Balloon Store, The

Date Written: 
08/26/2008

All Elliot could see in front of him was a row of enormous balloons, painted various colors and anchored by hardly visible strings. To most people the only indication as to their true nature were the small nubs on their upper and lower sides, but Elliot had a more obvious hint; the heads perched on the top of each one. The faces were nearly expressionless, puffed out too much for any movement, with the occasional shifting of the eyes being the only sign they were actually alive. Most people would have found it a peculiar sight, but to Elliot it was particularly unnerving. After all, he was one of them.

He had been floating in place for over two days now, but Elliot could still hardly believe how little time it had taken for his life as a functional human being to effectively end. One moment he had been walking through a part of town he had never been to before and a pretty girl not much older than him had asked him if he wanted to come inside and see her store, and he had naively accepted. He had been thinking up a polite way to ask why she expected him to be excited about a bunch of giant balloons when she had put her hand on his back and guided him to a back room. Elliot didn't even get the chance to utter any last words before another girl jammed a pump into his midsection and turned it on. Air began to flow into his body, immediately pushing his body out in every direction. He didn't manage any more than a few weak flaps of his arms before he became unable to fight the pressure pushing them out to his sides, and he couldn't even take a step as his legs were forced diagonally to the floor. As his body lost any semblance of a human shape he realized he couldn't even tilt his head, couldn't even use his voice box. He thought they were going to pop him right there when they finally turned the pump off.

This moment and the next few hours became a blur of terror and ecstasy, as the horror of his situation was lost in the surprisingly orgasmic feeling of being a human ball. The feeling of pleasure only grew as the two girls rolled him about, giggling as they coated him in purple paint. And as they force-fed him helium, causing Elliot to float up to the limit of the string they had glued to his underside, he felt more joy than he had thought possible. But in time the feeling began to wear off and the reality of his situation settled in.

'Damn,' he thought to himself. 'If only I had paid more attention in school I might not have walked into this'. The popular kids in school had been bragging that they had been going to a store that sold human balloons, and been holding parties to pop them. He thought back to how Elissa, a gorgeous but rather cruel girl in his grade, had told him a month ago that the store might give him a chance to attend one of her famous parties. Too bad he had dismissed the remark so quickly.

Speaking of the devil, out of the corner of his eye Elissa walked through the door just then. For the first time since his inflation, the amazing feeling of being a balloon completely gave way to fear; his face was obscured by his balloon body, but if she pulled his string to see his face and recognized him, he would have a one way ticket to a popping party. With sweat quickly forming on his face, Elliot tried to remain completely still-only to remember that staying still was all he could do.

Elissa approached the girl behind the counter with a wad of bills. "Hello again. Got another party coming up, need some balloons that you don't mind sending to a quick end. Four boys and two girls, please. Those four boys along that wall-" Elliot felt a surge of relief-"and any two girls. Don't care which, they're not for me."

"Right away for my best customer. Do you want me to deflate them and pack them up for you this time?"

"I don't think so. Everyone knows what's going on, nobody's going to try to stop me. It won't be long before human balloons are everywhere. I'll just hook them up to my car, get a nice parade going."

"Sure thing, Elissa". The girl smirked as she picked out Elissa's balloons and tied their strings together. "Hope you all enjoy the party, I have the feeling you'll find it explosive." With a mean laugh Elissa walked out the door with her balloons floating above her, their widened, frantic eyes the only sign that they realized what was in store for them.

"Hope the rest of you feel relieved," the girl told the rest of them. As far as Elliot could remember it was the first time the girl had acknowledged that the spheres that decorated the room had not long ago been beings exactly like her. "But she'll be back for more. And so will plenty of others. All balloons pop sooner or later." She paused for a moment, presumably to let her words settle into her victims, since she would likely not expect a response. "I'm going to get some more from the back. Don't go anywhere." She laughed at her own cleverness as she walked away.

Elliot digested her words. They were right, no doubt. He was going to float in his single spot until he was purchased, and his owner would undoubtedly want to pop him. He thought of the irony of his situation- he was in an unattended room with an unlocked door with only a single string to keep him to his spot, yet could not be any more helpless in a maximum security prison. He tried to forget his worries by letting his mind fade into the bliss his balloon body gave him, and did so rather easily, until the door opened again.

When Elliot saw the girl at the door his heart skipped a beat (or it would have there still was a heart in his hollow body-it was hard to sure). He had harbored a crush on Dianna for over two years, yet never had the courage to even introduce himself. She probably didn't even know he went to her school. Still, he had long thought of her as one of the sweetest, prettiest girls on the planet. What she was doing in a store like this he couldn't even imagine, but he was positive she wouldn't buy a human balloon just to pop it. Suddenly the notion of being purchased went from being dreadful to being pretty appealing. If he was going to be a balloon, it certainly seemed better to be a nice, pretty young girl's pet to being a party toy doomed to a quick end. Unfortunately, try as he might Elliot couldn't even muster the slightest twitch of his body to get her attention and could only watch as she observed what balloons remained in the store.

Elliot felt a huge surge of excitement as Dianna walked toward him. He lost sight of her beneath his massive spherical body as she came closer, but he realized she was interested in him when he felt a tug on his string and then-he felt the ecstasy of having been first inflated return-she put her hands on his ballooned body, pulling him down to eye level. He felt himself blushing as she peered at him and smiled. She said, "Well, you're certainly a cute one," and he blushed even further. Dianna giggled.

All of a sudden Elliot heard a loud bump near the back of the room. Dianna jumped and let go of him as she turned around, disappearing from his view as he helplessly floated back to his usual spot. The employee girl had returned with two human balloons in each hand, bouncing off the walls and each other. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, I want this cute purple balloon boy right here." If someone had told Elliot a week ago that he would be praising the lord that he was a helpless toy who had just been purchased, he would have said they were insane, but that was exactly what he did. I hear you can package these things up for me, can you do that? This is my first balloon; I'd feel weird carrying it around town."

"Sure thing. You can pay while we take care of that." The girl untied his string from the spot where he was rooted and carried him to the back, where she passed him off to the girl who had ambushed him with the pump. The girl hooked him up once again, but this time air flew out of him, returning him to his original shape. Elliot wondered why she would deflate him to his original position-wouldn't that give him the chance to escape? His question was answered when he realized that, while his arms had their original form, they were limp and useless to him, as his whole body was. In time he was merely a large, human-shaped latex balloon lying on the ground.

"Well, it didn't take you too long to find a home, now did it?" the girl said as she smoothed him out completely and placed his arms on top of him so she could fold him up. "Looks like you've got a really sweet owner; maybe you'll be lucky with her. Then again, some of the nicest-seeming people get the most fun out of popping balloons." Elliot had been folded up several times and face was currently resting against his what used to be his waist, but he could picture the devilish grin on her face. "Well, here's to a new beginning". The girl kissed him, placed him in a zip lock bag and took him back to the front of the store.

In spite of those foreboding words, Elliot couldn't help but feel excited. He couldn't see or hear but could feel that the bag had exchanged hands and imagined that the two hands he felt delicately holding his bag belonged to the girl he secretly loved. He felt warm all over as he realized that, while she never would have belonged to him, he now belonged to her. The thought of the girl of his dreams blowing him up into a perfect round sphere made him thrilled that he was going to his new home.

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