Perspective

Sometimes, Luke thought to himself, a lazy day is just what you need. He sprawled across the sofa without a care in the world, idly scrolling through post after momentarily amusing post on his phone, content in the knowledge that he had no plans for the day. He thus felt no need to put any real effort into his appearance, donning a pair of beaten up blue jeans and a random graphic tee, as well as leaving his near shoulder length black hair messy and uncombed. With the faint hint of an early afternoon breeze and the distant sounds of the suburbs idly waltzing in through the patio door, he lay and embraced the simple pleasure of an uneventful day.

"ok, everything should be working now. Is it coming through?" 

Jenny sat cross-legged on her bed, flanked by stuffed toys of various franchise mascots as the early-afternoon sunlight streamed in through the blinds, glinting against the strands of her straight, dark hair that fell beyond the brim of the large witch hat she'd adorned herself with. In front of her was a scene that gave the impression of intense study, which was a half-accurate description. A good deal of preparation had indeed gone into this, and now it was all falling into place. 

In front of her were 2 key components to what she had planned. The first was a dusty, weighty tome, its' open pages filled with arcane text Jenny had only the faintest understanding of. The second was her laptop, the screen of which displayed a video call with 2 other girls. One was dressed in fluffy, pastel pyjamas, which contrasted nicely with her light-brown skin. The other was pale with fluffy, cyan hair and a t-shirt which read "the only good thing about straight boys is their girlfriends." Also on screen was a video feed showing Jenny's boyfriend, Luke, relaxing on the living room sofa, none the wiser about anything unfolding on the other side of the house. 

"Yep, everything's coming through fine, I can see him." Spoke the dark-skinned girl, brushing frizzy hair to one side as she peered at the screen.

"You sure he's not gonna know?" Asked the other participant. 

"Relaaaax, Beth." Jenny began, hand-waving away her friend's concerns. "He still thinks those times I went over to yours to learn all this stuff was actually me going to a chess club, I think we'll be fine" She explained with a chuckle that started out dismissive but gave way to an excited nervousness. "Still, I kinda can't believe I'm actually doing this." 

"Oh yeah, every girl I know was like this their first time, even Liz and me. It never stops sounding weird as hell, even after you commit to doing it, but there's still that part of your brain that really wants to see him all blown up, yknow?" Beth replied. 

"Mhm! That is, assuming you don't just say fuck it out of nowhere and puffkiss him until he pops one night when you're in bed together." The other girl, the Liz being referred to, added with a bubbly cheer in her voice. 

"Speaking from experience, are we?" Beth quickly shot back, prompting a blush from her friend. 

"Hey, sometimes a girl's just got needs." She nervously piped up, prompting chuckles from the other two. “I like the hat, by the way, it looks cute on you”

“Awww, thanks Liz! I kinda just wanted to feel all witchy, figured it was appropriate. In fact, speaking of which, what do you say we get this show on the road?” Jenny replied.

“No time like the present.” Beth said with a nod.

“Ohhhhh I’m so excited, ever since you started dating him I was wondering when we’d get to inflate him.” Liz said with barely restrained anticipation.

“Alright, here goes…” Said Jenny hesitantly, putting on thin, rounded glasses and hunching over the book on her bed as she began to read aloud from the tattered page. Beth and Liz both sat in silence, not wanting to interfere with manners such as this. Once she’d reached the bottom of the page, Jenny sat back up and sighed. “Ok, that’s the hard part out of the way.”

The three all sat in silence for a brief moment, their eyes trained on Luke as he continued to watch reposted 10 second videos on his phone, occasionally chuckling to himself.

“...How long does this usually take to work?” Jenny hesitantly inquired to Beth, who shrugged in response.

“Iunno, it’s different every time I do it. Just gotta wait and see I guess.” She explained. Jenny nodded, and her eyes went back to her boyfriend.

Luke found it hard to describe the sensation that had begun to overtake him. He’d been catching up on some menial twitter drama when he began to get an ambiguous sense of pressure in his stomach. His face screwed up, unsure of what could be causing this new stimulus. He pondered it briefly before simply assuming it was probably just gas, or hunger, or some combination of the two, or any number of random bodily factors, and deciding to just ride it out. He persisted in this for the better part of a minute before the feeling proved too insistent to ignore. He laid a curious hand on his upset stomach, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, and found himself caught off guard by the sensation of soft, puffy tummy flesh slowly pushing back out against him.

His eyes slowly widened in bewilderment as his growing tummy began to poke out from under his shirt, the loose garment pulling taut before starting to ride up his pneumatic torso. He gave his exposed tummy a few experimental pokes and strokes, still trying to get any sort of bearing on the situation. Despite this investigation, though, he was still at a loss. If he was honest, he thought to himself, he wouldn't really describe the feeling as entirely bad, per se, but it was still definitely something he'd rather stop if at all possible. He shifted about on the couch some more, which struck him as odd considering he wasn't actually moving his legs. 'Don't tell me…' he thought to himself. Sure enough, once he stood up, he confirmed that his rear had also begun to inflate, straining tightly against the seat of his jeans as a faint hissing sound began to fill the room.

"...Jen? Can you come help me with something?" Luke called out, but was met with silence, or at least the lack of any noise beyond hissing air that constituted silence in this case. "...Jenny???" He tried again, louder this time, but still to no avail. With no sign of help coming, and his body continuing to blow up like a balloon on the nozzle of a helium tank, he marched towards the living room door. If he had to go and get help himself, so be it. He had almost gotten out of the room when he froze in his tracks, taken aback by the unusual feeling of his rounded belly squishing and squeaking against the sides of the door frame. He could probably squeeze himself through, but then what? He'd likely end up trapped in the hallway, blowing up bigger and bigger until he got stuck between the walls, a thought that didn't exactly fill him with confidence. He considered how much more spacious the living room was than the hallway, and made the reluctant decision to stay put. He blushed nervously, wrapping his hands around his tummy and being filled with unease by the realisation that he was having some trouble getting them to meet in the middle.

"Any time now…" He muttered to himself, as he waited for his girlfriend's assistance. 

"Look, look, I think it's starting!" Jenny excitedly declared as she watched her boyfriend start to stir. It wasn’t much at first, just him nervously shifting around in an empty room, but before long the sound of hissing gas started to fill the air. The girls waited with baited breath, wide eyes fixed to the screen as they watched Luke’s belly start to fill up. A wide smile gradually spread across Jenny’s face as her two friends giggled to themselves, both at the changes Luke was undergoing and his bewilderment in the face of them.

“Awwww, he looks so cute with a chubby lil tummy like that.” Liz remarked with glee.

“He’s gonna have more than a lil tummy in a minute.” Beth said with a snide smirk on her face, prompting laughter from the other girls. “I love seeing how confused they get at the start. Whenever I blow a guy up I love seeing how long I can play dumb with him, see how long I can keep him clueless before he realises that it’s my fault.”

“Oooooooo, that does sound like fun. I normally just go right in for a puffkiss or a blowjob, I like surprising ‘em.” Liz said with a casual cutesiness, as if the two girls were discussing something as trivial as their preferred soda brands. "Guh, now I just wish I was there so that I could play with him myself, he's so adorable." She added on with exaggerated frustration. 

"I knowwww." Jenny replied in commiseration, "I do appreciate you both agreeing to an arrangement like this,I'd just rather not take my chances during a pandemic." She said, as if feeling guilty.

"Nonononono, it's totally understandable, don't worry. Besides, this whole thing has kind of a fun pervy kinda vibe, yknow?" Beth quickly said, wanting to assuage any such guilt her friend may have had. The other two girls nodded in agreement, seeing the unique fun of the setup they had.

"Yeah, real voyeur kinda vibes." Liz added with a giggle. "God, look at him waddling around down there, those jeans sure aren't doing those thunder thighs of his any favours." She commented as Luke began to try and make his way to the door out into the hallway.

"You're right, god those look so tight on him!" Jenny said in astonishment. She'd seen guys swell up before, sure, but seeing their bodies changed and how each of their different outfits responded to such radical changes still never got old to her. Whether it was buttons incrementally popping off an ordinary office shirt, or boxers tenting magnificently with a man's engorged, puffed up nethers, she never tired of the myriad of spectacles. 

"Just think about how much tighter they're gonna get before they burst off and he starts to round out, and we've got front row seats for all of it~" Beth teased, bringing out a light blush in Jenny as she imagined the show that was in store for her. 

"Thanks for the striptease, Luke~!" Liz called out with a mocking laugh. She knew the target of her flirtatious call couldn't hear her, that just made it more fun. The other girls laughed along with her, both out of mockery and out of sheer glee in the face of the situation they'd engineered, before simply sitting back, settling in, and continuing to watch the show unfold. 

With the fact firmly established that Jenny was, for one reason or another, unable to respond to his calls for help, Luke attempted to calm down and take stock of the situation. It was a valiant effort on his part, pushing past his initial panic and examining just how much his body had changed and was continuing to change in such a small space of time. His rounded belly jutted out in front of him, barging his shirt aside as it swelled out beyond any point of comparison to pregnancy. His chest, not wanting to be left behind, had begun to sprout two burgeoning balloons of its own, still smaller than his belly, but quickly progressing up through feminine reference frames nonetheless. Down below, too, his jeans strained and creaked ominously, the fibers digging achingly into his taut flesh as his ass fought for freedom. The offensive his rear was mounting against its denim confines only grew in strength as his cheeks and thighs ballooned up alongside the rest of him. 

He gave a few cursory strokes and touches here and there, both trying to ascertain what exactly he was filling up with as well as simply to confirm that all this was really happening to him, but quickly withdrew his fingers with a half-formed gasp not long into each exploratory attempt. Just the feeling of his clothes drawing taut against his already strained skin was bizarrely stimulating enough. Willfully adding to that was more than he was willing to confront at this time, and in any case, his arms beginning to puff up into chubby comes was quickly beginning to render such inquisitions both figuratively and literally out of his reach. Not only was his situation strange, worrisome, and beyond anything he had a frame of reference for dealing with, but the fact that his swelling was not only continuing, but now consolidating as all his various curves began to meet each other in one large sphere, meant it was quickly becoming something that needed dealing with now. 

Before he could even begin to formulate a means of 'Dealing With' this predicament, he found his world both figuratively and literally turning upside down. Whatever mystery substance he was filling with was revealing itself to be lighter than air, bringing him up on his tiptoes and quickly diminishing the grip and friction he'd taken having in relation to the ground as a given for his entire life. He gave a small jump in surprise, or at least what his usual reflexes told him would be a small jump when under his usual gravitational conditions. What actually happened was that he sent himself a solid foot or two up into the air, his legs wiggling back and forth in confusion and panic as they searched for the ground they expected to still be standing on. As his mouth and brain frantically attempted to string his abrupt, nondescript half-yelps into a noise sufficient to convey his bewilderment, he felt himself begin to gradually rotate around the axis of his spine as his gravid belly and chest pulled him upwards. It was as if the gas within his cavernous body was exulting in response to no longer being stuck at ground level, and hungrily yearning for more.

It was at that point, as if his humiliation hadn’t gone deep enough yet, that his jeans finally surrendered in the fight against the forceful swelling of his behind. A few holes opened up in the seat of his pants, before seemingly the entire garment burst off with a dull *POP*. He wasn’t sure how much of it was left, being unsure what direction he would have had to crane his neck towards if he even had the range of motion to do so. His newly freed balloon butt combined with his back finally rounding out and rendering him an immobile sphere pulled against the lift that his torso provided, pulling his center of gravity this way and that, back and forth, back and forth. His limbs, already puffed up and near-vestigial, drew flat against his globular surface and left him with only stumpy looking hands and feet. His stop-start noises now joined as one into a continuous, wavering shout, worried and anxious but never quite reaching the full crescendo of panic; the moment in which one has realised they're falling but still erroneously believes they can will themselves back on balance.

"J-Jenny!!! You there???" He called out, a hint of hope hiding behind the wave of panic in his voice as he felt his back bump against the ceiling. Truthfully, he didn't even care if she wasn't there, he just needed Somebody to hear him and offer a hand. He wriggled what remained of his limbs ineffectually, trying to discern if any possibility of locomotion whatsoever remained available to him. Once it became clear that there was no such possibility, he sighed and resigned himself to simply waiting for assistance. The gas within him puffed his cheeks out in a frustrated pout as he let go in defeat. Regardless of how stuck he was now, or wherever Jenny happened to be, surely she'd have to come in here and find him eventually. 

Right? 

The call was filled with gasps and laughter as they watched Luke ascend off the floor like an errant party balloon. He twisted and turned in the air until he finally settled on the ceiling, looking down at the exact couch he’d been sitting on just a few minutes ago. This display of helpless, pneumatic boyhood was one they’d all seen once or twice before at minimum, but it still never got old for them, and especially not for Jenny. Oh sure, she’d seen boys inflate before, even seen one or two pop, but those times were mere contextless fun. It had mostly been videos online, or a few random one night stands and delivery guys she’d indulged in when hanging out with friends. By comparison, actually doing it to the boy she’d been dating was a whole new experience. She stared at the screen in wide-eyed wonder, just taking in the sight of her darling Luke as a balloon. All that time they’d spent together melted away in the presence of just how right this felt to her. This was what boys were for. She could no longer doubt it.

“Gosh, I just love using helium to blow up guys.” Beth proclaimed, drawing Jenny out of her revelatory trance. “Air and water on their own are fun and all, and blueberry’s a nice change of pace, but helium really just adds another level of helplessness, don’t you agree?”

“Oh yeah, absolutely, it just feels so much naughtier, yknow?” Liz concurred, elaborating on her own preferences. “It’s like, even though you’ve put him in this position, suddenly he’s gotta rely on you to make sure he doesn’t float away, there’s just something really fun about that to me.” She said wistfully, her mind wandering through memory after memory of afternoon walks through the park with a balloon boy in tow, looking up and relishing their expressions of discomfort and unease. “Fuck, I should blow Danny up tonight, I think I still have that helium lipstick you gave me around here somewhere Beth. Thanks for that, by the way!”

“No problem at all, glad you’re getting some use out of it. Us girls gotta help each other out, after all”

Jenny would have joined in the conversation, indulging in idle girl talk while watching her boyfriend wrestle with the facts of his current circumstances, but something about having her boyfriend in front of her as a helpless balloon, something she was free to dispose of the instant the inclination overtook her, the instinct to do so was growing within her almost as quick as Luke himself had done. She idly tapped her fingers against the laptop, turning the idea over in her head for a few moments, before finally speaking up.

“So now, I guess the only question is…How do we wanna get rid of him?” She said, just enough deviousness in her voice to signal that, despite wanting to move through the day’s fun rather quickly, she still intended to have some fun with her toy.

“Alright, a quick pump and dump, I can respect that” Beth said, the other two girls chuckling at her turn of phrase.”Could always just cast the spell again and watch him pop from here?”

“Hmmmm, maybe…” Jen thought to herself. She explored the concept, and any adjacent ideas that immediately sprung to mind, before finally striking gold. “Wait a minute…” She muttered to herself as she began flipping through the book. She’d seen it in here somewhere before, she was sure of it. She flipped a few pages forward, then a few backwards, before finally finding the passage she’d been in search of. She let out a triumphant Aha! before reading aloud a new incantation. Beth and Liz both watched in silence, confused yet curious, as Jenny finished reading, sat back, and waited.

“...You gonna tell us what that was, or what?” Liz said halfheartedly, finally breaking the silence that had ensued.

“Just a simple unlocking spell.“ Jenny said with satisfaction, sitting back and watching her final idea play out.

Luke had almost begun to get used to the waiting. sitting there on the part of the room he’d previously only touched with the aid of a stepladder when replacing a lightbulb still felt irreconcilably strange, but he’d almost learned to make do, when the idleness of the room was suddenly broken by the sounds of the 2 windows in front of him swinging wide open. He jumped a little in surprise, bouncing a few centimeters off the ceiling as the breeze filled the room and buffeted against him. Combined with his sudden movement, it was just enough force to scoot him backwards a little bit and send him rolling almost imperceptibly slowly across the ceiling. Oh great, he thought to himself in frustration, as if this wasn’t ALREADY weird and embarrassing enough, now I’m getting blown around the room. I guess I really am just like a balloon, huh? was roughly how his internal monologue went. He didn’t feel like trying to talk past his puffy cheeks and humiliate himself even further. If nothing else, he figured that at least this meant he’d have something different to look at. Instead of being stuck staring at some windows too low for him to see out of from his lofty perch, now he at least got a view of his nice garden as he slowly rolled to face the opposite direction.

And that precise moment was when Luke realised that his situation was going from bad to worse.

"... Ok that's genius actually."

Liz and Beth had been unsure of where exactly Jenny was going with all this, but now simply watched in enraptured anticipation as Luke ineffectually flapped his hands and legs in panic. Every time he passed any object or surface in the room, he attempted to reach for it in a desperate attempt to stop his slow, inevitable journey towards the great outdoors. Jenny simply sat back in satisfaction, watching the fruits of her idea unfold, before picking up the laptop and carrying it over to her desk, facing the camera out towards the window. For her two spectators, the view from Jen’s camera changed from a cozy bedroom to an unassuming backyard. They, of course, knew that this backyard was about to become quite assuming indeed within the next few moments.

"Enjoy the show, girls, I'm gonna go have some fun with my boyfriend~"

Luke’s eyes widened as he felt his puffed out fingers brushing against the sides of the doorframe leading outside. On the one hand, if his inflated form could just find the motor faculties to grab onto either side, then he’d be safe for at least a little bit longer. On the other hand, if he couldn’t, then there was nothing standing between him and the vast expanse of a beautiful summer sky. The feeling of the breeze against his bare, rounded asscheeks did nothing to assuage this anxiety. He flapped his hands against the doorframe frantically and repeatedly, each time having to move them back ever so slightly further as he passed further and further through the threshold. He knew he only had a few attempts remaining when, finally, like a gift from heaven, he heard the door from the hallway open.

Jenny entered the living room just in time to see her boyfriend’s buoyant body start to pivot upwards, his back half no longer contained by the limits of the ceiling. She sprinted towards him, internally cursing herself for not making it down here just a second earlier. With a final running jump through the doorway, she cupped her errant balloon’s cheeks in her hands and brought him back down to terra firma. Worry briefly flashed through her mind as the two of them hung in the air for a moment, the lift of the gas within Luke almost being enough to carry the two of them, but greater mass inevitably prevailed and Jenny felt the touch of the grass against her feet once again.

Both of them were silent for a brief time. Luke, feeling his predicament might finally be coming to a close, was attempting to compute all the events of the last few minutes in his rampant mind, and figure out how exactly he was going to explain everything both to Jen and whoever they’d need to seek further assistance from. Jenny, meanwhile, was simply taking in the tantalising arousal of the sight before her. The anxious, puffed up, sunken in face of her inflated lover, backed up by the inviting expanse of sunshine and the clouds, it couldn’t have been more perfect.

Just as Luke had begun to turn his thoughts away from emotional processing and towards ‘how on earth do we fix this’ his girlfriend pulled him in for a kiss on his plumped up lips before, with a look of barely restrained delight, releasing her grip and allowing the buoyant gas within him to do as it pleased. His shock came in two waves: one as he realised that the ground was once again receding away from him as he was carried up into the air, and a second as he realised that not only was his girlfriend responsible for it, but that she was now stood there, mockingly waving him goodbye as he ponderously drifted further and further away. She seemed… he had trouble placing the exact cocktail of emotions, but the giddy smile on her face gave him a very clear idea of the ballpark. Perhaps, if he'd been able to tear his gaze away from the heartbreaking display, he might have seen 2 friendly acquaintances of his joining in remotely, partaking in his fate from the comfort of their own homes. 

He might have, had an errant gust not sent him careening away into the afternoon sky like the lost, discarded balloon that his own girlfriend had undeniably made him into.

Jenny's mind was awash with several different, all equally vivid emotions as she watched her ex-boyfriend drift up and out of her life. Part of her did feel a little bad, that much she couldn't deny. It wasn't as if their time together had meant nothing to her, after all. However, this feeling was quite easily swept away in the tide of satisfaction and excitement that came with the afternoon's display. It all reassured her that, if only for her at minimum, this was the proper way to end things. She could no longer imagine any other way to break up with a boy. This was how one was meant to dispose of them. They are just balloons, after all. 

As her balloon disappeared behind the clouds, she allowed herself to linger there and take in the atmosphere for one last time before turning on her heels and walking back inside. She couldn't let her laptop's batteries just keep running down in an empty video call all day, and she had things to do in any case. She'd have to do them without Luke, but that was perfectly fine by her.