Center of Attention 2

The young woman was confident, the young man nervous.  She, tall, red-haired and freckled in a crop top, jeans, and sandals with a duffel bag over her shoulder; he, a tanned brunet, in deep blue swim pants, being lead along by her by a long leash connected to a collar.  They did, naturally, draw attention from others in the park, if not when they appeared than when they stopped, in the middle of the widest expanse of grass.

As he stood in place, uneasily glancing around and looking as if he would rather be elsewhere, she took a knee and put her bag on the ground.  She drew out a hammer and a barbed metal stake, driving it into the ground and giving it a few tugs to ensure it would hold before securing the grip of the leash on the end.  Replacing them, she then took out what looked like a large bicycle pump with an assortment of cylinders, tubes, and dials on the sides, and a long hose.  Uncoiling the hose she stood, plugged the end of it into his mouth without protest before taking a few steps back and setting the pump on the ground. "Just remember," she said. "You lost that bet, and it was your idea."  With that she began to pump.

A look of genuine shock crossed his face as his cheeks puffed out, followed shortly by the rest of his body.  His belly bulged, his backside rounded out, and his limbs grew thick.  He patted down his body as his pecs rose up, not believing what was happening until, searching for room, his limbs widened and straightened out, leaving him teetering in a starfish pose until they were absorbed by his body, leaving him round but for vague curves where his belly and limbs were.

By now he was starting to draw attention, and he glanced to either side as best as he could.  People were staring and pointing at him, watching as she pumped away, each surge of pressure punctuating another fit of growth.  He watched as his view rose higher, looking over his swollen chest at her as she filled him with air until she disappeared from view.  He was over double her height in a matter of moments, when moments before he didn't believe that he could be inflated.  But another feeling came to the fore, as he felt his backside leave the ground.

He was floating.

There was a brief moment of panic as he flapped his hands and feet, followed by a gentle tug around his neck as he rotated downward, finding himself staring down at her.  She smiled, giving a casual wave before fiddling with the dials on the pump. "You don't think I'd let you float away, do you?" she asked, before resuming her pumping.

She had to have done something to the pump because now the flow of air was more intense.  He was growing faster, stretching out in pulses.  After a few pumps his hands and feet grew stiff, and he heard a series of muffled "pop"s as his fingers and toes swelled up, followed by lower, deeper "pop"s as his hands and feet rounded out.  Shortly thereafter his slender nose grew round, and he felt the collar tighten before stretching to a more comfortable fit as she almost imperceptibly started growing smaller.  In reality, his head and extremities were starting to grow larger, almost but not quite keeping pace with the rest of him as she worked the pump, body swelling to contain the air.

By now she had a small crowd of about a dozen people around her, looking up at him with a mixture of emotions: Awe, fear, confusion, and one who kept blushing whenever he made eye contact with her.  He felt their eyes on him, and his rounded cheeks reddened.

When she paused to adjust the pump one young woman leaned in towards her, "how big is he?"

She looked up, scanning his spherical form. "About fifty feet, I'd say.  The same size as most hot air balloons."

A hot air balloon, he thought.  I'm the size of a hot air balloon?

"Can he- I mean, does he get bigger?"

"Oh, definitely." She smiled up at him.  Behind them the blushing girl fidgeted as she took up the pump once more.

As she quickly pressed the plunger down he could hear his body creak as it suddenly swelled.  He could almost feel how much larger he was compared to before, and he barely had time to collect his thoughts before a second came, and a third, her arms moving quickly as she rapidly pumped away.  In his mind's eye he tried picturing how big he was, a half-tan half-blue sphere looming over the park, hundreds of feet around and growing by leaps and bounds.  He was impossible to ignore, with a small crowd beneath him and who knew how many more out of view, looking up at him, completely swollen and at her mercy, maybe not even realizing that it was a person.  The thought wouldn't leave his mind, and despite himself he felt his body grow elsewhere, the "whoosh" of air, the creaking of skin, and the stretching of fabric as his manhood dramatically ballooned.

Just as he felt his growth from the pumping begin to slow she stopped again, adjusting the device as she fielded a few questions.  Yes, he was getting quite large, perhaps five or six hundred feet across.  Yes, she would like to see what it looked like from another angle; a smartphone exchanged hands, and one impressed "hmm" later she held it up for him to see.  There he was, floating low to the ground, rounded backside in the air, eclipsing several city blocks.  He went viral, apparently.

Then the blushing girl asked a question he had been trying not to think about. "What if he pops?"

She laughed, dismissing the question with a gesture.  He wasn't reassured by that in the least, but his lips were so big and plump that the hose was stuck fast, so he could do little but look on as she worked the pump again.  The sudden increase in pressure was overwhelming, and he grew steadily at a fantastic rate, his body letting out one long series of squeaks and creaks.  One of the crowd surrounding him held another smartphone up via selfie stick for him to watch himself as he doubled in size, then tripled, then kept on growing.  The curve of his stomach barely missed the top of an office building as he gradually overshadowed the financial district, his sides encroaching on uptown and downtown at once.  Even though his head, hands, and feet were inflated and growing, they still looked small on him compared to the mountainous scale the rest of him was at.  The sole exception was between his legs, or where it would be when he was normal size.  There were probably hundreds of thousands of eyes on him, the strange sight that he was, but stranger still was that deep down, he almost enjoyed it.

She stopped pumping when he had broken through the clouds, but the air inside of him was still in motion, causing his body to let out low groans as it constantly shifted.  At first he was worried that she might increase the pressure yet again, but was relieved when she simply tugged the hose from between his lips. "Well," she said with an air of finality, "you sure filled up well." Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a small medal with "Kings of Poverty 2017" stamped on it. "I'm actually one of the top twenty players of Akatsuki Blitzkampf."

He blinked in disbelief.

"Yeah.  So next time, think twice before you decide to make money matches 'interesting.'"