Reception, The

Unfortunately for Charlotte, the truth isn't exactly 'out there' it's more 'in there'.

Charlotte moved around the reception with a graceful and confident gait that naturally attracted a lot of attention from the male dignitaries. At 5'9" she was quite tall with long slender legs and an hourglass figure, she wore a clingy lavender-grey cocktail dress and had her ash blonde hair up at the front, under a tiara but allowed the back and sides to cascade down her body, sliding over her shoulders and stroking the sides of her well endowed bust. She moved through the gathering of people like a leopard stalking through long grass; making darting looks either side of her, her target, a small door just to the side of the buffet table. A man caught her eyes as she glanced slightly nervously over her left shoulder, she smiled, slightly coyly trying to make him think it was just a flirtatious look. She recognised him as the chief undersecretary to the ambassador, a man she should really try to avoid. A slight smile fleetingly appeared on his face, barely perceptible, more of a smirk really, or a spasm; then he looked away and Charlotte relaxed. Then the music stopped and the room lights dimmed, the stage across the room was lit by a spotlight and the ambassador stepped up to it, with everyone's backs to Charlotte as they faced the chief diplomat she took the opportunity to slip quietly through the door marked 'Embassy Personnel Only'.

On the other side of the door was a small hallway with another door on the opposite wall, softly Charlotte padded across the carpeted room to the door which had a combination lock. The code to the lock had been given to Charlotte in her briefing; she had the recon team to thank for that. '1666' she typed it into the keypad, there was a bleep which caused her to jump and look round nervously; of course no-one could hear, it was so quiet really and they were all listening to a speech on forging a better understanding between the two nations. To Charlotte's employers understanding another nation was like understanding a person, you had to dig deep, find out what made them tick and often without them knowing, the human mind could trick you so easily otherwise.

As quietly as possible, Charlotte pushed the door open, it made a huffing sound as it pushed over the carpet. She went through into a stairwell and shut the door behind her. The stairwell was more airy, with marble on the stairs and a large wall to wall, window across from her. As she made her way down the stairs her footsteps echoed round the building and she had to carefully edge down one step at a time, lest she be heard. At the bottom of the stairs she went through a double door into a laboratory which she also had the code for. It was dark inside, but rather than turn a light on she flicked out a small torch and panned around the room. It was a small, cramped lab, only used for embassy business, it didn't look like the kind of place you might find a top secret weapon prototype, more like a school lab, messed up with dated equipment. Her torch picked up a steel case and she went over and opened it; inside was a small bullet shaped, silver cartridge; the prototype. She didn't know exactly what it was, that was what they were hoping to discover, the weapon was obviously inside the cartridge, so it must be very small though. She took the prototype and slipped it into a pocket sewn into her dress, it didn't matter that she'd stolen it, there were delegates here from over 50 countries, it could be any one of them. She was about to leave the lab, when she heard footsteps above.

"Someone's been through here" said a male voice, speaking in the language of the embassy, in which Charlotte was fluent. Charlotte ran towards the door of the lab and peeked out, she could see shadows moving down the stairs outside; she rushed through the lab shut herself in a cupboard, she saw a ventilation shaft and clambered inside.

Fortunately for Charlotte, she was able to find her way through the ventilation system to the female toilets, from where she could emerge back into the reception without anyone realising she had gone, however when she came out there was a lot of commotion, a loudspeaker was announcing an 'uncertain hazard within the embassy' and asking everyone to evacuate the building. Charlotte followed along with a line of people as they filed out of the reception suite, but in the main foyer she saw a pair of burly security guards moving up the line frisking each delegate and checking them with a metal detector. Fearing that she was about to be discovered, Charlotte took the prototype unseen from her dress and held her hand to her mouth as if to cough, she then put the prototype into her mouth and swallowed. She felt the heavy metal object sliding down her oesophagus and into her stomach. Just at that moment the guards reached her. They conducted a full body search both by hand and with the detector, Charlotte stood as still a possible, worried that they would notice her nervousness, she was sweating profusely. She had to stifle a sigh of relief when one of guards nodded affirmatively to her and they moved to the next person.

Charlotte continued in the line, moving towards the exit, when she began to feel slightly gassy, she rubbed her stomach with her hands and noticed it was feeling a bit bloated, as though something she'd eaten had caused a bit of trapped wind. She felt the heaviness of the canister in her stomach and immediately began to wonder what it contained, if maybe that was causing the bloating. She felt a burbling within her belly and grasped it again, this time it felt even more bloated and she felt it grow slightly. She gasped and looked down to see her midriff pushing out, wrinkling her dress, which she could feel tightening against her distended abdomen. She rubbed the fabric of the dress against it and tried to push it back in but it felt buoyant, like an inflated ball and sprang back out again; she let the silk fabric slide back down her front and glanced around, nobody had noticed her situation so she shuffled forward slightly. Then there was a clearly audible groan from her stomach at it inflated further, the noise caught the attention of a few people and they saw her belly swell outwards, stretching her dress until it looked like she was 4 months pregnant.

"Are you OK"? asked a concerned looking lady in front of Charlotte.

"I... err, think so" Charlotte replied hesitantly, trying to hide the look of shock spreading across her face, and attract as little attention as possible "I think it's something that was in that stew". There was another loud groan from Charlotte's belly and she immediately grasped her swollen stomach and felt it expanding, pushing her hands apart, and blowing up like a balloon; and not only her belly, but she felt her dress tightening around her thighs and buttocks and a shifting sensation in her bra. This time she got the attention of more of the crowd, including the security guards who were a few people behind her; they looked on suspiciously and started conferring with each other. Charlotte rubbed her hands around her buttocks, which did indeed feel larger, and her breasts had definitely inflated from a D cup to an E. She wondered what sort of gas the secret weapon contained, and if what was happening to her was it's intended effect or some side effect of that fact she'd swallowed it. This though was cut off by more urgent matters, the next surge of gas inside of her caused a loud creak and she squealed slightly, looking around at the crowd of people, all eyes on her, ensured she had the attention of everyone in the room. Everyone certainly then heard the faint hissing that started to come from inside her and could see her visibly expanding. Her belly had pumped up to the point where it looked like she was 9 months pregnant, except it looked rounder; her breasts were the size of an F cup, but like her belly, looking rounder and tauter than normal flesh, as though she were being inflated by pressure from within. Her buttocks were filling out like two beach balls under her dress, and her hips widening, but acquiring a more rounded shape. Her bulging belly and ass were lifting her dress up towards her knees and causing it to stretch tremendously and her whole body was trembling, though Charlotte could not be sure whether this was through fear of what was happening to her or the strain of the pressure pumping her up. She looked like there were several round balloons inflating beneath her dress, stretching it to its limits, but around the tops of her breasts, where they bulged out of her dress she could clearly see it was her body being inflated. At that point the inflation began to spread over her whole body, causing first her thighs, and then her calves and arms to pump up with the gas, until she could feel the buoyancy of her arms against her sides and the insides of her legs pressing against each other so that they pushed each other apart. She felt the pressure rising up her throat and then suddenly, her cheeks puffed up with the gas, which choked her slightly, she tried to blow it out again, but they quickly filled up, so that all she was doing was making frantic little puffs; and teetering around as she struggled to balance with her ballooning legs and arms being pushed outwards. She was struggling to bend her limbs against the pressure and talking had become impossible with little muffled squeals the only noises she could make, along with the creaking and groaning now coming from inside her body and the popping sound of the seams in her dress beginning to blow.

Charlotte felt how tight her underwear felt under her dress as she continued to bloat up, stretching her clothes more and more till she looked and felt like a giant parade balloon, waddling around trying to stay on her feet, her breasts had blown up to about 4 feet across each and were starting to obstruct her vision, she could see them rising, blocking out even more of the surrounding room, she tried to reach them with her hands but she was too inflated to move. She could now see the ambassador conferring with the chief undersecretary she saw before, she could hear them discussing the situation.

"I think she must have stolen the weapon."

"A spy, huh, well she'll get what she deserves, tell everyone to clear the area, and try to get her outside, when she blows it'll be big, and messy, I don't want any of my embassy damaged".

Explode! Charlotte thought, this was terrible, but as she pumped up bigger and bigger it seemed that bursting was inevitable, just how long would it take? She felt two pairs of hands either side of her expanding waist, which was now stretched wide like a blimp. She saw it was the two security guards trying to move her to where she would cause as little damage as possible, she could barely see them but she could feel their hands grappling with her taut, round belly as they pushed her towards the doors, it was slow going and she bobbed and bounced about, unable to control her own movements, it was like she were a balloon floating gently around the room, or a blimp about to take flight. Then there was the strained creaking as she inflated bigger and bigger; so big, she felt the pressure building up and up inside her, forcing her, already turgid body to expand further, beyond its limits. She had inflated up to 8 or 10 times her normal volume, like a parade balloon, with her dress stretched across her body like latex, pulled so high up that her black silk panties were visible underneath, stretched tight between her legs so that she could feel the seams digging in to her flesh. Charlotte knew this couldn't go on much longer, she just willed the end to come, why couldn't she just blow, and release all this pressure, the pressure of the gas.

She was snapped out of this delirium by the bump she felt on her sides as she reached the big glass faced entrance, she could feel the sides of the doorway on the front of her belly and the bite of the cold outside in the middle of winter, there was no way she was fitting though. The security guards behind her pushed up against her drum tight backside, but their hands just pressed into her, causing her whole body to flex, like a balloon being squeezed. Then she bounced back, and felt the guards hands disappear and then a thump as they had been knocked to the floor. Soon there were more and more people trying to force her through the door she felt them all, their hands rubbing over her ever growing butt, looking for purchase to push her through, but only succeeding in wedging her in tight, and she continued to swell up and the hissing inside her continued so that the creaks were beginning to come from the doorway as well.

"It's no use" said the ambassador's voice, "we'll all just have to try and get out ourselves past her." She felt the hands again, along the insides of her legs, pushing through until she could feel people squeezing between them and out into the cold wintry air; and see them over the two giant orbs of breast blocking her vision. The people stood far back on the lawn and watched her, awestruck, some of them couldn't bear to look, or were covering their ears. It couldn't be long now, She heard a deep long groan and couldn't be sure whether it was coming from her or the doorway.

Still bigger she blew up, the pressure she felt inside her was immense, and still growing, her body was huge and taut, and rounded, filling the entire doorway and her stomach protruded at least six feet out into the open air, with her butt protruding as far inside. She couldn't do anything with her hands but grip the doorway tight as the creaking grew louder, she saw her body bulge forwards in one last surge, the pressure grew and she just managed to squeeze a muffled "Oh No!" between inflated cheeks before...

B'BOOM!

Epilogue

The sound of Charlotte finally exploding echoed around the embassy grounds and shattered the glass in the entrance hall. People standing too close were knocked from their feet by the blast and everyone felt the rush of warm smoky air, the gas causing them to gag slightly. Shreds of Charlottes lavender/grey dress and silk black underwear were blown to great distances covering everyone on the lawn, with smaller scraps continuing to fall like snow caught up in the wind afterwards. One woman caught Charlotte's bracelet around her own neck, other items of jewelry were quickly gathered up. The doorway where Charlotte had stood was covered in crystals of broken glass, with her tiara hanging from the top of the frame and her high heeled shoes and an ankle bracelet on the ground where she had stood; in between her shoes was a small metallic capsule. The chief undersecretary picked it up; it felt warm in his hands. He turned to the ambassador and put his mouth up to his ear to speak in private.

"Well it may have been impotent as a choking gas but ironically the actions of enemy espionage have led us to a much more... 'expansive' use."