Balloon Bayou

When Sharice awoke, she found herself in a familiar, but suddenly very frightening place. She was completely naked, and despite her athletic physique, she found herself unable to budge the ropes that tied her toned arms and legs down. Looking down, she couldn't see much more than her own sizable breasts. But looking up and side-to-side, she recognised the inside of Laura Overland's backyard shed.

"So, how're those ropes working out for ya?" said Laura, leering over Sharice, who struggled with her bonds.

Sharice looked through Laura's thick, librarian glasses and swore she could see the insanity in Laura's eyes.

Laura wore her light brown hair in a pony tail, along with a black leather jacket and boots, complemented with incredibly tight jeans–half her looks conveying "biker chick," while the other half said "girl next door."

It was certainly unconventional attire for a woman who, polls unanimously predicted, would soon become the next U.S. senator from Louisiana. And yet, her conflicting appearance worked in her favour: Male voters found her sexy yet non-threatening; women found her strong yet glamourous. That's how she had won her first term as mayor of Port Cantville.

Laura climbed on top of the table, straddling herself across Sharice's naked body. She held a hose in one hand–apparently an air hose, though Sharice couldn't see the tank from her prone position.

"Oh god," mumbled Sharice. "You drugged me and tied me up for some weird sexual thing?"

"Oh, goodness gracious, no," said Laura, a vapid smirk apparently wedged firmly on her youthful face, one that had won her many a beauty pageant before it won her elections. "What twisted freak would find this sexual?"

"Are you planning to kill me?"

Laura wagged a finger, like speaking to an unruly child. "'Kill' is only something you do for sport. You, dearie, are just going to…disappear." She looked down at Sharice and winked.

"You won't get away with–"

Laura jammed the hose into Sharice's mouth and held it firmly in place. "See, now, that's what gotcha into all this trouble in the first place, there," said Laura. "All that yakkin' and mouthin' off–it's bad for ya."

Sharice heard the click of a switch, and suddenly she felt a funnel of air gushing into her, as if Laura were pumping up a tire.

Sharice continued to struggle as she first felt, and soon saw, her belly rising, swelling in size, soon surging higher than her breasts and rising like bread dough.

Laura giggled, rubbing her hand over the rising mound. "It's almost like ya got triplets there, Shary. Can I call you Shary?"

Sharice grunted and struggled some more, but less so, as even she became slightly entranced with her own growing belly. Finally, Laura lay down on top of Sharice, letting her full body weight settle on Sharice's bulging midsection. At first, Sharice thought that perhaps this was some kind of kinky sex act after all.

But then she realised that Laura was pushing the air down into her body, filling out the rest of her form. First, her large, full breasts became noticeably fuller, becoming even firmer and buoyant, rising off her chest like twin balloons. Her sides plumped out, like an inflatble raft. The bonds around her wrists and ankles grew tighter as her arms and legs plumped up, the rush of air and Laura's body weight increasing her internal pressure to unbearable heights.

She's going to pop me, Sharice thought. Explode me like an overinflated balloon.

That's probably what she did to everyone else who crossed this powerful, popular mayor. Sure, it had been rumoured–very, very quietly–that Laura had had her political enemies "whacked," but it was dismissed by the local media as the work of jealous conspiracy buffs. Despite several of Laura's critics "disappearing," Sharice still decided to release the mayor's private expense accounts to the media, papers that would show the gross abuse of taxpayer money for Laura's own expenses, like her townhouse and her fancier wardrobe.

It suddenly made sense that no trace of previous whisteblowers had ever been found. Laura must've blown them to bits.

She kicked and tugged uselessly as her body continued to stretch and expand, Laura watching on in fascination. Sharice winced as her bonds continued to tighten, her plumping extremities pushing against them, until—

Snap!

Her bonds came loose, but Sharice's predicament didn't improve: By now, she was so engorged with air that she could barely move, other than to flap her stuffy arms and legs, all of which could no longer bend.

Laura, knowing the tough part was done, slid her tight ass off Sharice's taut belly and stood back down on the floor. But the hose remained in place, pumping, pumping, pumping Sharice up until she looked like a blimp version of her former self.

It was then Sharice noticed that her body was floating ever so slightly off the table. Laura had been inflating her with helium! She was truly becoming a human blimp, held earthbound only with the hose in her mouth, connected like a balloon on a string.

But the "string" was not her lifeline. It was the source of the helim that was inflating her bigger, the confines of the small shed shrinking all the while.

Her fear filled that tiny structure as well as her body. Her helplessness was palpable, as was Laura's ebullient satisfaction at the sight of her underling now rising in the air above her.

For several moments, other than Laura's occasional giggle, the only sound came from the pump. She gave up struggling, because it only seemed to amuse her torturer. Just waiting to burst, Sharice had time to ponder how she got herself into this, and what she could have done to escape it.

She'd apparently been discovered only hours after her suspicions over the mayor's expense account had been raised. In fact, she had shared her concerns with only one other person: Brad, her boyfriend–who also happened to be an ardent Laura Overland supporter and her campaign finance chairman.

It had to be Brad. He turned her over to Laura's mercy. Had he known that Laura was going to pop her? She liked to think not, but she may never be sure. The pressure was so intense, she knew the last thing she'd see was the inside of this dumpy shed, deep in the bayou, tucked far away from civilisation in the mayor's isolated property.

Her body no longer resembled a blimp–it was now more like a giant, round balloon, her taut skin glistening in the dim light as she became rounder and firmer. Just a human rubber ball, increasing in size, growing ever more tight…

"That's enough," said Laura, and the helium stopped.

Sharice's attention jolted back to her present conditions. She was nearly to the ceiling of the small room, the leering, jeering bespectacled eyes of the mayor looking triumphantly up at her. For a brief moment, Sharice allowed herself to think that maybe Laura would spare her, that this was all just to scare her, that she wasn't really going to pop her!

Floating near the ceiling, Sharice could only hear the shed doors opening before she felt herself pulled along like a toy balloon into the sultry, damp, Louisiana night. The moon seemed so much closer from her vantage point in the sky.

Then she felt a cord wrapped around what used to be her left foot, but was now just a helium-engorged stump. Then Laura gave the hose a quick tug, sending Sharice bobbing in the air, held in place only by the cord.

"Ya won't be doin' any screamin' now, will ya?" Laura asked.

She was right. Sharice tried to call out for help, but it came out only as a whispery, high-pitched, helium-toned squeak.

Her pathetic effort sent Laura into convulsive laughter. Sharice thought she felt herself turn beat red, but it may have only been the sweltering heat of the night, or the intense pressure inside her.

How could voters not see that Laura was a crazy, power-mad narcissist? How can they let her become "Senator Overland"? God, there was already talk that she may use her senator's seat as a stepping stone to the vice-presidency.

This psycho bitch could become the nation's first woman president!

The possibility, and the unbearable injustice of it, caused her to squirm in the air with unreleased rage.

"Ah ah AH!" said Laura, tugging on Sharice's string and bringing her closer. She jabbed a fingernail into her prisoner's rounded abdomen. "Careful, now! By golly, ya might pop yerself! "

Laura pressed her fingernail even more firmly into Sharice's delicate skin, and Sharice's eyes opened wide. She felt she would burst!

"I could poke ya right now and watch ya pop," said Laura. "But I got me another idea, there."

Laura briefly stepped out of view, and Sharice was allowed a brief, blissful moment of not seeing her taunting face or hearing her mocking tone.

But when Laura came back with a hunting rifle, her terror came flooding back.

"Ya know," said Laura, "I ain't much of a hunter, really. I gots me some practicin' ta do."

Like much of Laura's campaign promises, it was utter lie. Sharice knew Laura was an expert shot.

"See ya, now," said Laura, winking at Sharice again as she released her only link to the earth.

And Sharice floated upward. Up, up, up into the Louisiana sky.

"How's the weather up there, then?" Laura taunted. "Why, you can see Russia from way up there, I betcha!"

Nothing but treetops and stars were in Sharice's view now, as the horizon of the bayou opened up in front of her. It would have been a beautiful view, if she didn't know it would be her last.

From far below, she heard Laura cock her rifle.

She continued to float for what seemed hours but were only a few seconds.

Bang!

Sharice winced at the shot, her fragile, bubble-body wobbling in the night sky.

"Missed!" Laura's voice could be heard saying in the distance.

But Sharice knew what had really happened: Laura had missed on purpose. Laura was an expert shot, and she couldn't have missed Sharice–she was too close, and way too large a target.

I know what she's doing, Sharice thought. She's hoping that I'll start having hope. Hope that I can float far enough away that I'll be out of range of her rifle. Far enough away that I may drift back to earth, landing safely miles away…

Bang!

The next bullet whizzed past Sharice, so close that she could feel its breeze against her rubbery skin.

But it's not going to work, Sharice thought. I know I'm going to pop, and I'm going to accept my fate. I won't let her win. I won't let her build up hope just to have her take it from me.

Bang.

The shot seemed so, so far away now. She didn't hear or feel the bullet fly past. Sharice looked around and could see only sky. The trees were too far below her to see. Nothing but the blackness of night. Laura had to be several hundred meters below her. Perhaps too far to see Sharice any more. Maybe Laura's games caught up with her! She had toyed with her victim too long, and now Sharice was going to float far, far away from her! Sharice almost laughed. Maybe I'm going to have the last laugh on that bitch after al—!

In the distance, another shot rang out. Less than a second later, it was followed by an echoing BANG that rolled across the sky as Sharice burst into pieces, which fell back down to earth and into the waters of the bayou.

Laura looked out from over the rifle scope and smiled at the empty space in the sky where Sharice had been a moment before.

"Gotcha," she said. And she winked.