Held to Ransom

As you groggily open your eyes, you realise you are strapped to a chair. Your hands are cuffed to the arms, and your legs are chained apart. Around your face is strapped a mask tightly, forcing you to breathe through it. A tube runs from the mouthpiece, down between your legs and across the floor to a machine which hums softly.

"This audio recording has begun because your heart rate has increased, indicating that you are both awake and afraid," a voice echoed around the room. "You have been kidnapped due to your value in ransom money. In a few days, I will be in contact with your employer with the amount of money I shall require for your safe return."

You struggle against the bonds, but it is no use.

"For the time being, I need to ensure you are unable to escape. I happen to have found a way that is both highly effective, and entertaining for myself. In a few moments, the machine in the corner of the room will start mixing a compound gas into your breathing supply. There will still be plenty of oxygen, so there is no need to be afraid of suffocation. Just keep breathing normally, through your mouth or nose, and it will do the rest." The machine whirred into action, lighting up with a loud hissing sound. You fight and struggle as you begin to feel the taste of the air in the mask change. You try to hold your breath, but after a few moments you helplessly gasp.

"The compound is of my own creation, and it has a very strange effect on animal tissue. I don't wish to bore you with the details, so let me explain it simply; it allows pockets of gases to form within you." As you continue to breathe the gas, you glance down at your body. While it is hard to see what is happening either side of your mask, you can feel a pressure building in your stomach. "These harmless gas pockets will cause your body to swell up. Imagine blowing air into a balloon; it is exactly the same. Your body will become rounder, and lighter, with your arms and legs just swallowed up by your new girth. Those who have gone through the procedure have explained that it isn't too painful, but often quite disconcerting. I hope that by having me explain what will shortly be happening to you, I can minimise your trauma."

You realise to your horror that your torso is starting to inflate. Your chest is definitely starting to puff outwards, and your hips that did not touch either side of the chair are now feeling more snug in the seat. Your jeans and shirt are bulging as they strain to hold all of you. "Let me explain the possible futures for you. Soon, you will reach your full size; nice and round, rather like a fully inflated beach ball. You will feel the pressure of the air pockets inside you. Try to relax. Many of my inflatees orgasm at reaching this stage - I have to wonder if secretly they are enjoying losing control of their bodies. Once I remove your mask, you will very, very slowly start to deflate as the compound is purged from your system. This deflation will usually take a matter of days, but in as short as three weeks you could be back to your former self. If your employer pays for you quickly, with the full amount, this is the state you shall be returned to them in."

Your legs are puffing up too, as you feel your thighs starting to touch. Your arms are swollen, still cuffed to the chair. Your shirt rips suddenly, sending buttons flying across the room. "Now, if they start trying to be clever, or try to trick me, or refuse to pay the full amount, then I do have a smart way to punish them. My experiments enabled me to perfect a second gas which reacts very nicely with the gas in the air pockets forming inside of you. Just a few minutes breathing this second gas, and when I take the mask off of your face, you won't start to deflate. Ever. You will be trapped as a big, helpless balloon for the rest of your life. This is, of course, only what happens if I am forced to punish those responsible for your ransom. I hope it won't come to that."

The cuffs on the chair release suddenly, and you try to grab at the mask to rip it off. However, your arms are so swollen you can hardly bend them at the elbow, and your helpless struggles are in vain. You realise the arms of the chair are designed to bend away as you grow, allowing you to continue swelling without them digging into your sides. Just as the voice warned, your limbs are starting to vanish as your torso becomes rounder and rounder. Both legs of your jeans rip open with the force of your expanding waist as your leg shackles release.

"The last question is, what happens if they refuse to pay? Well, maybe the best way to explain that is to talk about some of my experiments which have allowed me to become this master of your body. I always need new test subjects in my laboratory. Trying to perfect my permanent concoction proved very difficult. I was able to make compounds which can keep you in an inflated state for months, even years, before deflation starts. I am at all times trying to perfect these. You could find yourself being puffed up for a very long time. I don't tend to tell my subjects how long I expect them to have to wait before deflation starts.

"I have been working on seeing just how big I can make my balloons. I have a couple of subjects on a programme to swell them as huge as possible. You could find yourself in their company. I've also been trying to find alternatives to gas, but these applications have been much less stable. Most of the patients of my liquid compound simply keep filling with air until they burst. I'm sure I'm getting closer to perfecting it, but I expect a few more poppings before I have it completely effective.

"If you end up in my laboratory, the most likely outcome for you will be me eventually deciding to give you a dose of the locking gas. You might know when it is happening, or you might not. I might lie to you and tell you it is a different gas, or I might tell you truthfully. But one day, my pursuit of knowledge will call for someone to be trapped as a helpless pathetic balloon, and that someone will be you. Sometimes I might tell you I'm trapping you because I've working on a cure I'm going to test. I have no intention of ever working on a cure, so remember that.

"My poor balloons then might get sold to the rich; others like me with an interest in the limits of the human body, or those who just want some living, breathing, art to gaze at. Most, however, I simply deliver to your appropriate embassy. No government in the world can perform my experiments ethically, so they turn a blind eye to me doing it for them. They will whisk you away to some secret military base. I can only imagine the experiments they will perform on you there, trying to work out what is inside of you. Maybe trying some barbaric, useless 'treatments' in a vain attempt to fix you."

Your feet are rising off of your ground as you become almost totally spherical. You struggle helplessly, wriggling your fingers and toes in desperation, but you can only cause your body to rock slightly. The pressure inside of you is almost unbearable, and you feel as though you could burst any second as your body creaks under the strain. You whimper pathetically as you climax.

"Can you imagine a world where my invention is freely available to those with the right price? No more prisons; just trap someone in their own body for the length of their sentence! Need to stop a riot? Spray the crowd with a swelling mist! And the applications in warfare are very, very exciting. Just imagine a weapon with the power to render an entire city into useless balloons, or being able to place a chip in the skin of a person of interest so you could swell them at will... I'm sure you can think of more wonderful uses yourself.

"By now, the gas will have had the full effect on your body. Just think; your feet might have touched the floor together for the last time. You could be stuck like this, helpless and humiliated, for the rest of your life." The tape cut out suddenly, and you are left, the shreds of your clothes scattered around you. You find when you start rocking, you have no way of stopping until the momentum runs out. You can just move your bulging fingers and toes, but you cannot see any lower than the middle of your huge bloated body. The pressure inside you makes it hard to even think straight. You realise someone has entered the room. "The last time I spoke to your employer, they told me they don't negotiate for hostages. I hope, for your sake, they have changed their minds," they say with a smirk.