Pool Balloon

One of the benefits of living near the coast in a warm climate was the ready availability of beaches.  Unfortunately for Atsuko and Marissa this was common knowledge so, for fully half the year, they had to deal with overcrowding and tourists whenever they wanted to go swimming.  Eventually, between the congested parking lots and small children, they decided that enough was enough and started doing laps in a public pool within driving distance of the shore that was ignored to the point of nearly being abandoned.

Nearly.

There was someone else there on this particular day, a young man about their age in sandals, red surf shorts, and a T-shirt.  He wasn't being an active nuisance, but he did ruin the solitude of the area, a point which grew to irritate Atsuko. "Man, he's not even swimming.  Why is he here?"

"Not sure," Marissa replied. "Want me to deal with him?"

"How?  You're going to ask him to leave?"

"No, I was thinking something different.  I'm a witch."

Atsuko opened her mouth before closing it again, lapsing into thought for a few seconds before speaking. "In what sense?  Because contemporary paganism isn't unified; most academics treat it as a group of different religions ranging from Reconstructionism to Eclecticism with no real direct lineage to pre-modern polytheistic-"

"Okay, okay," Marissa interrupted, gesturing for her to stop. "Let me rephrase that: I'm a female wizard."

"Oh."  A beat. "You're thirty?"

Marissa shrugged helplessly.

"Was it worth it?"

"Oh, absolutely.  I don't look thirty, do I?"

"I thought that was just good genes.  You're saying it's magic?"

"Eh, little of column A, little of column B.  So." Marissa inclined her head towards the young man before picking up a pool noodle off the ground. "How do we deal with our guest?"

"Maybe have him float off," Atsuko replied. "Turn him into a balloon or something."

"Can do."  She spread her arms, gesturing with the pool noodle before pointing it at the young man, and from somewhere out of sight came a bored-sounding "poof."

The young man visibly winced, clutching his stomach before straightening up again.  He reached under his shirt, prodding gently at his midsection before pausing and stripping it off, much to the delight of the two young women.  There, splashed across his abdomen, was a patch of bright blue, quickly spreading up and down to his chest and beneath his waistband.  In a panic he brushed his fingers against it, trying to rub the coloring off as it began coating his arms and legs.  He stared at his hands in shock, the color rising up his head as his hair grew fluffier, clumping together in a single mass.  As the last of his body turned blue there was a quiet "pop" and he took on a dull sheen, navel inverting to reveal the tied-off mouth of a balloon.

Atsuko let out an appreciative whistle. "Okay.  I'm impressed."

He patted himself down, expression changing to one of shock.  Turning his head, he noticed the two seemingly for the first time and hurried over to them. "You have to help me!" he exclaimed, breathing heavily. "I'm a balloon!"

"We can see that," Marissa said.

"No, you don't understand!" He held out one arm. "I'm empty!" His chest rose, falling again to almost but not quite its previous size. "Balloons aren't supposed to be empty!" He took a breath, trim stomach growing into a pot belly. "They're supposed to be full!" Another breath and his limbs thickened, giving him a fattened look. "And big!" He drew in a third, far beyond what any lungs could hold, and grew all over; his midsection bulged, thighs pressing against each other as his arms were pushed up by his pneumatic love handles.

Atsuko leaned in towards Marissa. "Is this normal?" she whispered.

"Sometimes there's some..." Marissa gestured. "Mental changes."

The young balloon man heaved in another breath, torso growing round as his legs were reduced to thick, short stumps.  He tipped backwards onto the twin swells of his rear end; with another massive inhale, his lower body was reduced to a rounded hemisphere as his limbs were pulled flat, feet half sunken into divots on his sides, and he rocked back to an upright position.  Despite his practically spherical body, everything above his shoulders was still somewhat normal-looking, albeit massively swollen: His cheeks were puffy, his hands swollen, and his arms looked like thick balloons tapering in at his joints.

"You don't say," Atsuko replied, eyeing the figure that was now at least two heads higher than either of them were tall.

"I have to be bigger!" he exclaimed.  Huffing and puffing, he continued to grow, swelling out and up inches at a time.  Within moments he had reached, then exceeded the scale of a weather balloon, shorts stretched impossibly far across his lower half.  With each intake of air his body let out quiet creaks and squeaks and, to the dismay of the young women, his rate of growth seemed to be increasing as he swelled ever larger.

As he crested two stories in height, obscuring most of the pool from view, Atsuko and Marissa found themselves in his growing shadow.  Gesturing animatedly to him, Atsuko exclaimed, "do something!"

"Like what?" Marissa asked. "I can't turn him back, he's got a bunch of air in him."

"MORE!" he shouted.  His mouth stretched unnaturally wide as he pulled in more air with an audible "whoosh," surging out a yard.  Another massive heave of breath and his body let out a low groan, taut latex vibrating from the sudden bout of swelling.

"Can't you get the air -out?-" Atsuko asked.

Marissa turned back to the young man, mouth moving wordlessly as she attempted to formulate a plan, watching as the figurative hot air balloon approached the size of a literal one, overshadowing the pool, the fence, and the building behind them.  Despite the speed of his inflation, his progress seemed to grow slower and louder as groans and growls emanated from within, and his stretchy blue skin took on a brighter sheen. "I... I think that might not be an issue." She took Atsuko by the arm, retreating back into the changing rooms.

They disappeared from view as the young man struggled to pull in a final breath, body creaking ominously as it loomed over his surroundings.  As the air settled inside of him he let out a contented sigh, patting the top of his gargantuan midsection. "Mmmm... finally."

But something still felt... unfinished.

Raising a chubby arm, the young man plunged his thumb into his mouth and blew as hard as he could.  His cheeks ballooned to the size of grapefruits and his arms swelled dramatically as he struggled to force more air into himself.  Slowly, his taxed body grew inch by inch, straining and throbbing from the pressure as it slowly grew translucent.

After all, there was one other thing balloons were known to do.



*****



After hearing the explosion, Marissa and Atsuko stepped out into a swirling snowstorm of blue scraps of latex and red bits of surf shorts.  Scanning the area for any sign of the young man, Marissa looked up in time for his deflated, flattened body to flop onto her head, completely nude and, judging from the relaxed expression on his face, quite pleased with himself.

"...well," Marissa said finally. "I guess things turned out okay."

Atsuko took one of the young man's hands between her finger and thumb, inspecting it. "Guess so." A moment later she added, "so, can we keep him?"