Warning: Inflation fiction follows with partial, (ok, full), nudity. The character of Bellydemon belongs to another author! Please don't be mad! I'm just borrowing her!
Her eyes were a soul of scarlet. Hair like roses under a dying sun. Her bright lilac clothing clung to her lithe body, mottled into the contours of her pale skin as if living in its own right. Nathan thought he could handle things without freaking out though, if he didn’t concentrate on the really incongruous things. Like the horns. They are short, perhaps no more than 6 inches, but tapered to a point that could impale a man. Or burst a balloon.
She sat cross-legged, but leant forward occasionally to fix him with a stare. Don't ask how a gaze the colour of embered coals could run so cold. He resisted flinching every time she did that, aware that it is dangerous to show weakness in the face of this creature, despite all the preparations.
It's not that Nathan hadn't handled sensitive interviews before; known the conditions that celebrities or the paranoid could impose. This interview had conditions too, and he hoped that he was being just paranoid enough. The patio door behind him was locked to prevent interruptions, and the wards would hold while either the day or he remained. But his thoughts returned to what she represented; of what she could do.... was it just the danger that made his pulse race, his skin feel dry in a still breeze? It was a struggle to keep his motions steady, controlled; 4 foot clear from the etched thaumaturgy of crayon and marrow-ground. He couldn't get what the grimoire called for but someone he trusted told him that animal bone worked just as well. So far it seemed to be working; he took the fact that he was still alive as a good sign.
He had less time than he originally thought, though. The tall adobe walls of the sand-garden lengthened the days shadow prematurely, so that sunlight receded up the facing wall. There was a buzz of early twilight insects, released from the prison of the days heat. One of them must have crossed the circle as there came a vanishingly short crimson pop and the creature's face freckled with the thinnest miasma of blood. He checked; the tape still has 20 minutes to run. But he was already thinking of the revocation; tonguing the syllables wordlessly under his breath. Sumerian has a lot of ambiguous vowels, and his mouth felt dry as the surrounding desert city. He blinked and reaches across to the folding table for his glass of Bombay Sapphire and tonic water.
"You have time for one more question, I suppose," said the Demon. "Better make it a good one. Considering the risks you took for this interview, I'm not sure you've got enough to really stand out with your editor."
There, she was taunting him again. The young journalist told himself that was a sign of impotence. That she had given up pushing the bounds, as earlier, chafing them in sparks from her sharp edged nails. Now it seemed she probes her captor directly with the same amicable if deadly purpose.
"I don't think you need to pretend to worry about me, BD." He used her abbreviation, enough to suggest he didn’t respect; doesn't fear, her.
"Oh but I do. Sincerely." She framed her head on upturned palms. "You called me, and I assure you that the, ah, status, of my summoner is an overwhelming concern. And you have so very much to prove, Nathan. Or why would you take such risks with me? Just for the fame? The 2 column feature? You hide behind a skin of assurance so thin I can see it quivering like latex. Faux- edgy, brittle arrogance is passé. It makes your interview style so....unnatural"
"I don't think, umm, you can talk about natural, really." He saw a flash of pride soured by anger; will she rage? But the Demon spoke slowly, with the intensity that grinds stone. Nathan thought that every feminine softening of the creature seemed to hide something far more primal. Or perhaps the raw femininity of her was shocking in itself; none of the human concession to poise or couture. Just a hunger couched in speech and form.
"Oh, From my perspective what I do is very natural. I mean, you'd be surprised at how little change in nature it requires. Human skin is actually very elastic. And you inflate yourself all the time by breathing all day. In-Out, In-Out. A bag of gas and flesh". She puffed her chest up in a mock display. "The truth is you're trying to become what I create all the time. I just smooth out the rough edges, let you expand into true potential."
"You mean, you regard what you do as helping people?" His eyebrow flexed rhetorically, but the Demon was drawn in earnest lines.
"Of course. Not that I ever get any appreciation for it. Humans are always confusing what they want and what they need. Summonings through the half century haven't even mostly been revenge, power, lust; the important things graven into your fallible little hearts. And what do you all want instead?"
She continued, answering her own question. "Cosmetics, mostly. Vanity is my least favourite sin. It used to be all breasts in the nineties but now hips are coming back in. I like to imagine that it’s a form of social commentary, and my subjects, art. You know the greatest of artists have always found their inspiration in the potential of the living form?"
"Usually artists leave their subjects in one piece." Nathan wondered where this was going. But the surliness he'd fought against since she first appeared seemed suddenly absent. He sipped his gin and tonic and studies her closely.
"Oh. I won't deny the thrill of it. Or how much I desire to stick a couple of fingers in your belly button and hssssss." The Demon's lips retracted to make the snarl. "But you should understand that you're not the worse. You're genuinely curious; scared, but curious. Not one of those who treated me with levity and paid the price in buoyancy. "
"Such as...?" He clicked his pen, hiding curiosity behind impatience.
"Well, one young man wanted to be cured of persistent hiccups - hiccups! I asked if he never wanted to release gas again, and he just blurted out 'yes'." The entity covered her face with her hands in a manner which Nathan took to be mockery. "What an idiot. He realised his mistake on his second breath. He had 30 long stretching minutes of begging me to take it back, to release the charm I wound about him. All the while his hysteria was gulping air in....."
Bellydemon paused to reveal a glimpse of incisor. "But as every Occidental summoner knows, I've no obligation to honour a second request."
"You killed him, though." It wasn’t really a question. Nathan knew that when they have a story to tell, they will. Questions are just the interviewer's ego getting in the way.
"He killed himself. Wanting my gifts to cheaply, he was overwhelmed when I shared more of them with him than first bargained. He should have felt honoured that I let him endure so far. But that wasn't the worst. There was this young woman who wanted to masturbate - safely - on a helium tank. She even had a specialist adaptor. Ribbed and vertical." The Demon twiddled her finger. "Dirty girl."
"So what happened?"
"What do you think? I granted her desire. But there’s no dealings with me that could be considered even remotely safe. You mortals are so intoxicated by the strange...moths to a flame. Before she knew it, she was riding the tiger - it wasn't, ahh, safe to dismount. But ultimately she didn't have a choice. I guess you could say she got off. Off and up." Suddenly Bellydemon seized with laughter, or at least her observer took it as such. A keening wail, edged to inaudibility, like a hyena, that lasted too long. A strange uneasiness gripped Nathan at the inhumanness of the act, nerves that didn't subside even when the Demon seemed to recover herself.
"Awh; sorry; I couldn't resist that pun - do you think your readers will mind? I've still got the adaptor, you know. Ah-hah. Don't pretend you're not interested. I can't stand insincerity. You like the idea of the danger. You might even be sensible enough to do it inside the house."
"I...are you....are you claiming that most of your victims deserve, no, wanted, what happened to them?"
"On some level. Why, don't you?" She looked out from under hooded eyes. "Or are you going to pretend this was just about the interview?"
The young man swallowed hard, gripping his pen. "I think that's probably enough, already."
"Probably" The demon let its gaze vault skyward, drew a long hissing breath. Folding her arms, she stares intently beyond Nathan’s shoulder, so that the young man felt his edginess climb, unreasoning. He stole a glance behind him. Nothing. The late afternoon sun tangled shadows in the vine-frame. The chirp of insects. Strained scent of desert lily.
"How was your drink?" Bellydemon asked, almost casually.
Nausea washed down Nathan's spine, turning to ice before conscious panic could form. His gaze fell to the nearly-empty glass on the side table, a few bubbles clinging to its side. As it does, something stirs inside him in sympathy. Bubbles.
"No...." He whispers. A sudden cloture of his throat. His breath cannot escape. Something trills within him. Fear and surprise, metallic in his mouth. "Omagod. You can't. I mean...you can't..... "
"You've no idea how hard that was to do". She twirled her hair, affecting complete disregard, total control.
Nathan took a full step back, his eyes now widening in recognition. His hands flew to his stomach, clenching the cream fabric of his twill shirt. Within, like the touch of fairy-fingers, came the most utterly strange sensation. It was as if...small bubbles were forming inside him, popping into being. Bubbles on bubbles; their chorus merging to a steady gurgle. Unreally, he saw his stomach start to bulge with that moment. Impossibly, inflating.
Panic. He had to get out. Get indoors. The distance to the double patio doors that led back into the house was under 10 foot. He cleared it in a flash, seizing their handles and pulling. They resisted, jammed. Perhaps the demon had somehow....No wait, he'd locked them. What looked like a sensible precaution he now cursed as madness. The key. Where did he put the key? His trousers, yes? An ecstasy of fumbling. Did their dark wool feel tighter across the waist? Ohgodyes. The bubbling continued and his midriff had assumed a noticeable bulge. Bellydemon was saying something but he ignored her. Focus. Don't break it in the lock. Don't be like the other victims who had time to get away but blew it.
The lock yielded and he flung the door open. He was about to leap through when he remembered the rules.
His hands caught his momentum by the edges of the door-frame. Idiot. The summoner had to remain. If he left without revoking her, the compact would be void, and she would be free.
"....another step if I were you." She was standing up now, watching him intently as you might watch a caged rat.
One part of him insanely wanted to risk it, to just run. But another already heard soft leathery wing-beats overtaking his pace, folding about. He imagined the minx-lure of brimstone and soft lips. Her strong arms against him and the inevitable rush of air, the surge to explosion. He trembled at how close he had come, senses snapping back to the unreal present. The gurgling within had now transitioned to a constant bubbling, his belly expanding to a gaseous paunch. The buttons on his pale cotten shirt parted along lines of longitude, explorers on an expanding globe. He collapsed next to a terra cotta pot, shaded in the scent of desert pine. The soft--woven fabric of his clothing strained before him, visibly swelling with every passing moment.
"Nathan, honey..... it looks like you drank something that disagreed with you." She teased, confident now. "Maybe you're allergic to latex or something but that’s the worse case of gascid indigestion I've seen for awhile. Perhaps....you'd like me to kiss it better?"
"I have to throw up" Nathan thought, desperately, as he sprawled with his back to the potted plant. "I drank something, but it must still be mostly liquid. Get it out of myself before it evaporates into gas".
Quickly, he crouched over, trying to ride the waves of nausea to release. Tensing with the surges that seem to come more often now. A soft pffft signalled the loss of a button. Then another. He felt like a tremendous belch was forming within him, the vagus muscles compressed by the expansion. But his form was strangely pliant about the gas, refusing to rupture, to release. At least for the moment.
"The first bits are the worst " Bellydemon told him, suddenly gentle. "You'll find...when things begin to change. After that, it starts to get more...pleasurable"
Nathan blinked. She was right. His belly now looked like a beachball, splitting the remaining fabric of his shirt aside. But the feeling of sickness was passing; replaced with....what? He took the moment to let his fingers seek across his new expanse with a dreadful curiosity. For despite the size, his bulging volume didn't seem to weigh anything at all. It seemed to hold a soft plastic sheen, a slight artificiality to his touch being both like and unlike skin. Its roundness reflecting the albedo of the sky. The sky.
Please," he pleads, "Please, don't let it be....don't let it be....heli..."
"Oh tsk" The Demon cooed, almost feminine "You are so ungrateful; as if I'd be so jejune as to serve ordinary air to such a special client. After all that effort I went to precipitate the pretence of bubbles so you'd drink it all up....".
"Ungrateful...?" He blurted out his disbelief over his shock. His soft tummy firmed and shone as the gasses mounted within; the pressure forcing his recalcitrant hands aside. He watched as its rounded expansion pushed down to his thighs, up his chest. Nathan could feel his body shifting elastically; innards pushed gently to one side as if by a cloud of insistent bubbles. A new sensation of not-unpleasant tightness emerged; a need to simply lie back, relax and let matters flow. Why worry? There was still no sense of weight accompanying his inflated bulk. Quite the opposite, in fact. He tried to think, to wonder at the change, but the insistent pressure building throughout made him more concerned with the sudden constriction at his waist. Hastily, he fumbled with his leather belt, invisible below his bulging belly, popping it loose and letting it spool free. Ahhhh. No sooner did the flush of relief come than the pressure undid the zip on his trousers for him, liberating it with a soft ripping purr.
Bellydemon gave no sign of noticing Nathan's predicament, but continued with gentle reproach.
"Yes, ungrateful. You opened yourself to this by wanting. Really you did. You didn't have to say anything; the curiosity over my nature, my clients. The relish of the descriptions through your soft flush; the denied arousal? Even the matter that you conducted this interview in the Sand-garden and not indoors. Mmmm? You sought out this commission not for the story, but for yourself. I just had to tell you the truth until your curiosity snagged about my sexy unwholesome lure. And that truth is you're a naughty boy, Mr Shelborne. And I always find a way to give each client what they deserve."
Nathan stared at her, agog at the use of names. The bubbling noises from within him had mounted to an espresso hiss, reminiscent of a fairground balloon being inflated. Briefly he regained enough composure to realise that he had to get away, regardless of the risk. With an effort he tried to rise to his feet, only to promptly find himself over-balancing and rolling forward onto his huge belly. Rocking gently, he tried to push himself back up, but found his palms could barely make purchase on the ground. As he struggled, the relentless inflation pushed him further away, so his fingertips brushed haplessly against the sandstone.
Recognising the futility of his efforts, Nathan swayed backwards, pulling his legs under him and settling his weight back. He could feel a spreading gassy resistance in his swelling thighs opposing this manoeuvre, but instantly his inflated torso rolled upright with startling alacrity and he found himself crouching on his knees. Angling to stand, the young man found his centre of balance was off, being much further back than he was used to, even if rising seemed strangely effortless. With a shock, Nathan realised how much lighter he was becoming under the influence of his balloon-belly.
Turning with exaggerated caution, Nathan saw that the patio doors, still half open, beckoning him. But suddenly he realised how his earlier hesitation had cost him. The expansion at his waist now resembled a tightly inflated bubblegum-pink tractor tyre, impossible to squeeze through the right-hand door which was open. Perhaps if he could reach to unlatch its twin? Five hopeless seconds of trying to release the floor-mounted fitting followed; the pneumatic tautness within him defeating all attempts at bending over. Each time his fingers drew close, the indescribable pressure would force him upright again with a pronounced boinnng. The sound reverberated through his increased hollowness, a deeper pitch to harmony the continuous hissing. His hands had now no chance of reaching to his knees, let alone feet, pushed out as they were by his rounding body.
"Noooooo," moaned Nathan, desperately aware of his predicament. He considered crouching as before, but his torso was almost completely spherical. Indeed, he could feel, as much as hear, the expensive woollen weave of this trousers parting about barrel-sizes thighs, ripping away. The gassiness was reaching down to his crotch; forcing itself along new paths. With a moments protest, the elastic of his boxers tore with a pronounced spannnng, rendering him naked but for the comic decorum of his shoes and socks. Worse, pushing out from underneath he felt his manhood ballooning comically, swaying above balls inflated to the size of oranges. In other circumstances he might have been absurdly proud, but now he could only feel the upward tug of yet another part of his anatomy. The tip of his expanded cock waved wildly at the sky, as if in omen. The Bellydemon raises one eyebrow, satirically.
"Oh gosh. " She giggled like a schoolgirl, clapping her hands in delight. "Nathan, honey; look what I've done for you! I have to say most men would be envious and girls......well, let us say keen for a balloon ride? I can see you won't have any trouble keeping it up. Oh, but getting it down on the other hand...."
As she continued, a strange focus came to Nathan, pushing thoughts of the constant pneumatic hiss and humiliation aside. The safety of the house was denied to him - but his condition might, just might, be used to his advantage. A wooden bench rested against the far wall, the lowest bound of the garden where a tangling vine grew in desultory fashion. The wall was nearly 8 foot high, but with his near-buoyancy he might somehow scale it, he reasoned, there would be a relatively short distance down an alley to the main road. Maybe there would be help. Maybe the Demon would remain bound, or be unwilling to pursue. Maybe. But he had to take the chance; there wasn't much time. Already the pressure rode up into his shoulders and arms, gassiness spreading through a tightness in his calves, making it difficult to move. He could felt the pressure trying to pull his limbs into a starfish; soon he would be helpless, or worse. The sensation of lightness within him was becoming more intense by the moment, and though he still had weight, it felt like a huge padded glove lay underneath his belly and between his legs, pushing up. He tried not to think on what it implied, what it promised.
Instead, he focused on his steps, each one less certain than the last. Twice he found himself nearly overbalancing, such that only the gentle see-saw of his motion enabled him to find footing again. He tried to lengthen his awkward waddle into a stride, aware that his footsteps were now only lightly pressed against the earth, threatening to turn his uneven bound into a rolling, bouncing cartwheel.
Glancing down, he could see his neck was being drawn into the swollen globe of his body by the relentless press of gas. Below, his bulging form took on a deeper lustre as his skin stretched and smoothed into a parody of his former self. As his upper arms joined the expansion, swelling and losing definition, the hissing continued. Its falsetto rose slowly in pitch as if Nathan was a balloon being filled to the brink. But now the inflation came with a feeling of gentle effervescence. It was as if bubbles were percolating over spot of his body, yet leaving him sensible to their every particular touch. Gasping at his new-found sensitivity, he realised that the sensations assaulting him were not uncomfortable, even exhilarating in their strangeness. Part of him wanted to surrender to their caress, let the bubbles fill him and...no, he had to concentrate.
He pirouetted on one foot and pushed. His breath caught in his throat, as the stride carried him across the small yard in a gentle parabola. He could feel the warm breeze whisp around him, its currents tugging at his body, letting him linger in mid-air. For a moment he feared that he'd passed the point of weightlessness; that his target would slip down and forever away. Then adobe-plaster of the opposing wall rushed to meet him, rebounding from his belly as a reverberating drum. Stretching with his puffy arms, Nathan felt his fingers trawl through the leaves of the climbing vine, seeking purchase. He was rewarded by a solid tug, as the plant entangled in his fingers. Fighting the pressure that tried to immobilise his body Nathan attempted to bring his other hand around...but at that moment was convulsed by a final surge of gas. It was as if the impact with the wall stirred the remnants of his magical drink, releasing a new maelstrom of bubbles through him. With a soft spooooing his lower arms plumped out as one, drawn to the side of his body so that he lay spread-eagled against the wall. Strain as he might, the flux internal gas held him rigid; a blow-up doll rapidly assuming spherical dimensions.
Slowly, inevitably, he fell backwards, defeated. Turning his head as much as he was able, Nathan could see the length of vine still trailed from fingers clumsily swollen with gas. Yet the tightness he experienced was somehow cool and delicious, making him want to ride its promise. All his senses seemed compressed between the tautness of his form and the residual flush of inflation; now blowing him up with a hollow whine. The sights and sounds of the garden were subdued, and only idly came the graze of warm paving against his expanded skin. Scuffing the ground oh-so-lightly, Nathan's world rolled out from under him as his body rotated; belly-buoyed towards the sky. Somehow a last element of real fear intruded at its immensity. "Down," he thought wildly "I'm a human being. We don't float. Down. Stay down". But whatever magical helium was filling him had its own ideas.
"Please.....help me......" he gasped at the last, eyes imploring his tormentor. But she gave no sign; captive within her own circle as he was likewise held in his. He felt perilously poised; the slightest zephyr now threatening to pluck him from the ground.
It happened quickly; his ankles swollen, Nathan feels rather than sees one foot pop out of his tan suede shoes. "Italian leather", he thinks, distantly, "just in case the boss noticed". The shoe fell to the flagstones, compassing the ground; his foot drew lazy circles in midair. He felt so light, his buoyancy so natural, like the air itself was vibrant with tides trying to bear him up and up. Why should he fear it? The other shoe dropped, pulled away by jealous gravity. A strange feeling of levity pervaded him.
Slowly, helplessly, the young man started to rise, lighter-than-air.
"Uh-uh....uh " He tried to articulate, cries were muted by the gas within. "Fu....fu....floa..floating."
Gracefully, silently, the dusty flagstones, their crazed pattern, seemed to glide away. Nathan twisted in the grasp of turgid air; a captive, sky-bound. From the corner of his eye, he saw the ground receding from underneath him, his cast shadow creeping away from his body , One foot, two foot....his ascent was gaining speed as the residual gas filled him out. He couldn't stop. A crest of sunlight broke over his rounded form. In a few moments he was above the encircling wall; the horizon of the low city spread about him. The glance took in the world he was leaving behind; the dull hum of the cars, the people distant; downtrodden where he was uplifted.
With a sharp elastic twang his ascent halted. The thin tendril of the climbing vine remained looped about his arm. Lazily he spun about its fulcrum, head down, feet high, a dozen foot in the air. Tethered between heaven and earth. The last moments of inflation exhaust themselves within him to a deep rippling flush, taking him to the edge. For slow heartbeats the vine grew tight as his upward lift became stronger and stronger, but did not part. All the while his inflated body waved like a sail in the wind, his ballooned cock pointing the way to the north star: but at least he had stopped rising. Thin, squeaking gasps escaped Nathan's throat, hoping against hope for this deliverance.
Seemingly far below, Bellydemon pushed her hair from her eyes, looking up at her buoyant creation; scowling the limits of her strange gas as it rounds him to a taut, near-perfect sphere.
"Well, here we are," she breathed, "captor and captive.... But which of us is going to escape first? Oh stop struggling; you might as well enjoy it. You know some people would love to be in your condition; to drift up so very light, so very floaty?"
"No....no...don't let me float....float away...." Nathan implored her; his thin voice strangely accented with the pressure and the helium. Yet for a moment the journalist thought Bellydemon was listening to his entreaties. And for another moment he did not want her too. Then she walked forward, and with almost perfect insouciance scuffed a line in the thaumaturlogical circle.
"One more thing you should know" she said, looking up at him, "Cow bone isn't really a very good substitute for a human femur; the marrow smells wrong."
Walking calmly across she reached out to seize the thin tether that kept him earthbound. For a moment her face was upturned towards her prey; out of reach and yet wholly within her grasp. In a flash of recognition Nathan seemed to behold her fully; feminine, alluring, playful, and utterly dangerous. She crowned her revealed essence with a wicked grin; tugging on the entangling vine with diabolic strength. Unable to resist its tension, the young man found himself bobbing downwards sharply. For a heart-stopping moment he thought that things would end explosively; balloony body drifted to within a hands breadth of gleaming bone on the demon's horns. He braced, expecting the end and....found the gasses within him re-asserting themselves. Slowing, then suspended in the air, then rising helplessly back up like a helium yo-yo; his relief was momentary. This time he was rising faster than his original ascent with a fiercer purer momentum. The very next instant the thin vine snapped tight with a sharp hum that ended flat. Distractedly, Nathan saw his tether part to wispy strands just above his tormentor’s wrist.
He started to float upwards again. No tether this time.
"CATCH ME!" he squeaked, in final effort. He feet and arms waved futilely at the air, but he was already above the height were she could have caught him even if she had leaped. Her voice called up from below.
"Silly balloon-boy, I'd love to, but I'm not allowed remember?" The mockery was gentle, the demon's mimicry almost sympathetic, as if curious at her prey's sensation. "I'm not sure if you're quite gassy enough; betwixt to burst in thinner climes, or float forever...but I think this is bye-bye....."
Helpless as an escaped balloon, Nathan felt himself rising into the warm evening air, but the sensation was so delicious he had a hard time focussing on his predicament. Soon he was above the house, then the tallest trees; the people and cars below shrinking in the early evening twilight. A hundred foot became two, then three. He could feel every inch of the gas within pushing him up, and up; the thin coolness of the air shedding the city like a blanket of dust. Helium-buoyant, the young man rose in lazy circles, following his inflated belly towards thin contours of evening-cloud set in the deep of the sky. Only part of him blanched at his new nature, for now thoughts and cares drifted as passengers on the wind. His whole awareness was bubble-light; trapped within an enormous flesh-toned balloon lifting towards the heavens. Lost to the sky’s immensity.
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Coda
She turned away, cinder and vermillion flame muted by charcoal shadows from the house. Her motions are angelic in poise; the earth revolted her and she trod lightly - very lightly - upon it. Perhaps the next human would understand that and embrace her blessing? Leaning down at last, she selected a filofax from amidst the tattered clothing and sought an entry from within its pages. She should have guessed how he found her, but did not want to hope,
"Still alive." Her heart raced the words. "In Kaerludein. Lud's Town. London"