Summer Rumors

It was one of those sweltering days where the sun stuck to your skin and the pool was the only place left to exist. Kayla drifted lazily on a bright yellow inner tube, the water cool against her legs, the heat pressing down from above like a heavy blanket.

She scrolled through her phone, half-bored, half-baking, until a weird thread caught her eye. A secondhand story about a girl who’d filled herself with water at a backyard party. The post was vague—just a friend of a friend saying she got “huge” and “just floated there like a beached blimp.” Kayla snorted. No pictures, obviously. But the idea lodged in her brain like a splinter.

She stared out across the pool, then back at the hose coiled near the deck.

"Yeah, right," she muttered, half-amused, half-intrigued. But the image stuck.

An hour later, her curiosity had snowballed into determination. The pool was empty. The hose was right there. And the idea of floating with her belly so full it filled the inner tube? That sounded… well, kind of amazing.

She slid the hose under the waistband of her bikini bottoms, reclined on the lounger, and twisted the spigot until water began to trickle in. She exhaled and let it happen.

At first, it was just pressure. A slow, creeping stretch. Then the weight started to grow. Her stomach puffed up steadily, lifting into a smooth dome. The waistband gave up the fight first, sliding under her swelling belly. The inner tube groaned a little as her expanding stomach began to press against the sides.

Slosh.

She blinked. That came from inside her.

Another shift. Glorp. The water inside her belly swayed like it had a tide of its own. Her eyes widened as she ran her hands across the taut, chilled skin. She was absolutely full of water—and still growing.

The inner tube rocked under her as her stomach ballooned outward, cool and heavy and impossibly big. Every tiny move sent ripples through the pool and waves through her belly. Blorp. Slush. Glug. She couldn't stop smiling.

Minutes passed. She wasn’t sure how many. The hose gurgled faintly as it kept going. Her belly now filled the center of the tube completely, pressing against the plastic ring and sinking her slightly deeper into the water. She was stuck in it now—completely wedged by her own belly.

Finally, she reached down and pulled the hose out, her fingers moving slow and lazy. The pressure settled into something warm and satisfying, like the fullness after a huge meal—if the meal was a few gallons of pool water.

She let her arms float on either side of her and stared up at the sky, belly towering over her chest, sloshing gently with each little movement of the water.

“No clue if that girl was real,” she muttered, more to herself than anyone else. “But I totally get it now.”

She let her head fall back and closed her eyes, the warm sun on her face, the cold water inside her shifting with every little bounce of the tube.

Sploosh. Glunk. Blup.

Yeah, this was her new summer thing.