Portia's Speech from the Merchant of Venice (Excerpt):
The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,
Upon the place beneath.
It is twice blessed.
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.We all do pray for mercy
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.--William Shakespeare
Jean was not looking forward to going out to hang up her laundry. It was a hot Saturday morning and she would rather stay inside. But that would mean using the dryer, which heated up the house faster than the relentless sun. She stopped for a moment, put down the plastic laundry basket, and turned on the air conditioner.
'Should be cooler when I come back in,' she figured, then grabbed the basket handles and headed out onto the porch.
The clothes line ran from a hook on the post of Jean's back porch to a maple tree in her back yard. A small table from a garage sale waited to receive the laundry basket so Sue did not have to keep bending over to pick up the heavy, wet laundry. She had no sooner put the laundry basket on the table when a hand with a cloth reached around from behind and covered her face. The ether on the cloth did its job quickly.
Sue awoke to find her arms tied around the tree behind her. She instinctively struggled, only to find a rope from one ankle to the other, also tied around the tree.
A shadow on the ground moved around from behind her. She cringed as she recognized her husband.
"Ted! Untie me this instant!" she demanded.
Ted just smiled as he walked directly in front of her.
"Hello sweetie pie," was his reply. "You should keep your doors locked. You can never tell who might walk in."
Jean tried to kick him where she knew it would hurt, but there was not enough slack in the rope.
"I'll rip your face off!" she screamed.
"Now is that any way to greet your honey?" The smile on Ted's face reminded Jean of the Cheshire Cat.
"You can't come here anymore!" Jean screamed again.
"Aw, but we're still husband and wife," Ted looked down at his watch, "for another six hours."
"But I have a restraining order!" Jean protested.
"Call a cop," was Ted's curt answer.
"What do you want?" Jean shouted.
"I guess that's a reasonable question." Ted reached out to caress Jean's cheek, but she turned away. Ted turned his back on her and Jean struggled again at her bonds.
"Just wanted to come back and see the place."
Ted turned back to Jean and stepped right up to her. "Know what I mean? This place? Our place! MY place!" He started to snarl. "Before you and your fancy lawyer took it away from me at that bad excuse for a divorce trial!" He was almost nose to nose with Jean and she tried again to lunge at him. If she could only lock her teeth onto his nose.
"But," Ted continued, "just to show you there are no hard feelings I've decided to treat you to a singularly unique treat."
Ted reached into his back right pocket and pulled out a brown leather case. He unzipped it to reveal a two piece hypodermic syringe kit. As he screwed the needle onto the end of the syringe Jean started to struggle against her bonds in earnest.
"Ted! What are you doing?"
"Please don't hurt yourself," Ted mocked. "That would spoil *everything*."
Ted pushed the plunger until a small jet of fluid in the syringe spouted into the air. As he approached Jean, she moved to her left.
"Ted! Don't"
She did not know what else to do except keep retreating around the tree. She wanted to keep as much distance between her and the needle as possible. Ted laughed at Jean's futile attempt to elude him.
"Gonna make me chase you, eh?" he laughed.
Jean kept moving around the tree until she was back to where she started. Ted following her in a wider circle, pointing the dripping needle at her. Jean was half way around the tree again when Ted's face appeared over her right shoulder.
"Where you gonna run to now?" he said with a sneer.
Jean turned her head, again hoping to grab Ted's nose.
Jean winced in pain as Ted jabbed her right forearm. A moment later Ted pulled the empty hypodermic from beneath her skin.
"What was that?" Jean cried.
"You'll find out," Ted answered with a toothy smile.
As he turned to walk towards the porch, Jean felt a rumbling in her stomach. She couldn't think of food at a time like this! She had to find out what Ted had done and get help.
Ted picked the coiled garden hose up off the ground, gave the faucet a turn, and started walking back towards Jean.
Her stomach rumbled again. This time louder. She was not concerned about being hungry, but her mouth and lips had gone dry. She licked her lips to moisten them.
"Thirsty, hon?" Ted asked.
Jean found herself yearning for the water as her stomach rumbled once more. This time loud enough for Ted to hear it. The inside of her mouth was dry. Her tongue was dry. Her cheeks were dry.
"Sound's like somebody missed a meal," Ted said. But he knew better. "Maybe some cool water would help."
Ted lifted the hose towards Jeans mouth. She leaned forward as far as she could, mouth open, tongue sticking out. Anticipation of drink was her only thought. At the last moment Ted turned the hose sideways and brought it up to his own lips.
"Hmmmmm," he purred.
"Ted!" Jean was now desperate for the water.
Another loud rumble in Jean's mid-section drew Ted's smiling gaze.
"You say something dear?" he managed between sips.
"Ted! PLe-e-a-se!" Jean shrieked.
Ted pulled away from the water and cocked his head toward Jean.
"You can ask nicer than that," he said. The smile faded from his lips.
With tears welling up in her eyes, Jean moaned in a soft tone, "Please Ted. Please."
"Sure Jean," he said, as if all was forgiven.
He lifted the hose to Jean's lips just as her gut began another loud long rumble. She took took nozzle and an inch of hose into her mouth. Her eyes closed with releif as she swallowed mouthful after mouthful. Not a drop of water escaped her.
"I suppose I should let you in on our little secret," Ted whispered. Jean heard him, but her attention was focused on the cool, refreshing liquid flowing across her dry tongue.
"You know Tony from Juniper Chemicals?" He waited a moment to be sure Jean was not going to answer him. He reached both hands to Jean's breasts and started rubbing them. Jean mewed with pleasure at the sensation. Ted rubbed and watched as her tits started to bulge, pushing her shirt forward into his hands. His face showed no sign of surprise.
"He came up with this additive for Christmas Tree holders to keep the pine needles from falling off."
Jean's adam's apple kept bobbing up and down as she swallowed more and more water.
Ted continued to rub her swelling tits. Her tummy started to expand, pulling Jean's shirt tighter. She soon looked six months pregnant.
"Only problem is there was this nasty side effect when he tested it on the rats."
Jean's breasts started spilling out the top of her shirt as she gulped down the water. Jean started to quiver under Ted's attention to her breasts. Jean went weak and sagged to the ground on her knees. Still, not a drop of water was wasted as she slathered herself.
"It seems that the water is pulled into the cells by some sort of osmosis."
Jean's blue jeans tightened as her rear end pushed back, up, and out. Her gams grew to fill every inch of space in her pants legs.
Somewhere in Jean's mind a warning rang out. She let the nozzle fall from her lips, spitting out the water still in her mouth.
"Wha..?" she muttered. Jean gasped in horror as she looked down at her once trim form. She looked eight months pregnant. The front of her shirt pushed away from her front. Gaping holes from button to button revealed newly formed cleavage. The pockets on her jeans were stretched open, as was the flap in front of her zipper.
"Yeah," Ted continued, as if her question pertained simply to his explanation.
"Moisture is sucked into the cells, leaving nothing for surface lubrication. Like the mouth, lips, tongue, or intestinal juices."
As if on cue, Jean's stomach gave out a low rumble. Ted picked up the hose, took a step back, then dropped the hose on the ground.
Jean felt her mouth go dry again. Then her lips. Then her tongue.
Her stomach rumbled again, and she found herself pulling at her bonds with fury anew. This time the rope broke and she moved for the hose, but her feet were still tied around the tree and she fell. It took at least three seconds for her body to stop sloshing back and forth. Ted had dropped the hose just out of reach. Jean, now flat on her stomach, scooped the water on the grass toward her. She had to stretch her neck to reach over her tits to the ground.
Ted picked up the hose and brought it to her.
"Here you go."
Jean grabbed it with both hands. She pounced on the nozzle. She lifted herself up onto her elbows as she once again quenched her now unending thirst. Her gut and boobs pushed her shirt into the ground.
"Never say I didn't give you anything."
Ted watched as Jean drank without ceasing, and her stomach and breasts continued their growth as they sponged up the water. Kneeling in front of her, Ted went back to stroking her breasts. Jean's bloated form shivered as an incredible orgasm shook her.
The buttons on her shirt gave up one by one, flying past Ted's head like missiles. The front of her shirt flew open and Jean's water swelled tits fell into Ted's waiting hands.
Ted pulled the hanging mams forward, out from under Jean's billowing form, so they would grow toward him.
The seams in Jeans pants creaked as they gave way to her ballooning butt. The sides finally gave out at the pockets and the two triangular rips slowly spread until her pant legs were split to her knees.
Ted had started using both hands to rub circles around Jean's now dinner plate sized aureola. From time to time he would tweak a nipple. Each time Jean moaned with pleasure.
Jeans zipper split open as it lost its battle against the strain. Then the button on the front of the jeans popped. The top of the zipper held out for a few moments, then broke. Jean's waist was now free to expand and quickly made up for lost time.
Jean was soon lifted to her knees as her paunch grew. Her elbows left the ground as her breasts pushed her up. Her thumb size nipples now chest high with Ted. She was eventually lifted from her knees as she filled with gallon after gallon of fluid.
Ted saw the hose pinned under her left breast and pulled the it out from under her.
Jean climaxed again as the movement caused her monstrous left boob to jiggle like a giant water balloon. The motion was passed on to its right twin. Each tit was now the size of bean bag chairs. Jean kept swallowing like her life depended on it.
With the hose out of danger of pulling itself free of Jean's mouth, Ted patted her on her left boob and said, "Back in a sec."
He walked back to the faucet and turned it off.
"NO-o-o," cried Jean.
"If you insist," replied Ted
He turned the water back on. Jean anxiously waited for the pressure to return. Seeing she was satisfied, Ted turned the knob more to the left. Jean was surprised at first to the faster flow, but quickly adjusted to it. Ted turned the knob again and again until the faucet was wide open.
Jean still had both hands around the hose as she held it to her mouth.
Ted returned to the mushrooming form of his soon to be ex. Her arms were pushed apart as her water laden boobs spread sideways. Ted got a moan from Jean as he rubbed her again. He took her left hand and, with some effort, pulled it away from the hose and made Jean rub herself. She was delighted at the feeling she gave herself. When Ted let go, she kept rubbing. He went around to the other side and did the same thing with her other hand.
He walked behind her and, seeing how her legs were in the air, grabbed an ankle and started her rubbing her the inside of her thigh against her distended abdomen. He then went around and started the other leg.
Stepping back, Ted had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing out loud at the air born doggy paddle he saw.
As Jean's boobs continued expanding, her cleavage crept up over her shoulders onto her back. This was met by tit flesh coming up from her ribs. The swelling of her stomach reached back to her bulbous butt. The distinction between front and back disappeared. Her gut pushed back between her legs, pushing her pubic mound back and pointing it upward.
Her upper arms filled out, resembling safety cones. Her tit flesh soon advanced on this new area until only her forearms were visible, still rubbing the growing orbs like she was riding an exercise bicycle.
Her thighs, likewise, had swelled larger, making their presence known for a moment before swallowed up by her expanding abdomen.
The vertebrae on her back disappeared beneath evenly spread skin. The small of her back diminished like a camera lens changing its focus until it too disappered.
Jean's hands and feet could not have reached the ground if she tried.
The three orbs under her begun to blend together. The curves of her tits met the swell of her gut on the ground. Only by thinking of Jean as having a front and back could Ted imagine where they should have separated. Ted walked back to the porch again, this time briefly entering the house and coming out toting a gym bag.
He set it down near where Jean's left foot protruded from her side. The rest of her leg had disappeared within the mass of flesh she had become. Her left hand was also all that was visible to indicate where her arm had been.
Ted unzipped the bag and pulled out a large red plastic reel. It was mounted on a spike, which he drove it into the ground with his foot. He then took the end of the twine on the reel and tied it to Jean's foot. He then untied the tree rope from Jean's left foot and threw it back out of the way.
Jean's form continued to balloon up, becoming more and more spherical. Her back rose until it was as high up from Jean's shoulders as the ground was down. Her form was as high as the second story windows. For a moment she seemed perfectly round, then she started to sag under her titanic weight. For a moment, her cells could not absorb any more water. Jean let the hose slip from her lips.
It took a few moments for her to become completely aware of her situation. Only her hands, feet and head gave any indication that the wobbly mountain of flesh had once been a person.
"What have you done to me?" she wailed. "I'm HUGE."
"Huge isn't the word for it." Ted said as he walked over to the hose and picked it up. "Gigantic, tremendous, colossal. Those words hardly even begin to describe you."
He stroked her side as he walked along her.
"Stop that!" Jean protested, not wanting to give Ted the pleasure of arousing her. She was not going to let him control her!
"Can't condemn a man for admiring his handiwork."
"handiwork?" Jean shook herself violently as if to shed her new skin like a snake. Then she would show Ted a thing or two.
"Don't you like it?" Ted asked sarcastically.
Jean said nothing, knowing it would only encourage Ted. He would get around to things quicker if he got bored with the present situation.
Ted had worked his way around to where her pussy, now eye level, puckered out and up. For a moment, Ted raised his left hand and made a fist. For a moment he considered really giving Jean something to think about, but decided against it. Instead, he looked at the gushing hose in his right hand and realized that was more suited to the situation.
"Personally," Ted yelled from behind her to be sure she heard, "I think we can do better."
With that he stuck the hose between her labia and pushed.
"Don't!" Jean bellowed.
Too late. Ted had pushed the hose at least two feet into her. Jean tried to push it out with her vaginal muscles, but it was up past them. All she managed to do was excite herself as she stimulated herself as if using a vibrator.
She started breathing in synch with her flexings. She found herself trying to pull the hose farther into her with each breath.
And again she started growing. Only now the growth was outward instead of upward, and her spherical shape soon disappeared. Her flexes caused ripples of movement under her skin. She felt water pushing up into her. Pressure began to build up as more and more water saturated her every cell.
After a few minutes, Ted had made a complete tour of Jean's perimeter. The hose now protruded from Jean at eye level. Two D-battery nipples were all that indicated where breasts show be. There was no cleavage. Just one smooth curve from toe to head and back around.
Ted stepped back and looked up at Jean's face.
"I suppose you expect me to relieve you of all that excess water now," Ted teased.
Jean was too involved trying to flex her cunt as far forward as possible to bother answering. If she could only get it up into her a little more she would be satisfied. Then she could think about other things. There was something. Something. It would come to her eventually.
"Okay, you got it," Ted called up to Jean head as if she had in fact answered.
Jean saw Ted reach into his back left pocket. He pulled out a second hypodermic kit, screwed the needle onto it and squeezed the plunger slightly until a stream of the second solution jetted out. He approached her left breast.
"No," Jean protested, the hose still adding to her mass.
"Not there! I'll POP!"
Ted thought about it for a moment, then walked around to where her left hand protruded from her side.
"I have to get a ladder," he chuckled.
The few minutes Ted was out of sight seemed like forever.
Jean was trying to think. But her hormones had taken over, and they commanded her to concentrate on the hose and her sexual rapture.
Ted returned with a step ladder and positioned it next to her arm. The second rung from the top was under her left hand. He had to go up to the fourth step before he could reach her hand and give her the injection.
Jean felt the sting of the needle, and a moment later Ted was standing back in front of her. Ted's inadequate procedure had caused enough pain that Jean's mind momentarily cleared.
"YOU BASTARD!" she screamed. Now that she thought Ted had undone his deed she was ready to rip his head off.
"Get that hose out of me!" she demanded. "You think you had it bad before?" she continued. "Just you wait! You're going to pay for this! You're going to jail! You wait 'til I talk to my lawyer! I'm going to have you stripped to the bone! I'm going to... I'm going to.. I-uh-I-oh-oo-ooooo-
-OOF- "
Jean's eyes opened wide as she realized something new was happening from within.
"What's happening? What IS that?"
A new noise was coming from inside Jean. Not the loud rumble like before, but a soft hissing. Jean felt more pressure build up inside her.
"I'm still getting larger!" Jean shrieked.
"You don't miss a thing," Ted retorted.
"But you said you were going to shrink me back to normal!"
"I said no such thing," Ted corrected. "I said I would relieve you of all that excess water, and that's what I'm doing."
Ted laughed as he reached into his pockets. He pulled a lighter from his front left, and his Swiss Army knife from the side panel of his left boot.
"You will soon be rid of all that excess water, my dear. The only problem is that it is being turned into gas. From two molecules of water you will get one molecule of oxygen, and two molecules of hydrogen.
Jean's eyes grew wide as she realized what Ted was saying.
"You mean I'm going to triple in size? I can't! I'll bust!"
"No you won't," Ted assured her. "A property of the original liquid is to make the cells expand as much as necessary to accomodate the water. It will also let the cells expand for gas."
Jean could do nothing as her ballooning was now compounded by the gases forming within her. Her form started to regain its spherical shape.
'And that damned hose is still in me!' she realized.
Soon she felt the skin around her nipples pulling in all directions, reforming her breasts as they grew outward, then lifted up as pockets of gas rose to the top of them.
She started to experience another sexual rush as her labia were likewise pulled in all directions. She started to flex again, almost against her will. She had to stop. She squirmed a little, trying to ease the distraction. She was going to need her wits to get out of this one. She was sure. Ted had to make a mistake sooner or later, and when he did, POW! she would be all over him like white on rice!
"One more thing," Ted added.
Jean tried to find a way to stop the tingle that was engulfing her entire body, flooding her mind with sensations that all seemed to end at her nipples and clitoris. Every move she made only heightened the sensations.
"Oxygen and hydrogen are the gases they used to use in rockets."
Ted flicked his lighter to life. Jean would have cringed back, had she been able to. Instead, she shook herself more to give herself pleasure more than to avoid the threatening flame.
"What we're going to do next, is have our own little launching."
Jean was not sure what he meant by that. She knew it was not going to be good, but all her attention was focused on causing as much motion as possible. If she could only get to her feet and jump up and down, she knew it would be heaven. Instead, she rocked in place like a giant water bed.
"There is 100 yards of twine on this spindle. That's three hundred feet in case you don't remember."
'I don't need your sarcasm,' Jean thought to herself. "I need you bounce me around," she muttered without really knowing she was speaking.
Ted was surprised and confused by her statement. He waited a moment to see if she was going to say anything else.
As he waited, her back started to rise up and out as the hydrogen rich gases sought the highest point, while Jean's stomach rippled from the water still in her. Her breasts rose slightly, the nipples trying to point straight up as the water within change to oxygen and hydrogen. Her nipples reached higher than the house. Almost as high as the tree.
The lift from the gases eventually overpowered the weight of the fluid still inside Jean, (and still pouring in from the hose), and she slowly lifted off the ground.
Jean's convulsions slowed momentarily as she felt the ground fall away beneath her. 'I'm flying,' she thought.
Ted realized she had nothing else to say, so he continued his speech.
"After you get up there, I'm going to cut the line."
Jean pivoted as the twine on her ankle held that part of her down. She twitched the ankle, not so much to shake the twine off, but to heighten her feelings.
"Of course that's after I light the twine here."
Ted waved the lighter towards the line tethering Jean. He looked up to see the look on Jean's face, but she her eyes were closed. Jean was in her own little world of sexual bliss.
"Shouldn't take to long. I soaked the twine in lighter fluid."
Ted looked up, hoping he had regained his audience. It was no fun. Jean was supposed to be horrified. Instead, she was all but thoroughly enjoying herself.
"Should be quite a show when it catches up to you." Ted suddenly felt he was talking to himself.
Ted played out the twine. Ted chuckled as Jean's flexing made her bob and twist ridiculously in the air. When she reached about twenty feet up, the hose ran out of slack and pulled itself from Jean.
Jean screamed in ecstasy as the orgasm this caused swept over her. Then again, and again, again. The pressure of the gases inside her would not let her climax end.
The twine unwound to where it was tied to the spool and Ted flicked the lighter to life. He reached over, and lit the two hundred yard fuse. As the flame began its climb towards its gaseous target, Ted put the lighter in his pocket and reached for his knife. Before he could open the blade, the twine burned through. No longer taught from Jean's lighter than air pull, it now waved like a freed snake as she floated skyward.
"Up, up and away." Ted roared. "Say hello to the man in the moon!"
Ted watched Jean rise higher and higher.
And the flame got closer.
Jean was still writhing in orgasmic bliss as pressure continued to build within her.
And the flame got closer.
Ted knew Jean had to be expanding faster. The pressure inside would have less air pressure outside as she rose. Still, her outline got smaller as she got farther away.
And the flame got closer.
Jean's breaths became short pants. Ted thought he heard a dog barking.
And the flame got closer.
Ted shaded his eyes with hand right hand. Jean was becoming a distant dot in the sky.
And the flame got closer.
Ted reached into his gym bag and pulled out a pair of binoculars.
And the flame got closer.
Jean could no longer breath, but the oxygen from the reaction going on from within sustained her as she rose, mouth open in a silent scream of ecstacy.
And the flame got closer.
Ted watched the diminishing form and realized he should have only used one hundred yards of twine instead of two. Ted caught himself thinking 'Maybe next time,' but realized there would be no next time. Both serums were gone and he was done with them.
And Jean.
And the flame got closer.
The cool wind of the air on Jean's nipples kept her oblivious to her predicament.
And the flame reach Jean's foot.
Ted's dot in the sky briefly became a blinding flash. A moment later the shock of explosion knocked Ted off his feet.
"Better than the Fourth of July!" he yelled triumphantly.
Filled with a sense of self satisfaction, Ted walked back to the porch and turned the faucet off. He went back to the tree and gathered the remains of the ropes he had used to tie Jean to the tree, then pulled the spool out of the ground, put them, and the remains of Jeans clothes, into the gym bag, swung the bag over his shoulder and headed back toward the porch again.
He was rid of Jean. And with no Jean, no divorce settlement. His house was again HIS house. All that was left was to get rid of Jean's things. Her pictures. Her paintings. Her plants. Her curtains and her damned drapes!
As he finished coiling the hose, a fine mist fell from above. He looked up at the blue cloudless sky.
'Sun shower,' he figured.
As he went to drop the coiled hose, his stomach gave a brief rumble. Ted, suddenly thirsty, turned the water back on, lifting the nozzle to his lips for a quick sip. But once he started drinking, he did not want to stop. He drank long and hard.
His stomach started filling out his shirt. It became uncomfortably tight. He fumbled with the buttons as he opened the faucet all the way.
He thought he heard a hissing from somewhere, but ignored it.
With the hose hanging from his mouth, all his thoughts were focused on turning the knob; how to get more water out of the hose.