Minimum Wage, part 4.1: Fashion Model

It seemed as though Mai's star couldn't rise any higher. After her freak accident trip to the States, she had been an unknown, working lingerie catalogs at the margins of the industry like most "petite" models. Then, in a flash of inspiration, she had discovered a way to increase her bust size without the need for dangerous and illegal breast implants. Her new voluptuous figure had propelled her into the highest tiers of the business, where her Japanese grace and poise gave her a decided advantage over the balloon-brained bimbos she had passed on the way to the top.

Mai shivered in the pre-dawn air as she headed for her trailer. It would be a few hours before the sunrise beachfront photo shoot, but she needed to get something done now while things were relatively quiet. After locking the door, she stripped naked and walked to the wooden dresser at the end, where the package was waiting for her. Confirming that the seal was still intact, she opened it and retrieved the secret of her success: a portable air compressor. Originally an off-the-shelf model, she had modified it for reduced airflow speed but higher force, added an internal battery pack so she didn't have to risk plugging it in and blowing a circuit breaker, and attached the outlet to a narrow plastic tube leading to the nipples of a brasserie salvaged from a nursing pump. Despite these alterations, it was still small enough to fit in a largish purse.

Mai preferred to pump herself up at home before a shoot, but she had been on location for several days, and had gradually leaked down a cup size, so she had her husband send the pump over by courier. Normally, she waited until she was mostly deflated before filling up again, but people would notice if her designer bikini was hanging loose on her, so she needed to top herself off. After refreshing her figure, she would wrap it right back up and call for another courier to send it back. Secrecy was paramount; if anyone discovered that her figure was "pneumatically enhanced", she'd be laughed back down into underwear ads.

With some difficulty, Mai wrestled her breasts into the cups of the bra, carefully squeezing her nipples into the ends of the hose. She flicked a switch on the compressor, and heard a light hiss as her bosom slowly began its climb to the next size up. Less than a minute later, she was back in full bloom, and shut the device back off. But when she tried to get out of the now-tighter bra, Mai realized that she had slightly miscalculated. For while at home she had Martin to unhook the back, there was no one to help her here, and she was neither as strong as her husband nor working at a very convenient angle. As she twisted and contorted, struggling to get some slack, she heard the sound of a key in the trailer door.

Mai had no time to think, only act. With lightning speed, she slammed the pump into a dresser drawer and shoved it closed. Standing in front of the drawer, facing it so the hose couldn't be seen, she yelled as the trailer door opened, "Who are you?! What do you want?!" "Relax, babe, it's me." Whew. It was Francoise, her makeup artist, and as gay as they come. Still, letting himself in without permission was inexcusable, and she'd have to speak with her manager about this incident. But what she really needed to do right now was get him out of here, as in her panic she had accidentally bumped the switch on the compressor, and her breasts had resumed their slow expansion.

"The supe asked me to check your hair, he doesn't want it falling in front of your cleavage during the sandcastle shots." Her expanding chest strained against the cups. "Well, as you can see, I had it cut short again, so that definitely won't be an issue." "You can say that again, babe. Say, do you hear something hissing?" Francoise always did know how to prolong a conversation. And she'd overfilled herself by a full cup size already. "I put some water on for tea. Francoise, I know you didn't come in here to ogle me, but --"

"Say no more, babe, say no more. Just let me know when you want your face put on. Farewell and adieu!" Mai heard him close the door and lock it behind him. She was a little bigger than she'd like, but she could still squeeze into her bikini if she didn't breathe too deeply, and if anyone noticed she could blame the swelling on her cycle. She'd deflate back to optimum size over the next few days anyway.

Mai yanked open the drawer -- about an inch, whereupon it stopped short. She jostled it this way and that, but still it wouldn't budge. Slightly worried now, she investigated the problem. Noticing that the wood behind the drawer's face was scratched, she remembered hearing a crunching noise when she had slammed it shut. To her dismay, she realized that the pump had gotten lodged in the dresser, in a place where she couldn't reach it!

Mai's bust and anxiety continued to grow as she worked away at this little problem. The tiny side drawer was meant for socks and underwear, and was just large enough to hold the compressor. She was able to work her thin fingers into the gaps around it, but there was not enough space to slide or twist it to any significant degree. And the power switch was in the back, where she had no hope of getting to it. As Mai extracted her fingers from another failed attempt to shut it off, she became aware of something creeping up into her field of view.

Glancing downward, Mai was horrified to see her breasts swollen far out of proportion to her body. Even if she stopped inflating right now, she was in trouble! She had never found a way to deflate herself other than just waiting for the air to osmose out naturally. There would be no time for that to happen in the couple of hours before she was due in front of the camera! Even if they could find a swimsuit that would still fit her, her incredible growth would be difficult to explain. And they'd have to fashion her a makeshift top out of beach umbrellas if she didn't stop growing, and FAST!

Mai grabbed hold of the bra straps and tried to pull them down, but they had gone rigid from the tension. Next, she turned her attention to the front, but the full-coverage cups could not be peeled off either over or under her bosom. Starting to panic now, she grabbed the plastic tube with both hands and pulled as hard as she could, trying to detach it from where she had superglued it to the compressor. As she strained against the tension, the constricting bra began to interfere with her breathing.

Collapsing to her hands and knees, gasping for air, Mai was about to pass out, when with a quiet *whoomp* her chest dropped several cup sizes in an instant. As she caught her breath, she was wondering where the air had gone, when she found that she couldn't quite stand up straight. Feeling behind her, Mai discovered that her ass, hips, and thighs had taken in a substantial portion of the air in her body, and even now were expanding in sympathy with her bust.

Mai groaned as her hands surveyed the damage. She knew a decision had just been made for her. For while she could finesse her engorged breasts into other, less prestigious types of modeling, a big butt was career poison. Like it or not, she was going on vacation for a while. She didn't know how many weeks it would take for her rear to resume normal proportions, but she'd just have to wait it out and hope no one questioned her unexplained absence.

Her bosom was still too engorged to take the bra off, and Mai was wondering what the hell to try next, when she realized that she could just cut through the air hose. Remembering that her eyebrow scissors were in a plastic cup on her makeup table, she waddled awkwardly towards it -- and was abruptly yanked to a halt as she came to the end of her slack. Reaching for the cup, she found that her hand was well short of the lip. Even when she turned sideways, her outstretched fingertips were still a few tantalizing millimeters shy of reaching their target.

"Fine," she thought to herself, "I'll just grab it between my toes." But the air in her hips and outer thighs held her legs together with pneumatic force, preventing her from spreading them sideways. When she turned away and extended a leg backwards, she lost her balance and fell over. And turning to face the table twisted the plastic tube around her, taking up enough slack that she still couldn't reach the cup with her outstretched foot.

Exasperated, Mai was about to give up, when one more idea came to mind. The makeup table was too heavy for her to move, but unlike the dresser, it wasn't bolted down. She moved toward the table as close as she could, and, turning to face away, thrust her hips backwards. The rebound almost knocked her off balance, but he heard rattling behind her, and turned to see that she had jostled the table's contents, although not the cup. Again, she thrust herself against the table, knocking over a bottle of nail polish. Over and over, she bumped her ballooning butt into the table, tentatively at first, then with greater and greater force. As her ass continued to grow and firm up, she had a progressively harder time keeping herself stable after each thrust. One last bounce sent her stumbling halfway across the room, and she quickly turned to survey the effect. Back and forth, the cup wobbled, teetering precariously on its near edge -- and then toppling in the other direction, spilling its contents far out of reach.

Mai had to bite her lower lip to keep from screaming. As she agonized over her terrible luck, she noticed that she was involuntarily bending at the hips, as her burgeoning buttocks expanded into her lower back. Realizing that for the second time in her life, she was losing control of her body to inflation, Mai grimly resolved this time to fight it with everything she had. Bracing her hands against her knees, she gritted her teeth as she strained against the pressure fighting to bring her thighs up to her torso. Her entire body quivered with tension as her protruding ass became rock-hard from overpressurization, bending her lower spine into a curve as the inexorable influx of air fought for room to expand.

Just as Mai was wondering whether her arms would snap like twigs before her butt blew itself to bits, she heard another *whoomp* as again the pressure in her body abated. The sudden loss of tension knocked her off balance, toppling her onto her back. As she struggled to get to her feet, she saw the curve of her stomach rising between her bosom like a sunrise over a pair of hills. This time, Mai couldn't stop herself from screaming. For while up to now the changes to her body had been reversible, if her ballooning belly got stretch marks, her career would be over!

Starting to panic now, Mai ran back through all her failed attempts to separate herself from the pump. She clawed at the back of the brasserie, but the hooks had twisted together from the strain. She tore at the front, but the cups would not stretch over her massive bosom. She shook the drawer until her fingers felt like they would fall off, but it refused to budge. Turning around, she ran to the end of her slack, straining against the restraint like a plow ox, but she might as well have tried to pull down the Hoover dam. Finally, inspiration struck her. Grabbing a length of tube, she tied it into a slipknot and pulled it tight with all her might. Slowly, ever-so-slowly, the the airflow was choked off until it hissed to a stop.

Mai cursed herself for not thinking of this in the first place. Oh well, she thought to herself, she had other things to worry about. She had to get out of this bra, out of the trailer, and to her car without being seen. She could hide out with her husband, out of public view, while she looked for a plastic surgeon who wouldn't ask awkward questions. If she couldn't find one... well, all she could do was wait a few months for the gas to pass out on its own, and hope she hadn't slipped too far down the modeling ladder in the meantime. She knew she should get moving, but vanity got the best of her. Grabbing a hand mirror from the dresser top, she inspected her tumescent belly for signs of stretch marks.

As Mai was obsessing over her appearance, another danger was brewing. The compressor was still running, and with the air's outlet blocked, the motor was encountering lots of resistance. As the internal friction mounted, heat began to radiate outward. A bottle of nail polish remover was jammed in the back of the drawer, and as the ethyl acetate boiled, the plastic bottle softened until it sprung a leak, spraying the volatile, superheated liquid all over the thin, gauzy fabric inside the drawers.

Mai shrieked in terror as the wooden dresser suddenly burst into flames. Panicked, she screamed for help before remembering that she'd demanded a soundproof trailer, and furthermore that the last thing she wanted was for someone to barge in right now. Pulling against the tube once again, she found that it was softer and stretchier from the heat, and she made some progress toward the door before having a horrible vision: losing her footing, being yanked off her feet by the elastic restraint, flying toward the raging inferno... Quickly, Mai shuffled forward until the tension had abated. It looked like she'd just have to wait this out. Fortunately, the fire didn't seem to be spreading, and once the dresser was charcoal at least she could get the damned pump out.

Rivulets of sweat ran down Mai's body as the dresser continued to burn. As she nervously stood there with her hands on her hips, she noticed that those hips had resumed expanding under her hands. Shocked, she inspected the knot in the tube, but it looked as tight as ever. And the device had to be a lump of molten plastic by now, so how could... to her horror, Mai realized that she wasn't being pumped up with more air, but that the air already in her body was heating and expanding! Her hips, thighs, and rear blossomed to Callipygean proportions. Her burgeoning belly developed a vast and intricate array of stretch marks. Her chest returned to and surpassed its former glorious size, and when the nursing-pump bra could not accommodate any more expansion, her lungs again began to compress.

Just before Mai would have suffocated under her own cleavage, she heard a *SQUIP* noise and felt a release of pressure. Gulping for air, she was wondering what part of her body had blown up this time, when she look down and saw that her boobs were hanging free of the bra! They must have gotten so slippery with sweat that they squirted out the top! She knew she couldn't pull the bra off over them or under her belly, but now that the tension was off she could unhook the clasps! Reaching behind her, she found that they were warped from the heat and force; she would have to bend them open one by one. As she worked at them, she mouthed a silent prayer to the Japanese gods that she could still fit her ballooned body through the trailer door.

When dawn came and Mai was nowhere to be found, her angry supervisor told Francoise to drag her out of her trailer even if she was still naked. Mai had just broken the last hook and dropped the bra at her feet when she heard the door open behind her. With a whoosh, the hot compressed air in the trailer rushed to the exit, plucking her off her feet and carrying her screeching with it. If Francoise had been of the heterosexual persuasion, he might have appreciated the sight of a tiny Asian woman's enormous backside flying toward him. As it was, he barely managed to duck out of the way in time as Mai squeaked through the door.

For several seconds, all she could do was shiver as her body acclimated to the chilly dawn climate. When she came to her senses, Mai found that she had come to rest... but not on the ground! For she had so much hot air in her body that she had achieved buoyancy, and even now she was beginning to ascend. "Help me! Somebody please help!" By the time her supervisor got to the scene, Mai was almost out of reach. Jumping, he got hold of a foot -- but the sweat-slicked appendage slipped out of his grasp. And like the world's smallest and most beautiful hot-air balloon, Mai rose into the morning sky, drifting away until she was just a dot disappearing against the sunrise.