Three days before the race and I was incredibly nervous as I stood with the other unhired racers in a row, hoping to be hired. My black rubber gas suit bore my pressure stat “425” in large proud white letters across my swollen belly as I stood with my hands behind my back. Problem was, so were my other eight competitors, six women and two men. Women had more natural adaptability for this than men did; among men, I was a minor celebrity. The crowds were still milling around as a young debutante—tight sweater, tight jeans--strolled up to me, all hips and lips and boobs.
“Been racing long?” she asked, handing me her card—that of a major retailer. I wondered what the logo would look like on me and hesitated, then said to heck with it.
“Three years on the medium circuits, two years on the maximum ones. I’m good, haven’t burst yet,” I said proudly as I thrust my gleaming black belly at her. She ran a finger over my belly, sending sharp shocks through my body. I tried to hide it—after all, I’m a trained professional. Her card said Paula Storm.
“Mmmm, doesn’t seem like you can hold very much. Can you hold more than her?” as she gestures at Sandy, my closest female competitor with a “366” painted across her belly. Sandy overheard.
“I can burst that idiot any day of the week; he’s just painted that on to fool you. Watch!”
She tethered herself, quickly inserted the hose into her mouth and turned her valves full blast. She quickly got bigger and fuller and within about 30 seconds, was about 12 feet around. The client winked at me. “Tell you what, you match her, I’ll hire you for $500,000—beat her and it will be an even $1,000,000.”
“You’re on.” Okay Sandy, time for you to find out what it’s like to mess with me. Checking my tether, I started the apparatus and quickly clicked the tongue-activated switch three times that fed compressed gas pellets to me. Three pellets arrived in seconds and I quickly swallowed them. This sounded quite risky, as I had no control over the pellets once activated. If I took too much, I can’t turn them off—but I was at low inflation point anyway, so no worries. Seconds later, I smiled as the pellets released their compressed hydrogen and I swelled in a lovely manner, the hydrogen ballooning my body out, finding all my lovely nooks and crannies while stress-testing my suit. I rose and looked over to see Sandy eye-to-eye, as it were. I matched her glare for glare.
“Satisfied?”
“No way,” Sandy said around the hose. Sandy was growing quickly, more than halfway to official race height and length. I had to match her, and clicked for two more pellets. Umph, the pressure is feeling real good, and without any motors to take the fuel out, the gas has nowhere to go. I felt my arms and legs swell up and slowly get absorbed into my body until they were mere vestiges. Soon I expanded out to my twenty-five foot length and fifteen-foot girth. Sandy had stopped at a mere twenty feet in length.
“Give up, Sandy, you’re just embarrassing yourself,” as Paula took turns alternately stroking our bellies. Sandy’s team gave her a quizzical look.
“More pressure,” she cried, and her crew kept the pressure on—which meant I had to keep my pressure on. I clicked for another pellet and swelled some more, even though I was already bigger than her. I was already physically bigger than her, but as a female, she can expand to greater limits than most males could. I watched as her crew hooked up two more tanks and put another hose in her mouth. The pellet didn’t make me grow much, and I only added another two feet of girth. Soon, I stopped.
“Give up, Sandy! You can’t win this one!” I guess I didn’t sound convincing because Sandy’s crew collectively flipped me off and cranked the valves on all tanks full blast. Sandy was quickly expanding, grow—wait, was that a squeak? I looked closer. Sandy was now nearly my size, but her entire form was trembling, she was no longer growing. The crew had stopped and was looking at her with an expectant hush. I looked at Paula.
“Looks like you’ve at least matched her in f—“
“Like hell!” Sandy yelled. “More pressure! Break off those valves,” she yelled as the crews obeyed her commands. I clicked for two more pellets and swelled some more.
Damn. Seven pellets of gas, 70,000 cubic feet of hydrogen in me with nowhere to go. I can only guess what Sandy has in her, but she doesn’t sound good. Loud creaks and squeaks were emanating from her form, but my own body just creaked too. Shit, this was it, not only am I going to lose a cool million, but I’m gonna burst too. We had both stopped growing any bigger, our bellies were actually touching, and the effect was rather erotic. With no small amount of fear I clicked for another pellet. Sandy was turning a beautiful shade of red and Sandy could simply turn the hose off whenever she wished, but the pellets would simply empty themselves until…Sandy’s form was quite visibly trembling and quaking while my form was starting to vibrate. My crew looked at me as I saw my reflection in a mirror, was stunned by my face’s rosy color--Sandy looked me in the eye as I clicked for two more pellets…Suddenly, it was over.
Sandy gave a great gasp…
I closed my eyes, knowing that my ears were going to be very assaulted…
And Sandy blew apart with a near-deafening “BANG!” blowing me back to the end of my tether in a sudden windstorm that knocked everyone else down.
Paula came up to me. “You beat her,” she cooed. “I guess you and your team are a million dollars richer.”
I didn’t care. I had over 100,000 cubic feet of gas in me. Sandy had made me go to new limits and my poor distended body was pulsing and vibrating. I called to my crew:
“Measure me, quick! I don’t know how long I can hold this!”
“Thirty-five feet, boss,” was called out over the sounds of my poor creaking body.
“So what happens when you burst?”
“Well, the Hindenburg caught fire and burned, but its airbags were low pressure with only 20-30 PSI. We have several hundred PSI in us…we don’t burn, we explode.” I watched as Sandy gradually reformed. “If we burst through accident or overinflation, we can reform. But if something burning penetrates our hydrogen-filled suits, we explode, we don’t regenerate and it is all over.”
“Oh,” she said. “Then why do you do it if you can explode permanently?”
“Why does anyone race? The same reason other people get into high-octane fueled cars and drive 200 mph? It’s the adrenalin rush. We can stop whenever we want, but we can’t come back. We don’t hang up the suit, we hand it in and never show our face again.”
“How much money to pop you then,” as she smiled sweetly as she traced a three-inch fingernail over my form.
“Well, since I’m floating, not much I can do.” The words were barely out when she grabbed the tether and pulled me down, securely anchoring me to the ground.
“Crawl on top of me and you can do it for free.” She didn’t wait but clambered up my swollen belly and started bouncing, sending more shocks throughout me and making my form squeak dangerously. Finally, she slid backwards toward my face, her tight denim-clad butt landing on my face. She whispered to me.
“I really like you, and I gonna make you pop now. And I’m gonna pay you handsomely. But after every race, I’m gonna pop you. And someday, I’m gonna make you go boom in a lovely, massive fireball—and I think you’ll enjoy it. But for now, you’ve won. Enjoy the reward.” I clicked one more pellet as she clambered up me. She turned to look at me, knowing full well what I had just done as my already shivering body creaked and groaned. She rolled around on my tight bloated belly as I ached for the explosive release she promised.
She was as good as her word. The pellet left me at the brink; she winked at me as she traced concentric circles I on my belly with her fingernail—and pushed down…
And the last thing I remember for that night was a second deafening BOOOOM!
That night I had the dream again…
We were seventeen racers nearing Hawaii after a two week-long race. A bare half-hour after sunset, I was inflated to a little short of my maximum pressure, trying to catch up to the others while Asa, my girl, steered me towards the island, trying to catch the better thermals. We had the devil’s own work to catch up and we were only about 10 minutes behind the pack.
“Well, X, looks like we’ll be lucky to get ninth.” She banked me over the smaller islands as we started to catch up to the herd. The sea was a beautiful flat sheet of sapphire blue with lush green dots set into it.
“More pressue, dear, if we can climb, your pressure increase and we might a power dive and make sixth or seventh.”
I obediently clicked for two more capsules and relaxed in the resulting surge of growth while Asa steered and basically did the work of the team. As my body creaked and swelled as we climbed. I did some math and then wished I hadn’t taken two capsules, as the pressure at 5,000 feet a lot safer than that at 10,000. Granted, we were making good speed as my internal pressure increased while both fuel consumption and the altitude went up, but still…
“Oh look, darling! Mt. Kilauea is erupting!” I heard her fumble for the camera as the volcano erupted in a spectacular fashion as I—
creeeeeeeeeaaakkk
Oh damn. That was me and it didn’t sound good. The props sounded like a hive of bumblebees on meth as my body swelled further and further—pressure my body could accept at sea level, it would not accept up here…
“Oh wow! It’s raining stones.”
I looked up as Asa cried out. Falling in the night-time sky were hundreds of bright red dots, rapidly getting closer. I put two and two together and didn’t like what I came up with…
“Uh, Asa,” I said when I saw Rana, one of the few solitaire racers, get struck by a rock.
It was fast—one second she was there—a shiny black human form some thirty-five feet long, the next moment--a rapidly expanding fireball as a mammoth booom struck us.
“Oh hell!” Asa cried as several more explosions appeared in the sky. Several parachutes appeared as riders abandoned their rides to their fates.
“I’m sorry, X, but I can’t stay with you. I think we’re too far in to turn around. I hope you understand,” as she rolled off of me, leaving me to continue climbing—without steering or any altitude control.
I could stay where I am and hope none of the stones hit me…but if I did get hit, then the 50,000 cubic feet of gas in me goes BOOOM.
Or I could try something else. I clicked for four more pellets as fast as I could; as they slipped down my throat, I ironically hoped that my ability to withstand pressure wasn’t as great as I thought. My thoughts were interrupted as the pellets released the contents into my belly, filtering throughout my body with exquisite grace and curves. In less than a minute I’ll have about 90,000 cubic feet of hydrogen in me. I started to feel better as the motors went into overdrive as the massive internal pressure of my body force-fed the engines their rich fuel, yet as I climbed faster and faster, the outside pressure decreased and my body creaked even more, my arms and legs were even shaking, they cold accept no more gas, my belly, butt, chest—nothing could take it anymore, my tender distended belly acquiring more pressure than it could get rid of, my whole body trembling, my cheeks swelling up…
That’s when I saw them, a genuine swarm of stones falling my way. Shit shit shit this is it here I go I thought when I felt the familiar tickle:
It started across my belly and quickly worked its way both up and down my body, then all the way round to the back, spreading to my limbs…and then with a rather grateful sound, I heard the gas in my body find its joyful and loud liberation from the prison of my form.