Ann left her.
“Do you know anything about it?”
“Yes.” Jillian answered before closing her door.
* * *
Ann didn't dance for him that fourth night. Her body ached and she felt tired despite sleeping in till two. It was the first night she hadn't danced at all. The first she let him do all the work.
She lay with her back pressed into his warm sweaty flesh. Letting the pubic vines cover her as she stared up at his towering member. Watching passively as his slicked hand made a salty geyser erupt. Liquid fireworks fell from the sky. Hot liquid sparks pelted the hair, and the ground, and her body. She rubbed one into her belly and fell asleep on him.
She woke after midnight, on the dollhouse balcony. There was no sign of Ian in the room nor any light that didn't come from her new smaller world.
* * *
“Something's gone wrong.”
Ann sat on a spool of thread Ian had placed on his desk for her. There were chairs her size, but they weren't allowed to leave the dollhouse mansion that stood only a few feet away.
She was still dressed. It was the longest time she'd spent clothed in front of him since she became his doll. She had no intention of getting naked for him now.
It was the fifth night of her fairytale.
“What's happened?” Ian sounded concerned.
“My body …”
“What about your body?”
“It's …”
“What?”
“Wrong. It's wrong. The thing you did to me … there must be side effects. I need you to make me normal again.”
“No.”
“Once we figure out what went wrong you can shrink me again. It can be like it was. But you gotta fix me.”
“I can't. Nothing went wrong.”
“Fucking hell it didn't.”
“Jillian will explain it all to you.”
“Jillian won't say more than three words to me.”
“She will tonight.”
* * *
Ann knew where Jillian would be.
Ann's knees hurt walking up all those stairs to the landing, to the open attic door. The key was still in the lock. A light shone down the final stairs.
Jillian was seated on a throne when Ann found her. She'd been an old woman when Ann first saw her. Now she was a crone. That was days ago.
“This'll be your place soon.” Jillian's voice was dry as papyrus buried in sand. “There's a book on the stand. The key's in the lock.”
“I don't understand.”
“He'll never touch you again.” The crone smiled. “He never touched me after I found out.”
“Fuck you!”
“He promised us we'd be queens. We're not even Queens of the May. Just Queens of the Mayflies.”
Ann asked questions, but the crone became a corpse.
* * *
“BASTARD!”
Ann from the balcony.
“I READ THE BOOK! I KNOW WHY THEY BROKE THE MIRRORS!”
Ian used a knife to peel an orange as he walked by. He saw the dollhouse, but ignored the doll.
“You said you fucking loved me. Does this look like love to you? Does it?”
He peeled the fruit in one long slice. When he was done he let the peel drop to the floor, put the knife in his pocket, and walked out of her life eating the fruit.
* * *
It was the first day of Ann's cautionary tale.
She sat in the parlor reading the book again. Her eyes had to strain to read the print. They hadn't the day Jillian gave it to her. She wanted to find a way out. She knew there was none.
She could hear them in the office through the walls of her final home. She didn't know the new girl's name. It didn't matter. Ann heard him tell this stranger the same things he'd told her. The girl sounded young. Ann had been young once. A few days ago.
He'd teased her about being his pet. That made sense – pets never outlived their masters. Ann would never've agreed to this if he'd told her the truth. Told her about the changes in her biology. Her lifespan.
It'd taken 22 years to become the woman she was; only five days of this life to make her old.
Jillian hadn't been the first. The giggling girl outside wouldn't be the last. The book was dated ten years ago. Ann did the math, but numbers weren't enough to capture the enormity of what had happened to all of these women.
To her.
Ann heard the girl squeal when she shrank. She remembered how terrifying and arousing it had been to be buried in her own clothes. She hated the girl. She hated Ian. She hated what she'd become.
She closed the book and her eyes. She listened to them play as she felt the weight of the words press into her lap. The book was the only kindness Ann had left. The only explanation she would ever get. She couldn't imagine how terrible it'd be not knowing.
Ann tossed it in the fire and smiled for the last time.