Wondering

The police described it as "the incident," Homeland Security described it as "an airship hijacking by unknown assailants," and Sayman Pharmaceuticals didn't describe it as anything at all due to the gag orders and non-disclosure agreements handed out to its employees.  Bella and Zach didn't describe it either, nor did they make any mention of anti-wrinkle creams, former co-worker Nancy MacCallister, or her unusual ambitions which lead to her becoming rather round and single-handedly blotting out the sun over an entire city.  Neither did they mention the secondary effects her ambitions might have had on Bella thanks to her being in the same room when the unmentioned expansive disaster took place.  Sayman made sure they wouldn't have anything to say, either, thanks to the overly generous out-of-court settlement.

It was more than enough to fund an early retirement, and they moved to an isolated homestead house in the midwest.  Things were quiet - not a bad thing at all - but a few weeks after the move Zach found Bella on the porch, staring up at the skies lost in thought.  The first time he noticed she laughed it off, looking almost embarrassed at being seen, but when it kept happening he started to wonder if there was something more to it.  Eventually he pressed the issue, and with a sigh Bella gave her answer.

"I can't stop thinking about it," she said. "Going from a, a person like us, to -that-.  Seeing her up there, transformed... and just wondering what it would be like if it was me."

"You -were- right next to her when it happened," he replied. "Covered in whatever it was that hit her.  But you don't need to be worried about it now."

"Worried?  No, I... I -want- it to happen."

"If," he began, taken aback, "it -was- going to happen, it would've kicked in by now."

"Maybe.  But what if we could do it ourselves with something else?"



*****



The "something else" turned out to be a bicycle pump with a longer tube attached, trailing up and fitting into Bella's navel as they stood in the living room.  Zach would have found it silly if he didn't know someone had already demonstrated what Bella was hoping to accomplish was possible without one, and even then, he still felt odd.  If Bella did she didn't show it, her expression one of nervous determination and her clothing a roomy tank top and shorts.

"I'm ready when you are," she said.

Zach nodded, before lifting the handle of the pump and slowly pressing it back down.  There was a quiet pneumatic hiss, and immediately her eyes widened as her midsection filled out to a round paunch.

"Oh!" Bella exclaimed.  Her hands softly probed her stomach. "I can't believed that worked." There was genuine awe in her voice. "I could feel it, too.  The air coming into me and then just... -spreading-."

"Should I keep going?" he asked.

"Yes.  Please."

He resumed working the pump in a steady, measured rhythm as she stood there, eyes half-lidded, feeling herself grow.  She rested her hands on her midsection as it rounded out in all directions, the stretching of her skin spreading her fingers and pushing her hands apart.  It was a weightless, airy pregnancy played in fast-forward, and as Zach added another pump's worth of air to her Bella's chest billowed out, nipples tenting the fabric.  As her belly filled to a cartoonish scale the curve of it began to creep up and down, going from her sex to between her breasts, pushing them to the sides as the cloth pulled taut between them.

While she may have missed the newfound roundness of her shoulders and upper arms, the widening of her hips and the emergence of a buoyant bubble butt caught her attention.  Her shorts stretched, then strained as her waistline disappeared, her figure looking more barrel-shaped by the pump as the air spread to her shins and forearms.  She frowned as she shifted to and fro, her legs inching apart as the elastic band quietly broke bit by bit.  Across her upper half her top began to tear as well, wide slits forming between her breasts.  By now she was aware of a tension in her body, not just in how hard it was becoming to bend her limbs, but across the various curves she now bore.  As she wondered when she should ask Zach to stop there was a sharp, brief hiss as the nozzle simply slipped out, pushed free by the gases within her.

-Within her-, she thought to herself.  It was impossible not to think of, as she felt air shifting with every movement of her arms, every squeeze of her sides or front, every small step down to her cushioned soles.  Her front entered her view in the mirror two steps before the rest of her did, a collection of balloons bursting out of her clothes.  She was transformed, the thought no longer one of longing but of triumph, her figure awe-inspiring; not to the level of Ms. MacAllister, but-

"Bella?" Zach's head appeared over her shoulder. "-Do- you feel okay?"

"I'm fine." She rocked back and forth on her heels, watching her breasts and belly sway. "Better than fine.  Thanks for going along with this."

"Sure.  But... have you given thought as to how you're going to return to normal?"

His words - "return to normal" - felt unpleasant to contemplate so soon after achieving what she did, but she pushed the thought out of her head.  Bella tried thrusting her stomach out, flexing one group of muscles or another and finding them oddly stretched out.  With one, however, she heard another hiss of gas as she felt the pressure abate, just a bit.

"Did you do something?" he asked.

"Yes." She flexed again, causing another hiss. "I think I can deflate on my own.  But I'd like to stay like this for a little while.  If I could, I mean."

"If you're fine with it then I suppose."

"Better than fine," she repeated, her thoughts already on the next time.