Inflate Club, Part 2

“You’re next,” Imogen told Felix as she used a tissue to rub her lipstick off his face.

Felix turned to look at the ring. His opponent--presumably that was Maura--was already waiting for him, dressed in a skin-tight pink body suit and hooking herself up to the aero-accelerator. She was a tall, slender woman, and Felix wondered if that put him at a disadvantage. Did thinner women take longer to overinflate than heavier women? Or vice versa? The crowd murmured amongst themselves as they waited for the next round to begin.

“Remember,” Imogen advised him. “Don’t get popped. It’s my job to pop you.”

“We’ll see,” is all Felix said, and he walked out into the ring, possibly to his doom.

As it was his first match ever, Felix had the buxom blonde referee show him how to hook himself to the machine that would inflate him and Maura. It was actually pretty simple to use; he just wanted a closer look at the ref’s rack.

Strangely, as the referee stood back and raised her arm, Felix did not feel nervous. He just wanted it to begin.

The blonde threw down her arm. “Go!”

Felix had often speculated what inflation felt like, but he still wasn’t prepared for the sudden rush he felt when Maura, with the help of the aero-accelerator, puffed him up like a balloon. It was downright euphoric. He watched in wonder as his gut blew up nice and round, filling him not only with Maura’s warm breath, but also with an overwhelming sense of well-being. He ran his hand over his belly, absorbing just how much bigger he had gotten in so little time.

And then Maura blew into him again, blowing his belly up twice as big. It was then that Felix finally snapped out of his reverie. He had to start blowing--now! He realized already that he had made a bad start: Allowing the opponent to get even one breath ahead of you could be fatal in such a match. And so he blew into the plastic tube in his mouth, the air traveling through the tube, through the aero-accelerator, through the black wire, and into Maura’s belly. She looked instantly pregnant.

Felix’s heartbeat sped up as he puffed hurriedly, trying to make up for lost ground, all the while inflating larger and larger. He couldn’t help but be amazed at his own ballooning body, watching it expand, feeling fuller and fuller in a wonderful, orgasmic sensation. And yet, he didn’t have the luxury of pausing to admire it, because Maura would pop him unless he kept blowing. And so he puffed, hurriedly at first, his nervousness clearly showing. The match was just a few breaths in, but the crowd had already rallied around Maura.

“Go, Maura! Pop him!”

“Blow him to the moon!”

“He’s yours, Maura! Make him burst!”

Felix briefly closed his eyes. He had to focus. As difficult as it was, he had to stop thinking about his own inflation, ignore how big he was getting, how he was so plumped up that he couldn’t even move. He had to just blow, quickly but with deliberation. He opened his eyes again to see that his breaths had the desired effect: Maura was becoming ball-shaped. She was still smaller than he, but he wasn’t out of the game yet. He blew and blew, observing with satisfaction that Maura inflated as easily as a toy balloon. If he could pop a balloon, he thought, he could pop this beautiful woman. He just needed to catch up. He tried to suppress the nervous energy that would cause him to lose his breath. He just kept puffing away, marveling in his own glorious expansion, while at the same time admiring the way Maura surged bigger and bigger. She was a round balloon-ball now, just like him. And it was all his doing.

The bigger he got, the better he felt. And the bigger Maura got, the bigger he wanted her to be. He let the cheering voices turn into white noise, filtering out the calls for him to burst, and instead just focusing on the realm of the ring, watching Maura fill out bigger, feeling himself grow larger. As he puffed, he cheered within his own mind.

I’m a balloon! I’m a balloon! I’m a BLIMP! I’m a giant, inflating BLIMP!

And so is she! Look at Maura! She’s my balloon! I’m making her bigger, and I love it! I’m going to make her so big that she pops!

And so it went on, the two tight, globe-like figures puffing and inflating, puffing and inflating.

Imogen watched nervously and quietly from the stands. It didn’t look good for Felix; he was a size smaller than Maura, and Maura had a little more experience. Felix was blowing hard, but so was she. He always seemed a breath or two behind.

And then something happened that almost made Imogen stand up from her seat.

Maura made another large puff--and the plastic tube flew from her mouth.

The crowd collectively gasped. Strangely, at least in Imogen’s experience, this had never happened before. No one had ever before let her blowing tube fall from her mouth. Maura’s eyes opened wide as she flapped her stubby hands in a futile attempt to reclaim her weapon. But the tube just rolled off her round body and hit the floor. There was a moment of indecision by the crowd. What were the rules in this situation? Did they stop the match? Did the referee step in and give Maura back her tube? Would Felix stop to give Maura a chance?

The answer, of course, was no. Felix knew the rules: There were no rules. It was pop or be popped.

As the crowd fell into deathly silence, and Maura squirmed to get away, Felix inhaled deeply...and he blew.

Maura’s growth surged again, pushing her out in all directions. “Stop! I lost my tube!”

But Felix just blew again. Maura was now as big and as full as he was, her advantage completely gone.

Maura pleaded. “Wait! It’s not fair! Someone help me!”

But everyone just froze, waiting for the next move. It came from Felix, who just blew, and blew, and blew again. Maura swelled and swelled, surpassing Felix’s size and still growing. “Stop the match!” Maura cried. But the referee just watched from the sidelines as Felix kept blowing. “Please!” Maura begged Felix. “Give me a chance! I can’t blow back! It’s not fair!”

Felix just kept blowing, watching Maura stretch and stretch until she was nearly twice his size. He wondered at first if he should stop. But the crowd and the referee had done nothing, apparently feeling as he did that, if Maura lost control of her weapon, she had only herself to blame.

Besides, he admitted to himself, he wanted to see her burst.

His attention was now totally focused away from his own inflated state and onto the beautiful, giant balloon woman in front of him. She was, in fact, a beautiful balloon, Felix thought. And she just got more beautiful the bigger she got. And so he kept blowing and blowing, watching her get bigger and ever more beautiful. She knew, he knew, everyone knew what was going to happen.

Maura is going to pop, he thought. And I’m the one who’s going to make it happen.

“Please,” Maura said, her head now inflating as her body stopped expanding. Her voice was faint, as if she had already given up. She probably had. She knew it was inevitable.

Felix puffed once more, and she let out a little squeak. Her body seemed to quiver ever so slightly. Felix puffed yet again...

BANG!!

Like a spectacular firework display, Maura burst into lovely shrapnel, the explosion shaking the ribs of the front-row spectators. A pregnant pause followed.

And then the crowd burst into applause. Felix, at first the underdog, was now the hero, basking in the applause and adulation. He looked at the lovely shrapnel that had been Maura and wondered if he deserved applause: After all, it’s not like he won fair and square. What would’ve happened if Maura hadn’t made that fatal error? He’d never know.

Imogen smiled and applauded from the stands, even though she knew she was out fifty bucks, having put her money on Maura.

The crowd broke into packs of discussion groups as cleanup began. Two lovely women in tight blue jumpsuits cleaned up the debris that had been Maura. As the audience mixed among themselves, one woman walked from the stands to approach Felix, who still sat there in the ring, a helpless, inflated balloon-boy.

He recognized the woman as Dreda, the founder and all-time champion of Inflate Club. Unfortunately, there was no mistaking her: That freakish face was, sadly, difficult to erase from one’s memory. Felix scowled. Did she think that dressing in those tight white shorts, low-cut tank top, and high heels made her look sexy? Did she really think she could compensate for those giant ears and that oversized mouth with the crooked teeth? What was she thinking?

Dreda looked up at him with her hands on her hips, which carried small but noticeable spare tires. “It’ll take you about fifteen to twenty minutes to deflate,” she told him. “And then it’ll be time for the next round. That’ll be between Tamika and your girlfriend, I believe.”

Felix looked to the stands for Imogen, but he didn’t see her. She had apparently gone backstage to prepare for her round. He was on his own.

“You like her, don’t you?” Dreda asked.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“That’s good,” said Dreda, in a way that suggested that it wasn’t all that good. “You must be pretty proud of your victory. Especially the way you won it.”

Felix didn’t like where this was headed. “There are no rules in Inflate Club, except that you don’t talk about Inflate Club. And that there are no other rules.”

“Maura was a friend of mine,” Dreda said coldly.

Felix just swallowed.

Dreda stepped closer, lifted one of her high-heeled shoes, and dug the pointy heel lightly but firmly into Felix’s taut flesh. He inhaled deeply, feeling the point come dangerously close to piercing his fragile, gossamer skin. “You think you’re pretty big right now, don’t you?” Dreda asked him. “Well, you are nothing compared to how big I can be. You better hope that I don’t get you in the ring, because I’d blow you to bits. You lucked out in this round. You won’t be so lucky next time. You’ll have to get by on your own breath, and I think you’ll pop. But if not...” She lifted her high heel off his skin, and Felix finally exhaled. “I’ll be seeing you.”

As she walked away, Felix tried and failed to resist the temptation to look at her butt in her tight, revealing shorts. Damn it, that ass was too big to be in shorts like that, but he had to look. He hated her even more for that, because he was SO not attracted to her.

It was Felix’s turn to sit in the stands--after getting several congratulatory salutations from attractive female spectators, along with a few flirtations--and he watched as Imogen hooked herself up to the aero-accelerator.

Her opponent was a flamboyant black woman, who, Felix knew, was actually named Tamika, but competed under the name “Spice,” as if she were a wrestler of some sort. She wore a star-spangled outfit, a red-white-and-blue number with stars and stripes on the up-the-crotch shorts and the ever-straining sports bra. She did some wild dances, playing to the crowd, which apparently carried a sizable fan base for her. She was over the top--sort of like her sports bra, Felix noted--but she deserved the attention, because her body was flawless. It was almost too bad that he’d have to see her pop. Almost.

The match began in the usual way, and Felix watched these two gorgeous women, a petite blonde and an athletic black-haired beauty, lose their womanly figures and swell into big, round balloon women. And it continued in the familiar way, each women’s supporters shouting encouragement as the two women blew each other up.

Soon the two women were as big as weather balloons, and there was still no clear frontrunner. They were both disciplined, focused inflation athletes, and Felix felt a little nervous. Could this be an occasion where both competitors wind up bursting? It looked like that was a possibility, though perhaps Imogen was just slightly bigger than Spice.

It was a tense few minutes as each women blew, and each woman inflated. The crowd was going nuts: “Pop her, Spice!” “Go, Imogen!” They were stamping, cheering, clapping. All the while, Felix just quietly watched.

The two women were nearing the size of parade balloons, almost totally round except for their heads sticking out on top. They still blew, still swelled, each keeping pace with the other’s inflation.

And then the crowd sensed it just as Spice did. Spice’s eyes widened in concern as Imogen took an impossibly large breath, apparently using lungpower she had kept in reserve, and focused it all into one powerful gust. Spice was kept off guard, unable to compensate for her sudden expansion, too flustered to regain her composure. Imogen pushed out all the air she possibly could into the plastic hose, the constant flow of air accelerating into Spice and multiplying in force. Spice grew at an alarming rate, surprising everyone who had never seen a woman that big inflate so much more in so short a time. Instead of just a growth spurt, Spice billowed steadily outward in one constant expansion that lasted what seemed to be an incalculable amount of time, panic flaring in her eyes as she began to pulsate ominously, her taut skin squeaking from the rapidly increasing strain. Imogen kept up the pressure, keeping Spice from ever catching her breath or from ever letting her inflation stop. Spice’s growth slowed only modestly as she reached the limits of her endurance, having time for only one quick “Mmmmph!” before she went...

KABOOOOOOMMMM!!

The crowd rose to its feet in exaltation, except for those who lost a fortune on their bets. The applause lasted several minutes, and Felix enjoyed it almost as much as Imogen, who soaked up the spotlight as the cleanup crew arrived. Eventually, after several long minutes, the applause died down, and the spectators turned to each other to talk about perhaps the most intense, exciting match they’d seen in a while.

Felix sat back down again, but he wondered if he should go out to the ring to give Imogen his congratulations. Before he could decide, Dreda appeared from the stands and walked straight up to Imogen, just as she had when Felix was in the ring.

Oh, brother, thought Felix, trying in vain to keep his eyes from straying to Dreda’s slightly exposed buttcheeks. Don’t tell me Dreda gives everyone that “I can be bigger than you” speech.

But in fact, Dreda said nothing. With a swift kick of her high heel, she pierced Imogen’s elastic skin and caused her to burst with a loud BANG!

The sudden explosion caused all conversation in the arena to a screech to a startling halt. An overpowering silence filled the room. Felix rose from his seat in disbelief. Where a moment ago Imogen sat helplessly inflated, there was now just scraps of skin floating to the ground.

Although the rules of Inflate Club were minimal, it was unheard of to pop someone after a match was over, especially when that person had no chance to defend themselves. But no one seemed inclined to punish Dreda, perhaps because she was the Club founder, or perhaps because the vast majority of the crowd were her fans.

In the stunned silence that followed, Dreda stepped in front of the bleachers where Felix sat and flipped him the birdie. “I just popped your girlfriend, fucker! What are you going to do about it?”

The crowd let out a “Ooooh!” from the challenge. Felix just stared dumbly.

“Next week, then, I take it? You and me?” Dreda asked him.

Felix looked around the arena. It was filled with beautiful women, all of whom he would rather compete with. He wouldn’t have minded so much being popped by a hot chick like Imogen, Shanelle, or even Maura. But he didn’t find satisfaction in competing with the ugly chick--especially since she just happened to be the top popper. And yet he couldn’t back out in front of the entire arena. And besides, this time, the competition was personal. After a long, tense moment, Felix nodded.

“Bye-bye!” Dreda sang, and walked out of the ring. Felix’s eyes followed her shorts, as usual, but he was barely aware that he was doing it, as he was already planning his revenge.

He had to pop that freakishly ugly chick. And he knew just how to do it.