Jiffy Pop

It was finally here. After over a year and a half of research, the final test of Janet's creation would now take place.

Janet was not an unattractive girl, especially for being somewhat of a geek. Her beautiful brown eyes matched her long slightly curly hair, and her chest was a respectable B-cup underneath her yellow blouse. Her long thin legs were covered up to her thighs by her striped socks, which showed a little bit of leg before ending at her denim shorts. Right now however, this was not important, for she was signing off the invoice for a very large box, placed in the middle of her living room.

After clearing up the legal formalities, Janet went about getting her supplies ready. Placing a jar marked "LX 4073-2" on her coffee table, she quickly opened up her new toy; a very large, state-of-the art tanning bed!

"After all this time, I'll finally have the full results I need!" said Janet, lifting up the LX 4073-2. "If this works, I'll be world famous!"

After over a year of preparation, and several years of research, Janet happened upon the idea of creating the perfect suntan lotion; it would protect against skin cancer, sun burn, leather-hide, and other problems normally associated with tanning, while still allowing a beautiful suntan. The secret, it turned out, happened to be an extract from a rare species of South American rubber tree, which created a nearly impervious protective latex coating upon the skin.

With some trial and error, Janet was now ready to try a full-body test on herself, using her new tanning bed. Sure, it was a nice sunny afternoon, but being able to control how much 'sun' she got was one of the perks of the bed. Plus, it was a lot more comfortable than any old beach chair, or towel.

She was just about to strip down, when a loud rumbling from her stomach, interrupted her.

"Damn. I should have eaten something earlier. Oh well. I'm sure a little snack won't hurt, while the bed is warming up." Janet plugged in the tanning bed, and switched it to its highest setting to quickly warm it up, while she got something to eat.

Entering her small kitchen, Janet opened up her refrigerator door, to find (Much to her displeasure.) that all there was inside was the open box of baking soda, and a note.

[Dear Janet, My cousin is having a potluck party, so I needed to borrow a few things. I hope you don't mind. I'll pay you back when I return this weekend. Love, your neighbor Lisa.]

"Note to self." Muttered Janet. "Change locks on the doors, and don't let Lisa keep the emergency keys from now on."

A quick search of all the cupboards revealed that the only food left in the entire house, was five 'Jiffy Pop' pans. The fact that Lisa was allergic to popcorn, seemed to be the only reason why they had been left behind.

"Popcorn is better than nothing, I guess." Said Janet, readying her electric stove. She liked popcorn and all, but she was kind of in the mood for more than a few fluffy popped kernels to satisfy her appetite.

Suddenly a loud buzzing noise was heard, just before the power went totally out in the whole apartment complex.

"It figures THIS would happen, right after I get my tanning bed!" grumbled Janet. Not she could not even cook up the Jiffy Pop. A loud rumbling from her tummy told her that she still had some more pressing issues to attend. She eyed the barely warmed aluminum pan for a moment. "Ah, the heck with it!" Ripping off the foil, Janet began swallowing the unpopped popcorn in huge gulps.

It left her a little satisfied, but nowhere near enough. Turning toward the other Jiffy Pop pans, she let out a defeated sigh. "I'm going to have to go shopping tomorrow anyway, so I might as well make due with what I have now."

After eating the other pans of popcorn, Janet was full, but making odd rattling noises when she walked. She knew most if not all of the kernels would simply pass through her, so she was not worried about getting fat or anything.

Waiting for the power to come back on, Janet stripped her clothes off, and applied her sunscreen onto her body, making sure to get it all over herself. Even after she had finished with this though, the power was still not back on, and Janet was getting a little bored.

Laying down in her tanning bed, Janet placed herself comfortably in the middle of the cushions, and pulled the inert lamps around herself, so she would not need to adjust them too much later on. The control for the chair, a wireless remote with a couple of dials and buttons, was within easy arms reach of Janet, should she need it.

She then placed her favorite sunglasses on her face, and lay there in the nude, waiting for the electricity to finally come back on. Somewhere along the line, the softness of the bed, and the fullness of her belly lulled her into a happy, but deep sleep. She never even noticed when the power finally did come back on. With the bed at its highest setting, it did not take long for a POP to be heard, followed by another, and another, and another . . .

"Ladies and gentlemen! Esteemed colleagues, we are gathered here today to award the Nobel Peace Prize for Cosmetic Excellence to Janet Beauheaven, for her development of the LX 4073 tanning lotion!"

Janet, tanned to a golden brown, wearing a very small turquoise bikini, graciously accepted the award, basking in the applause of the audience.

"Oh, you're all too kind! Thank you! Thank you all!" said Janet.

She suddenly realized that something was wrong. The applause seemed a little... odd.

Hollow. Not really like clapping. It was more like a popping noise.

"Wait... Popping!?"

Janet woke up, and tried to sit up, but found herself unable to bend forward due to the large, tan-rubber ball that her midsection had become.

Muffled popping could be heard over the buzz of the half-dozen tanning lamps going at full power, all around herself. Janet tried to roll off the bed, but the sloped and cushioned sides prevented her from getting away. She then tried to push the lamps away from her, but she could only manage to move the closest two, without burning her hands. The other lamps, still heating her expanding belly, were just in the right position to continue popping the eaten corn.

Idly, Janet wondered why her expanding belly did not hurt as much as it should have. After all, it was being expanded larger than an overblown beach ball. She felt the sides of her expanded stomach, and it made a rubbery noise.

"My tanning lotion!" Janet realized. "It... It must have somehow rubberized my skin, with the latex extract!" The popping suddenly began increasing its tempo, as the sides of her belly got closer to the tanning lamps. "Oh my GOD! If I don't do something fast, I'm going to explode!! The control! Where's the tanning control!?"

Janet wiggled around, trying to reach the corded control. Her eyes suddenly went wide, when she heard a loud KERTHUNK, and realized the control had just dropped way out of her reach, onto the floor.

"Noooooooo!" cried Janet. "There's got to be SOMETHING I can do!"

Once again, she tried rolling upward. After a couple of tries, she finally got enough momentum to somewhat sit up, but it caused her belly to bulge out from the pressure, like a large tan-colored balloon being squeezed. She panicked when her balloon-belly nearly touched the hot side of one of the tanning lamps, and without thinking, she jumped backward as far as she could into the back of the tanning bed. This left her safely away from the lamps for the moment, but also completely trapped her between the bed, and the lamps. She could not even roll back backwards, or reach anything with her arms anymore.

"ARRRGH! I can't believe this!" said Janet. "I can see the headline; 'Genius Girl Found Popped From Popcorn!'"

At first she was reluctant to scream for help, because of the embarrassing situation she was in. Then the popping increased once more, due to her still expanding belly, and she started screaming with all of her might. The only response she got however, was from her upstairs neighbor yelling to "Keep it down!"

She could feel the popcorn still in her stomach, and she knew that it was not going to stop popping anytime soon. It was like having a balloon about to pop, attached to herself. Or more accurately, a balloon-bomb about to explode! She knew that with her belly expanding, and the corn popping, it would only be a matter of time before she too popped like a gigantic kernel.

Suddenly, Janet got a determined, or at least some what resolute look in her eyes. "If... If I'm going to pop, it should be by MY own choice!" She suddenly grabbed the sides of her rubber belly, and began digging her nails into it, causing popped corn to be crushed, even as new fluffy kernels were popped in their place. "The only way I'm going to pop, is if I DO IT MYSELF!!!"

Janet squeezed, and pulled, and pushed, and crushed, but her ballooned belly did not rupture, it only continued to grow. And grow it did, becoming much larger than any beach-ball she had ever seen. Janet had worked herself into a frenzy, and after finally calming down, she noticed just how big she had gotten.

"Good grief! How much bigger am I going to get?!?" thought Janet. "I can't take this anymore! I better try to pop myself on the lamps! I'm going to end up doing that anyway, at this point!"

Somehow Janet managed to scoot up just enough, that her over-inflated stomach barely touched the tanning lamp. Surprisingly, it did not hurt, despite the fact that she could feel the heat from it, as well as the corn popping rapidly on the other side.

"Being inflated like this, must have done something to the nerves." Thought Janet. "At least it shouldn't hurt too much now, when it finally goes..."

The sides of her stomach touched the four tanning lamps, but instead of burning away her flesh, and rupturing her distended belly, it just seemed to increase the popping of the corn a thousand times over. She was quickly pushed back against the top end of the tanning bed once more. Surprisingly, she found herself looking forward to her explosive end; the lack of pain, and the anticipation seemed to cover the fear of her impending death rather nicely.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

The corn popping was finally beginning to slow down, but she could feel her five-foot round stomach reaching its limits too. Janet moved her hair back, placed her fingers in her ears, and watched with a look of anticipation that defied most conventional logic. As she heard the popping of the last few kernels accompanied by the final rubbery stretching of her poor belly balloon, she closed her eyes, and let a small smile creep across her beautiful tanned face.

KER-POPABOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The windows of Janet's apartment were blown out by the force of her detonation. Not by the pressure, but by the gigantic wave of popcorn that had suddenly erupted from her living room. Underneath a literal mountain of popcorn, a very surprised, and pale young woman rolled out, surveying what had just happened.

Janet rubbed her hands gently on her whole, and no longer rubberized or tanned stomach, noticing how it tingled. Quickly digging through the ocean of popcorn, she uncovered her unspoiled jar of LX 4073-2 lotion, and the tanning bed, which had a bunch of scraps of tanned flesh-colored rubber on it.

After unplugging the tanning bed, and clearing off a place to sit, Janet began eating some of the delicious popcorn, while forming a plan for the upcoming week.

EPLOGUE

The police never did quite figure out what had exactly happened in what had been dubbed the "Popcorn Bomb" incident. No permanent damage was done, and no real charges were pressed. Janet was given a warning for disturbing the peace with her original screaming, but nothing was said about the popcorn explosion, for better or for worse.

Lisa, who conveniently forgot about paying for the food she had "borrowed" earlier in the week, noticed Janet packing up for some kind of vacation trip. Walking over to her neighbor, she quickly noticed something odd about the supplies that Janet was packing. One was a moderately-used tanning bed, and the other things, well...

"Why are you taking five boxes of Jiffy Pop with you on vacation, Janet?" asked Lisa.

Janet giggled somewhat mischievously and said, "Let's just say some of the greatest things are discovered by the strangest of accidents."

The End?