Inflation Olympics Chapter 6

Sarah peered down at the field, looking at the arriving helium tanks.  There were three tanks, each one of them bigger than the officials that were struggling to wheel them onto the track.  Sarah watched Sandy, still inflated, stride across the rubber track and help one of the officials heft one of the tank-laden hand trucks up past the concrete lip around the track.  The distended woman grunted slightly with the effort of bending at her massively inflated waistline.  

Nearby Sandy, Samantha stood idle, inspecting her manicure.  She was less inflated than the last time Sarah had seen her, the woman finally having a discernable, slender waistline.  The white "Helium Queen" text across her stomach looked positively anemic at this size, tiny and difficult to read from a distance.  However, Samantha's curves still seemed outrageously wide, particularly her bust.  The huge spheres stood out on the woman's chest, projecting almost eight inches forward.  The reporter tore her eyes away from Samantha's improbable bosom. Sarah abruptly noticed that Samantha was no longer inspecting her fingernails, and was instead staring directly at her, smirking.  Sarah shook her head and immediately looked away, returning to the conversation.

"Um, aren't those tanks down there a little bit overkill?" Sarah asked.  "I mean, you could probably fill a blimp with one of those!"  Amanda and Laurie exchanged glances, a touch of shared humor passing back and forth between their bemused looks.  

Amanda answered hesitatingly, "They probably could almost fill a blimp, yes.  But they're, um, not particularly overkill.  If the volume girls really get going, I mean.  The tanks do have a little bit more than anyone could take, but not by much."  The reporter's eyes widened.  Amanda glanced down at the tanks herself before continuing her explanation,  "They have to have enough in the tank that the girls can't run out during an event.  But aside from that, some of the volume girls could inhale almost all of one of those tanks."  Down on the field, the officials and Sandy had finished lining up all three helium tanks a short distance apart from each other.

"But, that's impossible!  How can that be?" Sarah asked, gaping.  Amanda and Laurie chuckled good-naturedly at her discomfiture.

"Well, if we knew that, we'd probably be doing the volume events ourselves," Laurie laughed.  "Some girls are just better at stretching than others.  Or have a better mindset that allows them to more easily endure getting huge."  Laurie's explanation was cut off as a loudspeaker down near the track squawked to life, one of the officials at the scorekeeper's desk speaking into a microphone.  The party seated in the bleachers turned to look down at the field.

"Cindy Brown, please report to the Maximum Volume Time Retention event if you wish to compete.  Thank you," the official's voice called.  The official down on the field rose from the microphone while Samantha and Sandy looked on, surprised.  A concerned look crossed Sandy's face.  The honey-haired woman appeared to concentrate for a moment, her distended body slowly slimming as she released the vast reservoir of helium inside her tall form.  

"Cindy never misses her events," Sandy called to the official, her distant words audible only with difficulty to Sarah.  The official shrugged elaborately, palms facing the ceiling.

"We're already late," the woman called back with emphasis, checking her watch.  "We've got to get a move on soon.  I'll give her a few more minutes."  The official stepped over to one of the helium tanks, inspecting one of the gauges.  Sandy chewed her lip, seeming distracted.  The official stood, and shot an annoyed glance in Samantha's direction.  "Ms. Cartwright, I thought I told you to ditch all that helium?"  she asked.  Samantha put on an air of injured pride immediately.

"Me?" Samantha squawked, glancing down at her breasts.  "Whatever do you mean? I'm totally empty!"  She crossed her arms under the spheres of her bosom, hiking them upwards another four inches.  Sandy rolled her eyes slightly and shook her head.  Without hesitation, the referee walked over crossly and squeezed one of Samantha's breasts with a practiced hand.  Samantha gasped, her full lips forming an alarmed circle of surprise.

"You've got helium in there.  Get it out," the official responded with an annoyed tone.  Sarah noticed a subtle smile on Sandy's lips.

"What's the matter, Samantha?  How come you're always embarrassed to show your actual size?" Sandy asked slyly.  She raised a pale-brown eyebrow interrogatively.  The other woman dropped her arms, placing her hands on her hips.

"I'm not," Samantha shot back.  She opened her mouth slightly as she worked her tongue against the valve opening inside her mouth.  With a hiss, a burst of air passed her lips aimed towards the ceiling.  The blast of helium caused her burgundy bangs to flap wildly in the helium stream.  Samantha's curves gradually shrank, losing the unnatural, full roundness that they'd had previously.  When the flow stopped, Samantha appeared as a statuesque woman with a respectable bosom and wide hips.  "Happy now?" she groused, clearly irritated.  Sandy smirked, not replying.

This was the first time Sarah had seen Samantha and Sandy in close proximity to each other without both of them being crammed to the gills with helium.  Both women were roughly six feet in height, though Samantha appeared to be a few inches shorter than her counterpart.  They shared the same general body plan, both being long-legged and curvaceous.  Samantha's hips were slightly wider than Sandy's own, but the taller girl possessed a considerably larger bosom that appeared breathtaking in the body-hugging confines of her emerald leotard even when not in a state of inflation.  The burgundy-haired woman possessed a finer bone structure, with higher cheekbones and slimmer arms than Sandy.  The overall result was that Samantha appeared to be the slighter of the two by a small margin.

The official picked up the scorekeeper's microphone once more, saying, "Cindy Brown, last call.  Cindy Brown, please come to the track immediately."  A confused expression flitted across Sandy's face, the amusement at Samantha's discomfiture fading.

"Did you see her earlier?" Sandy asked Samantha, cautiously.  The other woman looked surprised.

"Me? I just got here after your little relay, why would I bother to show up early?  I don't need to warm up," Samantha scoffed.  "Maybe she didn't want to compete against me and lose again."  Her fellow competitor glared at her in exasperation.  

"Ladies?" the referee asked.  "It appears Cindy is a no-show.  Shall we get this show on the road?"  The official strode away from the scoring desk until she was squarely in front of the two competitors.

"I thought you'd never ask," Samantha moaned gleefully, putting heavy emphasis on the word 'never.'  She ran her hands down her flat stomach eagerly.

"I suppose we'd better," Sandy agreed with less enthusiasm.  "I'll call Cindy later and find out what the deal is with the absence."

Samantha chuckled, "It's me you really want to compete with anyway, we both know that.  Stop worrying about Cindy.  Worry about me getting soooo much bigger than you."  She sauntered easily over to the helium tank in front of her.  Sandy clenched her left fist slightly, taking a long step over towards Samantha and shoving her shoulder with her right palm.

"You pompous balloon," Sandy yelled as she shoved Samantha.  "You know you're not that much better than me!"  Samantha giggled, taking a step backwards atop her long legs to absorb the shove.

"Hey!" the referee snapped. "Knock it off, both of you!  Can't you two do just one event without this constant back-and-forth?"

Sandy sighed, muttering, "Sorry, sorry."  She stepped away from Samantha, taking up her own position in front of a helium tank.  Only the tank off to the far left stood unoccupied.  The referee nodded, reaching up to adjust her black cap slightly.

"Alright, then.  Let's get going," the official said.  She removed a bulky stopwatch from the front pocket of her black and white shirt.  "This is a Maximum Volume Time Retention," she began.

"We know the rules," Samantha chuckled, interrupting her.  The officiating woman glared.

"Apparently not, because we keep having these chats," the official sighed.  "Get as big as you can, and hold it for as long as you're able.  No talking, absolutely no touching, do not interfere with each other in any way.  Are we clear?"

"We're clear," Sandy said, determination visible on her face.

"Yes, mother," Samantha irreverently said.  "We'll play nice."  The judge pulled a starting pistol out of her pocket with her free hand, and stepped back several paces.  

"Let's get this show on the road then," the referee sighed.  "Contestants, on your mark."  Both women bent down to grab the trailing hose of their respective helium tanks.  "Get set," intoned the put-upon official, bringing the starting pistol up perpendicular to the ground.  Samantha and Sandy slowly brought the hoses to their mouths, lips parting briefly to admit the helium lines.  Each woman placed one hand on the valve of their helium tank.  The two competitors turned as one to glance sidelong at each other.  A mix of emotions played across their faces.  Sandy's face was a mixture of nervousness, desire, and the drive to succeed.  Staring back at her, Samantha wore a smile of smug confidence, but the woman's eyes were as intently determined as Sandy's.  Their gazes bored against each other, seemingly unaware of anyone else around them.  Up in the stands beside Sarah, Laurie clasped her hands in her lap.

"You can do it, Sandy," Laurie murmured, half to herself.  Sarah glanced from side to side, seeing the intent looks of everyone in the bleachers.  There was the strong sense that this is what they'd come to see.

"Go!" the officiating woman shouted, her starter pistol going off with a sharp, simultaneous crack.  In the echoing aftermath of the shot, a matched per of metallic whisperings were heard as both women hurriedly opened the valves on their helium tanks.  The noises of the valves quickly gave way to the gaseous hissing of the compressed helium flowing down the length of the hoses into the two women.  Sarah gasped, the sole sound in the quiet bleachers.

This was not the steady, measured expansion from the previous event.  Sandy and Samantha began to balloon so rapidly that their bellies came to dominate their figures within moments.  Through the hissing of the helium, the reporter could hear the soft susurration of skin and spandex creaking with tension.  Peering through the curtain of the honeyed waves of her hair, Sandy's eyes remained fixed on Samantha's gaze.  As her belly distended, Sandy rose from hunching over the helium tank in order to allow the burgeoning sphere of her stomach room to expand.  The taller girl released the valve of the cylinder and placed her hand atop the rising swell of her gut, as if she could somehow shepherd the buoyant cargo into her body more rapidly.  Beside her, Samantha followed suit and stood erect.  As her cranberry-clad waistline inflated, the ivory "Helium Queen" text swelled into legibility as it stretched across the woman's growing belly.  The breasts of both women began to swell with helium as well, the implants contained therein distending their full, natural bosoms into spherical, pressurized tautness.  The referee slowly began to circle the two women, inspecting them from all of their continually-widening sides to ensure that all facets of the rules were maintained.

The women rapidly swelled into enormous, bellied projection like the sails of ships before a stiff breeze.  Sandy's palm atop her vast belly slid down and around, comfortingly rubbing the taut flesh of her side that lay beneath the stretched, green leotard.  Her opponent widened her stance, seeking room to grow as her thighs began to distend with helium in conjunction with the swelling of her middle.  Samantha's full lips were clamped tightly around her own hose, but her eyes were a maelstrom of lust and intensity that stared across at Sandy.

In a few short moments, Sandy and Samantha's bodies had become inhumanly swollen.  From the reporter's vantage point in the bleachers, their faces and limbs were beginning to look miniscule compared to the massive ball that each woman's belly had become.  As their midsections expanded into incomprehensible fullness, the arms and legs of the competitors took on their own share of the cargo, their swelling thighs and upper arms gradually tapering down into dainty-seeming hands.  Sandy took several straining waddles backward, making additional clearance between the front of her encroaching acreage and the helium tank on the track before her.  Glancing sidelong at Sandy as she moved to avoid the tank, Samantha smirked around her mouthful of hose and contemptuously arched her back, shoving her belly forward in a more direct assault on her own helium tank.  Samantha's tall cylinder clunked to the ground with a burred clanging noise, allowing her growing belly to surge over the prone tank.

Up in the stands, Sarah shook her head numbly as she watched the women balloon.  The creaks of pressure were becoming more audible.  The cheeks of the swelling women had begun to pink in an intense blend of arousal and strain.  "T-this is impossible," Sarah murmured, her voice tinged with awe.  "How can anyone's body tolerate this?"  she asked, the whisper cutting through the silent stands and drawing a few annoyed glances.  Laurie turned to face her, putting one finger to her lips to shush her quietly.

"Shhh, Sarah," Laurie whispered, not unkindly.  Sarah glanced to her left and saw that the redhead was sitting tensely in her seat, nervous fists clenched in a firm grip on the spandex girding her legs.  A creak from the track drew Sarah's attention back.  She gasped in horror.  Even in the brief few seconds of inattentiveness, Sandy and Samantha had swollen dramatically bigger.  They were swiftly encroaching on such vast, distended reaches of girth that no automobile would admit them entry.  The double-doors leading into the arena would be a tight squeeze.

The two women were still staring at each other, eyes fixed over flushed and straining cheeks.  The hoses in their mouth robbed them of any chance to talk, but the intensity of their gazes spoke volumes.  A lust-filled determination lurked there, a silent message insisting that neither woman would allow the other to be the greater in girth.  In spite of the obvious strain, they seemed to give no thought to their own impossible fullness.  Sarah's belly ached in silent sympathy with the two women down below, the swollen duo looking as if they could burst at any moment.  The official still continued to circle their bloating forms, a black whistle held in her lips.

Samantha's eye contact broke from Sandy's gaze briefly to flick towards the referee with the briefest of glances.  The gigantic, cranberry-suited woman locked her eyes back on Sandy almost immediately.  As the judge orbited one side of Samantha's vast body, the ballooning woman held up the swollen arm on the opposite side and pointed her slim, manicured hand directly at Sandy's face.  Her hand quickly shifted, the woman displaying a tiny distance between her index finger and thumb.  The message was clear.  "You.  You're small."  Samantha's lips smirked as best they could while clenched around her hose.  Sandy's eyes narrowed in irritation and she shook her head violently.  Her knuckles went white as her grip on her own hose tightened.  Samantha nodded mockingly in insistence.

Sandy suddenly pulled the hose from her mouth, the helium hissing from the hose as it escaped into the room.  "Stop it!" Sandy spat, plugging the hose immediately back into her lips and continuing to inflate.  The referee instantly blew her whistle, waving her arms.  

"Oh, Sandy, no, not again," Laurie sighed upon seeing the exchange, shaking her head sadly beside the reporter.  Sarah looked over at her in confusion.  The redheaded girl hid her eyes in her hands, seeming weary.

"Knock that off, Ms. Mason.  Don't distract each other.  I'm not going to warn you again!"  the referee shouted, holding her whistle while she spoke.  Samantha arched an eyebrow at Sandy, who glared at her.  The swelling of the women had proceeded rapidly during this interchange, each girl an enormous girth of curves and belly who struggled to see over their own breasts.  The creaking orbs of woman flesh were so gigantic that they would occupy a majority of the space in a room of modest size.

Samantha whipped the hose from her mouth.  "I'm bigger than you," she gloated, the syllables spilling out in a rapid tumble that blurred one word into the other.  Her hose was back in her mouth almost before she finished speaking, pumping her gigantic belly larger.  The referee gaped in outrage, whistle falling from her lips onto the thong around her neck.

"Both of you, stop this off at once!" the official shouted.  Seemingly unhearing, Sandy shuffled sidewise in a rapid waddle and threw her vast flank against Samantha's belly, the two almost bouncing apart from the impact and rolling slightly.  A deep, drum-like thump reverberated from Samantha's belly.  A sharp moan of arousal spilled from both women which escaped from their lips with a mutual burst of helium.  The woman in the referee's uniform shook her head in disbelief, blasting her whistle again.  The duo paid no attention, if they had even noticed.

"Here we go," Laurie sighed. Beside her, Amanda had her hands over her mouth.

"Go?" Sarah asked, numbly.  She was unable to take her eyes off the train wreck occurring below.  "Where um, is this, uh, going?"

Nobody spoke, aside from Lindsay releasing a drawn-out, quiet, "uhhh-ohh."  The words sounded as if the woman's voice was not involved at all, her lips merely shaping a nervously exhaled breath.  She was perched atop the towering cushion of her own buttocks, nervously watching the field.

Down below, the pair of massively inflated women were wobbling ungainly around the floor after their collision.  Samantha had rolled onto her swollen backside, while Sandy was prone on the floor.  Sandy lay inclined slightly forwards, both her gigantic bosom and belly pressed against the floor.  Her back formed a ramp aiming at the ceiling.  The two struggled to right themselves, looking for all the world like a pair of buoys attempting to stay level in a stormy sea.  Even as they fought to their feet, they were taking in more and more helium.  Their bodies distended even as they struggled, the girth working against them more with each passing moment.  After long moments, the humungous women regained their footing.  They were significantly larger than when Sandy had charged Samantha and sent them both sprawling. They glared at each other through the canyons of their expanded décolletages as their bodies swelled with the soft hiss of helium.

"Now then, ladies," the referee yelled, her face bearing an angry flush.  "Let's strike this foolishness as a false start and begin again, shall we?"  Even though it had been a question, the incensed official's tone brooked no argument, it was clearly a command.  She looked for some sign that her words had even registered with the women.  Snatching her whistle to her lips again, she blew a loud, angry blast that rang shrilly through the arena.  The official strode forward and lay a hand on Samantha's helium tank and began to screw the valve shut.  Immediately, Samantha's gaze jerked to her, eyes blazing.

"Hands off!" the crimson-haired woman snapped, turning to squarely face the referee as she yanked the helium hose from her mouth.  In comparison to her vast, spherical belly the judge looked positively diminutive.  Samantha took a rapid step forward and thrust forward at the hips, throwing the enormous ball of her belly toward the referee as the woman was reaching to cut off her source of helium.  A mighty thump echoed from that vast, inflated middle as it struck the smaller woman and sent her flying.

"Unngh!" grunted the judge as she crashed to the track.  The landing dislodged her hat from her head, and the black cap fluttered to the surface of the arena.  She lay there seemingly dazed.  Samantha's glare snapped back to Sandy.

"So that's how you want to play it, is it?" Samantha demanded, addressing Sandy's earlier assault that had sent them both rolling across the track.  "Fine by me."  The woman plugged the hose back into her waiting lips.  She waddled forward as rapidly as she could to slam her middle against Sandy's own, the two colliding this time with belly meeting belly.  The pounding reverberation of the impact was far louder this time.  Sandy literally rolled head over heels.  The force of the impact squeezed a moan of internal pressure from the rolling woman, blasting out of her lips along with the helium hose.  Sandy's hose fell to the track, hissing like an angry snake as the unchecked helium vented out of it.  The woman herself gradually bounced to a stop, the roll leaving Sandy flat on her back with her gigantic middle rising towards the ceiling.  Somehow the woman's scale was emphasized further as her belly projected upward, the massive pressure and light contents laughing off the pitiful influence of gravity.

"My god," Sarah whispered.  

On the track, Samantha languidly waddled towards Sandy's supine form, continuing to take in the cargo of the helium hose that left her more swollen with each step.  Reaching Sandy, she pressed the front of her unspeakable middle against the underside of Sandy's belly, squashing against her and leaving the other woman pinned against the floor.

"Hnngh," Sandy moaned, squirming.  The moan was a curious mixture of tension, discomfort and surprising arousal.  As the pressure of Samantha's waist against her own increased, the fallen woman's cheeks flushed pink.  In spite of the obvious war of emotions playing across her face, the woman twisted and scrabbled with her chubby arms, seeking for the helium hose that had fallen from her lips.  Seeing her struggles, Samantha kicked it away.

"Ohhh no, no," Samantha chided, pulling her hose from her own mouth.  She thrust her huge abdomen more firmly against Sandy's, watching with approval as her rival moaned with the corresponding rise in internal pressure.  "You're going to lay right there and watch me get bigger than you."  The woman's purring words mingled smoothly with the hissing of the two helium hoses.

"Like hell!" screeched Sandy, the screamed denial erupting from the pinned girl.  She cocked one swollen leg and stomped upward at the underside of Samantha's gut.

"Uulf," grunted Samantha, staggering backwards and falling unceremoniously to her ballooned behind with her tubby arms flapping gracelessly.  The motion popped the hose free from her mouth and left the hissing hose taut between her hand and the tank, rocking the tank slightly atop its base.  Sandy struggled to her feet with an elaborate ritual of grunting and squirming.  She waddled across the track surface over to her discarded helium hose.  Sandy hopped, rolling forward atop the sphere of her belly until she was inverted and on the opposite side of her vast middle, supported by a palm thrust out against the floor.  She snatched her helium hose from the ground with her free hand.  Grunting, she shoved against the floor with her opposite hand and rolled back the way she had come, ending lightly on her feet.  She spun and glared at Samantha, the woman clumsily trying to get her swollen, cone-shaped legs under herself.  Sandy faced her squarely, belly aimed proudly at her adversary.

"Get up," Sandy ordered.  "Put that hose back in your mouth, and leave it there until you're too damn tight to smirk at me anymore.  Then tell me who's bigger than who."  Punctuating her command, she shoved her own hissing hose back into her own mouth.  She widened her stance, giving herself room to expand.  She resumed swelling, ballooning with an expression of determination.  She snapped a swollen arm upwards and made a come-hither motion of her index finger, challenging and beckoning Samantha.

"Fine!" the other yelled.  Hissing in outrage, Samantha managed at last to get her enormous legs underneath her center of gravity.  She jackknifed forward and grunted as she placed her bodyweight on top of her massively distended belly, using the sphere to provide support as she stood to a proud standing position.  The woman arched her back, the forward thrusting motion of her belly almost seeming to make her inflate further.  Without further comment, Samantha jammed her own hose between her lips and faced Sandy.  She began to swell again with the influx of new helium, her swollen flesh creaking with pressure.  She waddled forward towards her opponent and pressed the enormous expanse of her middle against Sandy's own waist, as if she was trying to push her opponent using the pressure of her gut.  Rather than retreating, Sandy leaned forward against her opponent just as firmly.  The arena seemed filled with an electric tension as the two woman glared, struggled and inflated, the whisk of spandex and creak of their straining bellies against each other audible even up in the stands as the two strove against each other.

The referee sat up groggily, one hand cradling her forehead as the other hand sought for her missing cap on the track.  like some blind cave-denizen sent on a quest by its owner.  Slapping the hat back onto her head, she staggered to her feet and gasped in fury at what she saw.  Samantha and Sandy surged back and forth against each other, pressing their swelling bodies against each other in a perverted, reverse tug-of-war.  Several times the force of their opponent's abdominal assaults cause one of them to stumble, but they always regained their footing and pushed back twice as firmly against their distended rival.  Neither seemed the clear victor, and each woman was red-faced with pressure.  Their straining forms groaned with the unnatural pressure distorting their balloon-like bodies as they repeatedly shoved belly-to-belly with each other and swelled.

"Will you two never learn?" the official shouted.  Rather than blow her whistle again, she seemed to have decided that physical intercession was necessary.  Stalking up to the two women, she attempted to insert herself physically between them.  For a long moment she seemed as a woman attempting to wade into a vast gulf of belly rather than water, the ballooned surfaces of their abdomens pushing and straining to fill any gap she attempted to squeeze through.  Despite all her efforts, she was unable to squeeze between them and was left straining at the dividing line between their guts in an attempt to force herself into place.  The harried judge settled for turning around and leaning her back into the gap as she attempted to physically push the two apart, one hand shoving at each of their middles.  "Stop…it, right…now!" she grunted.  She may as well have been pushing a pair of hills.  The swelling women didn't even seem to notice compared to the monumental pressure they were exerting as they moaned and squashed their distended waistlines against each other.  The woman's increasingly desperate shoves were swallowed up and absorbed by the rising swells of the competitors' waists.

With a cry of frustration, the official squeezed back out again in tactical retreat, the creaking orbs covered in green and cranberry spandex threatening to engulf her as they grew.  "You two are out of control, you're making a mockery of this competition!" she raged.  At a safe distance from the two women, she lunged for one of the helium tanks and began to twist Sandy's valve to a close.  As one, the two ballooning rivals turned and glared at the referee, their heads rotating with a smooth coolness that belied the furious anger in their eyes.  With seamless synchronization, the two pulled their hoses from their lips with a soft pop and an gaseous hiss of helium.

"Shut up," Samantha grunted, in a forceful but strained voice.  She sounded as if she was holding an incredible burden while speaking.

"Sit down.  We've got something to settle.  Turn my helium back up and get lost," Sandy echoed.  Her groaning voice sounded equally under pressure, but an edge of determination still wound its way through her tone.  The referee hesitated, hand still on the circular valve of Sandy's tank.

"NOW!" both of the enormous women shouted, starting to turn towards the comparatively tiny referee.  Taken aback, the woman meekly screwed the valve of Sandy's tank back open.  She retreated to the safety of the scorekeeper's desk, where she talked with an alarmed expression to the other officials in hushed tones.  Satisfied of no more interruptions, the colossal women turned to face each other again without a word, and replaced the hoses betwixt their lips.

Throughout the recent altercation, neither woman had stopped shoving her belly against the other, but now they redoubled their struggle.  The women resembled nothing so much as a bizarre struggle between alien balloon women vying for dominance, caught on film for an otherworldly nature documentary.  With each inch of girth the creaking women gained, they seemed to force their waistline more firmly against their opponent's own in an attempt to physically demonstrate their vast bloating and will to be the biggest.  Their swelling continued until the women's torsos began to resemble gigantic trios of balloons, two large swells of the breasts with a belly of unspeakable distension projecting from underneath.  The overhead lighting of the arena cast stark highlights on the stretched spandex and bare skin of their forms.  The fullness they were feeling was graven on Sandy and Samantha's faces, their intent demeanor beginning to give way to a flushed look of strain.  Struggling to bend their cone-shaped limbs, they squeezed and soothed their blimp-like bellies, willing the tortured spheres to contain still more.  In spite of their discomfort they shoved and vied just as strongly against one another, barely acknowledging the need to step back to allow either more room to expand.  

Even up in the stands, Sarah could hear their disconcerting creaks coming from the women, uncertain if the noise was the women, their garments, or both.  She could hear soft, feminine moans of pressure echoing occasionally through the long length of the hoses.  Their skin was beginning to take on a taut shininess of a balloon ominously close to bursting.  "This is insane," she breathed.  "How big can they possibly get?"

As if in answer, the hiss of helium fell silent from Samantha's hose.  The cranberry-haired woman turned in surprise, glaring at the offending tank.  It was empty.  Her eyebrows were raised in shock, plump lips slightly parted among bloated cheeks.  Across the vast canyon of abdominal protrusion, Sandy was looking at her opponent in confusion.

"Oh my god," Amanda murmured.  "She took it all."  Scant seconds later, Sandy's tank went silent as well.  The red-faced, straining Sandy let the hose fall from her lips in awe at her own girth.  Laurie gasped, hands over her mouth.

"I thought you said nobody could hold all of one of those," Sarah asked helplessly.

"Nobody ever could before," Amanda replied numbly.

Off to Sarah's left, visible beyond one of Lindsay's swollen thighs, a spectator stood and cheered, "They're going to tie!  There's never been a tie in this event before!"  Samantha and Sandy spun towards the sound, sweeping their dirigible middles through the air, the pair seemingly offended by the words.  

From the floor below, Sandy shouted, "There's not going to be one today, either!"  She spun and shoved Samantha aside with a palm to the belly, sending her distended rival rolling and wobbling onto her swollen flank.  The woman let out a howl of outrage and fullness.  Waddling past her, Sandy strode purposefully to the third helium tank, the abandoned cylinder intended for the absent Cindy Brown.  Seeing Sandy's target, Samantha squealed and squirmed to her feet with enormous difficulty.

"Get away from that tank, it's mine!" Samantha hissed, struggling after her with awkward motions of her swollen limbs.

Up in the stands, Laurie peered over quivering fingers a scant inch from covering her eyes, as if she couldn't bear to watch.  "Oh my god, Sandy can't possibly be thinking of forcing in even more.  She'll burst for sure!" Laurie fretted.

"Burst?" Sarah said, a ribbon of shock twisting through her tone.

"I've never seen anyone get this full before!  Ever!" Laurie wailed in reply.

Sandy pounced on the lone helium tank, twisting the valve wide open.  Without hesitation, she jammed the hose to her lips and moaned as her tortured, pressurized body began to stretch outward again with a terrifying creak of overstretched flesh.  Moments, later, Samantha pounced on her swollen form.  Their juxtaposition immediately devolved into a furious melee of bumping bellies, thrashing, swollen limbs, and smothering breasts.  Each woman angrily wrestled frantically for control of the tank's hose.  Dragged back and forth between their frenetically clawing hands, the hose spouted vast swirls of helium into the arena.

"I'm the biggest!" Sandy panted, pulling strongly on the hose and managing to take a few gulps of it before it was yanked away again just as rapidly.  The woman's voice was strained.

Samantha shrilled, "No, I'm the biggest!  You'll never be bigger than me!" while taking her own snatched mouthfuls of helium from the hose they warred over.  The two rolled to the ground as Samantha was pushed over, so focused on fighting for the hose that they didn't even both to stand anymore.  They struggled on the track surface, each growing more distended in sporadic bursts as they grabbed whatever precious seconds at the hose that they could.  As the moments went on, an increasingly frightening sound of creaking began to build in the arena, the sound of the pair of struggling bodies each beginning to reach the maximum limit of their gigantic elasticity.

With a rending, astoundingly loud pop, Sandy's green leotard gave up trying to contain its burgeoning owner and burst, revealing the extent of the helium's effect on her naked, monstrously stretched body.  The spectators screamed in alarm, loud bursting noises a potentially disastrous event in the context of the Inflation Olympics stadium.  Beside Sarah, Laurie jolted in her seat and screamed along with the crowd.  Down on the field, Sandy's struggling, naked body was flushed pink with pressure, the overhead lighting reflecting off tiny beads of sweat and straining skin that was every bit as tight and thin as that of an over inflated air-raft.  Her nipples and navel had become almost stretched out of existence, subtle, tiny bumps in the vast acreage of the stretched flesh that formed the enormous swells of her breasts and eight-yard belly.  Her areolae had become pale, gigantic circles of tint, barely coloring the apex of her breasts with a hint of rose visible through the body-wide flush.  Between her swollen thighs, the pull of skin from her vast, monstrously distended belly stretched her features there slightly lengthwise toward her navel.

Moments later, Samantha's leotard also exploded as she struggled to take in another mouthful of helium from those hose that finally pushed her frame beyond the limits of her garments.  The cranberry "Helium Queen" unitard burst, becoming a fluttering, reddish-purple scrap of cloth around her shoulders.  Bereft of any force holding it up, the white leggings that had laid underneath rolled down, eager to escape encompassing the enormous swell of her belly, and retreated to her comparatively less-distended calves.  There was no underwear beneath the spandex.  Her body was in a similar state of strain to Sandy's, albeit with slightly dusky areolae, smaller swells of bosom and slightly more swollen hindquarters.  Her entire body appearing flushed, shiny, and dampened with the sweat of her strain in holding back the impossible pressure within her body.

Heedless of their nakedness, the two girls continued to writhe and fight each other for the control of the helium hose.  Their dangerously-full bodies creaked and groaned each time they bumped against the other.  Each grew in spurts as they commanded control of the black tube for scant moments at a time.  Without clothing, the ominous creaking sound that filled the arena was now apparent to be solely issuing from the girls themselves.  Their stretched skin was at the limit of sanity and reason.  Even their impossible elasticity balked at holding more helium.

Laurie leapt to her feet and stepped over Sarah into the walkway down the bleachers, shouting, "Someone's got to stop this or they're both going to burst!"  She began to run down towards the track.  Amanda's gaze followed after her, an expression of shocked realization crossing her face.

Jumping to her feet and following Laurie, Amanda called after her, "We've got to roll them apart!"  Sarah watched both of them go in a daze, nearly having been knocked out of her seat by the enthusiasm of their efforts to exit the row.  She was blindsided for the second time today by the pair of black, spandex pillows that compromised Lindsay's hindquarters, the improbably-reared blonde attempting to pour herself out into the aisle as well.

"Urlf!" Sarah grunted in helpless surprise.

"Sarah!" Lindsay said, spinning around to face her from the aisle.  Her sweeping rear collided obliviously with a woman in the bleachers on the other side, knocking her into her neighbors.  "I'm going to go help!  Um, stay here!"  She spun again, freeing the woman she'd inadvertently battered.  Lindsay took off running after Amanda and Laurie, her run an odd penguin-like shuffle in the face of her enormously-inflated hips and thighs.

Sarah was left alone in the aghast stands, staring at the chaos below.  The three women ran towards the naked, terrifyingly-swollen women that writhed and wrestled each other on the track in a whirlwind of moans, belly-bumping, and chubby limbs groping at each other.  She wanted to look away in embarrassment, but the total impossibility of the scene held her view fixed in fascination and horror.  The destruction of the women's clothing had ripped a barrier veil away.  When they had been clothed, some small part of her mind had still seen them as conceivably normal and merely wearing a strange, balloon-like outfit.  With their distended forms laid bare, their gigantic forms could no longer be rationalized.

"This can't be happening," she murmured, numbly.  Unable to stop looking at the pair of balloon-women, she noticed to her reddening embarrassment that their frenetic, nude struggles against the distended form of their bare rival now could be taken quite differently.  The resemblance of their struggles to a wild bout of rutting hedonism was uncomfortably obvious.  She shivered, feeling strange watching the scene.  The two of them were rubbing their near-bursting bellies against each other, giving heed to nothing except their own girth and trying to snatch the hose from their rival.  Their nakedness and the distortion of their swollen forms seemed altogether too private, to intimate for people to be watching.  Abruptly, Sarah stood up.  She looked surprised, as if unaware she'd stood.

"I've got to get out of here," the reporter croaked, bizarre feelings washing over her.  She raced stiffly down the stairs with her shoes clacking on the bleachers.  The reporter shuffled across the arena floor with the abbreviated, staccato steps of someone attempting to cross a hushed library at maximum velocity, heading for the locker room doors that offered relief from this surreal scene.  Just once she looked back: people were rolling Sandy and Samantha apart, the pair unable to resist in their state of gigantic fullness.  The sole resistance they could offer was to reach toward the distant hose and rage pleadingly for more.  She slipped into the locker room, tearing her view away.

Inside the locker room, she raced towards the exit.  As she was coming to the final corner before freedom, the light from outer door opening illuminated several feminine shadows against the wall.  The reporter balked, feeling curiously guilty and unwilling to run into anyone.  Changing course, she darted past a bench into an offshoot of the locker room, an office with the door bearing the placard of games director.  Once inside, she slammed the door and locked it.  Shaking, she pressed her back against the cool, laminated wood of the portal and slowly slid to the concrete floor.  She sat there a long time, dreading discovery and trying to understand the whirlwind of bizarre feelings the final moments of the event had inflicted on her.  A few times she thought she heard people calling for her, but she didn't respond.  Eventually they went away.

Gradually, Sarah's mind eased and she felt some semblance of normalcy after having a chance to recompose herself.  She raised her head and tried to decide if she should merely leave, or seek out Laurie and explain where she'd gone.  She felt a pang of guilt for running off so suddenly.  Just as she was preparing to rise, she heard a feminine chuckle from outside, and a creak as a weight settled onto the bench that had been outside the office.  The locker room lighting on the window blinds of the office showed the backlit shadow of two forms sitting on the bench outside.

Samantha's voice came from one of the forms, chuckling, "Do you feel better now after getting that out of your system?"  There was a long, pregnant pause.

"Yes," Sandy agreed, hesitating.  "As usual."  Sarah heard a sigh issue from her.  "We can't keep doing this, Samantha. We're out of control."  The reporter could hear the twinge of guilty and worry flowing through Sandy's voice.

"I don't know what you mean," Samantha laughed.  "Both of us are getting bigger than ever."  A hearty, drum-like slap was heard, the impact of a palm on a belly.

"Sammy, there isn't any 'us!'  There hasn't been an 'us' for years now," Sandy murmured back, a sorrowful mixture of venom and regret tinting her voice.  Through the blinds, Sarah saw Samantha's shadow shrug.

"That wasn't my decision," Samantha said in a completely different tone from her normally smug rejoinders.

Sandy's shadow slumped, and her voice sighed, "I didn't want it that way either.  But we both knew we were a bad influence on each other.  Even now."  She sat up again.  "Frankly, your pride is reaching monstrous levels again, and I know I'm starting to see red when I even think about someone getting bigger than me.  Especially you.  We just…feed the other's negative traits somehow.  We always have."  The taller woman's shadow turned to look at the one beside her.

"So what," Samantha chuckled.  "Live a little.  Who cares what everyone else thinks when you and I compete?  A monthly meeting now and then to relive the old times doesn't hurt anyone.  It's just our way of blowing off stress.  I know you love it."  Beside her, Sandy shook her head.

"I do, and that worries me sometimes," she said.

Changing the subject, Samantha queried, "Hey, why didn't you let me blow that reporter up?"  Sarah sat straight up, back along the door.  Outside, Sandy squawked.

"Do I really have to answer that?  She was a guest.  Our little performance probably scared her off too," Sandy replied.  "Everyone's going to be furious at us.  You know why we're after some media attention."  Samantha huffed snidely in response.

"I'll bet you just wanted to blow her up yourself," the other woman accused, chuckling.  Sandy's shadow reached over and shoved the other woman.

Crossly, Sandy replied, "you know I don't do that anymore."  Her shadow pulled her arm back and sat normally.  "That's one of the reasons we had to break it off, remember?  We were getting so bad we had no inhibition at all.  I would have gone to jail that last time if not for that plea bargain."

"Look at me and tell me you didn't want to blow the reporter up," Samantha taunted challengingly.  Sandy's shadow turned furiously towards Samantha.

"Of course I didn't want to do it," Sandy said.

"Liar," Samantha snickered.  "Liar, liar, pants on fire.  I could always tell.  Just like me, you want to puff her up until her stomach looks like a beach ball."  Sarah wouldn't have opened the door for a million dollars.

"Stop it, Samantha, I don't want to talk about this.  I'm not going to blow her up, so stop taunting me about it," Sandy sighed.  Samantha's shadowed form against the blinds edged closer Sandy.

Her shadow leaned towards the taller girl, purring, "So let's not talk.  Let's puff.  No strings attached."  Hesitantly, Sandy's shadow turned her head, craning her neck down.  The two shadows met and a whisper of shared, muffled moans flitted through the window, punctuated by the occasional hiss of helium and a creak.  Abruptly, Sandy grew restive and pulled away.

"Ngh.  No.  Not here," she murmured.  "Someone might see.  I don't feel like trying to explain why I'm swapping helium with you."

"Suit yourself," Samantha chuckled smugly, though a hint of disappointment tinged her voice.  Her shadow against the window scooted back into a normal posture on the bench.  "At the end, when we were both so strained, so tight, I wanted so badly to lean over, plant my lips on yours, and give you just one tiny puff, to send you over the edge.  Kaboom," Samantha purred, syllables pouring out lustily from her mouth.  Sandy's shadow squirmed on the bench.

"Is that so?  Is it possible you've got some sense of restraint after all?"  Sandy asked dryly after a moment.

"Absolutely not.  I just didn't know which way the helium would flow.  From me to you, or you to me," Samantha murmured.  There was a moment of profound silence as Sandy absorbed the implications.

"Meaning, for once you aren't sure you were bigger.  You were afraid I was the biggest and most pressurized, and trying to puff me would burst you," Sandy gloated.  Samantha didn't make a reply.  More loudly, Sandy laughed, "I don't think I've ever heard you express doubt that maybe you weren't the best at something."

"Don't let it go to your head," Samantha said.  "We got disqualified anyway, it's nothing official.  They didn't even pressure check us."

"Oh, definitely not official," agreed the other woman in soothing tones, a note of facetiousness in her voice.  "But interesting nonetheless."  Sandy's shadow shifted in the seat, holding up a hand.  "Anyway, I guess I should call Cindy.  I'm a little worried she didn't show up.  It's not like her," Sandy said.  "Let's see if she's home."  Sarah heard the vague tones of Sandy's cellular phone being dialed outside the window.

From the office's closet beside the door, Sarah heard a vague noise.  It sounded uncannily like a tinny rendition of MARRS' song, "Pump Up the Volume."  She turned quietly, looking at the closed closet door.

"It's ringing," Sandy said from outside.

Drawing her legs up underneath her, Sarah put her palms on the floor and quietly rose to a standing position.  She slowly walked over to the closet and took the handle into her palm.  The noise was definitely coming from inside.  With exaggerated care, she slowly turned the handle and opened the door and flicked the closet light on.

Sarah screamed.

There was a flurry of motion outside, a wrenching of the bench legs against the floor.  Almost immediately there was an incredible, rubbery impact with the office door.  The aging hinges buckled inward, and Sandy surged into the office with a squeak of inflated sides against the doorframe.  The woman was in a state of partial inflation, huge but not absurdly so.  Sandy was clad only in track shoes, a grey-colored shirt, and a pair of black panties that clung to the underside of her inflated abdomen.  She had one arm and her belly thrown out in front of her and evidently had gone through the door like a wrecking ball.  This was the smallest room Sarah had ever seen her inside, and at her inflated girth she seemed to nearly fill the space to the point of claustrophobia, especially given what she'd just seen in the closet.

"Sandy!" Sarah yelped.

"Sarah?" she asked in disbelief,  "What are you doing in here?  What's wrong?"  Beyond Sandy's shoulder, Sarah could see Samantha standing in the locker room through the doorframe, looking alarmed.  She was wearing the white spandex leggings Sarah had seen earlier, with the destroyed cranberry unitard replaced with an alarmingly stretched, black tube-top.

Sarah pointed into the open closet door.  She was almost knocked over as Sandy sidled into the space, one side of her belly bumping against her as the taller woman came to look.

A woman was in the closet, so inflated that she nearly appeared spherical.  Her body pressed from wall to wall.  She was blonde, clad in a grey bodysuit, and her eyes swam fearfully above swollen cheeks.  A broad ribbon of duct tape crossed her full lips.  She seemed far too big to have possibly crossed through the doorframe in her current state.  The noise Sarah had heard was a cellular phone tucked between her breasts, the 80s music still warbling from her cleavage.

"Cindy!" gasped Sandy, aghast, naming the missing competitor.  Immediately she turned to Samantha out in the locker room.  "God damn it, did you do this?  If you shoved her in here to cut down on the competition," Sandy began, voice dangerously threatening.

"Huh, what?" Samantha said, blinking and appeared shocked.  She slowly squeezed through the doorframe and looked into the closet with the others.  "Hell," she murmured, eyebrows raised.  "No," she promised.  "I didn't know anything about this."

"Hang on, Cindy, we'll get you out of there," Sandy said comfortingly.

"There's a note on her or something," Sarah said.  Delicately entering the closet, she plucked the note taped to the terrified woman's huge body.  Turning to face the others, she flashed the paper to them.  It was neatly type-written, on non-descript, ivory stationary.

'Balloon Girls,

You're behind on your payments again.  As you're well aware, our organization's funding of your elasticity pharmaceutical endeavors was no small expense.  Please rectify the situation promptly.  Don't get so wrapped up in being human balloons that you shirk your fiscal responsibilities.  Consider Ms. Brown's condition to be a token of our extreme disappointment in the delay.

Regards,
Your Financiers'