SPOILED 2 - part eight

This was stupid.

All that echoed back and forth along the dingy concrete tunnels were Sweet and Dey’s footsteps, any more than that remaining unspoken, only internalised.

Manni’d wrapped up his little vlogging jaunt into the phone that had 23 per cent battery life left hours ago, to fall in step behind big, quiet Arthur. They’d eaten much of their supplies in silence.

(Just talk to him), Dey chastised himself along the trudge. (You know when would be a great time to hash things out? Right bloody now, with fuck all else to do except plod down these never-friggin-ending tunnels).

The tram system just beyond the tunnel walls hasn’t resounded for some time. There was every chance they’d left it behind. Perhaps they were entering into a new section of whatever this enormous facility was.

Pushing his self-torment to one side a moment, Manni decided to consult his phone again, to go over the footage he’d taken of the ‘subway-map’ diagram. Maybe it could throw up some indication as to their current whereabouts.

‘… Huh…,’ he huffed, pausing and pinching the video wider, zooming in.

Arthur stopped plodding. ‘What?’

Dey shook his head absently, still scanning the image. ‘Not sure… It’s just… I don’t know.’

He felt Sweet’s bulk upon him, and tried to put a pin in his usual lust for the big man’s natural scent and bodyheat, all of that now so thoroughly muddied and… tarnished. Maybe.

‘I was trying to get a sense for where we might be,’ Manni told him. Now Sweet’s breath was on his neck. ‘And I pulled up the tube-map-thing we found back in the station, this video I took, and… Well, look, you see this?’

He noted Arthur’s usual readjustment of his glasses in his periphery, sensed the older man scrutinising.

‘What am I looking at?’

‘This bit here.’ Dey wiggled a short circle with his forefinger around the bottom section of the map. ‘You’ve got all the different place names - Engineering, Kitchens, Lab, all that - and the lines connecting them, but then-‘

‘Wait, I see it,’ Sweet told him. ‘Right at the bottom. There’s summin’ not right.’

‘It’s like this gap under the stop marked ‘SP’, but it just looks, I don’t know, out of place?’

‘Like something was meant to be there,’ Arthur theorised. ‘Or is there but just ain’t on the map anymore.’

Manni nodded in thought.

‘Reading this logically, I think if we take this diagram to mean each of the stops on the tram go further and further into the facility in descending order, then whatever SP is-‘

‘There’s something underneath it. Something deep.’

‘Sweet,’ Manni looked to him, almost nose to nose. ‘What if there’s something underneath this whole mountain?’

‘Mmm,’ Arthur replied quietly. Then after a few moments he took a step back, meaning to continue on down the tunnel, apparently done speculating.

‘Arthur, wait,’ Dey fumbled. The image of the map was still open in his palm. Were they really going to go straight back to an awkward frost so quickly?

Sweet paused but did not look back.

(For God’s sake). Dey sought the heavens, and of course found only a blackened concrete ceiling. (I’ve got to get this damned thing over with, haven’t I? Or else it might never end. Out with it), he demanded of himself. (Just have out with it!)

‘This is - This is stupid,’ he started. ‘We should… you know, talk about… what happened-‘

‘Nothing to say, is there?’ Sweet replied to the floor.

‘Yes there is, come on,’ Manni implored. He hated this. They were two grown adults, for crying out loud, not long ago happy as could be. Why was this so hard? ‘I didn’t mean to… to, you know… back at the resort…’

He saw that Arthur’s chest and belly were now heaving. He’d balled his hands up into chubby clumps, head half-turned, not quite able to make eye contact.

‘I just thought,’ the big man began, pronouncing it more like ‘thawt’ (Dey had long noticed the East-End Londoner in Sweet came out stronger in times of stress), ‘we was gettin’ closer. I thought we was, you know, like a proper… like a proper couple!’ He turned fully. ‘We been through so much together already, and I thought… I just thought it’d… brought us closer together, type-thing…’ A maelstrom of emotions was churning across his face. Something was catching the light behind his glasses. ‘You know, ever since John died, I ain’t… never had no luck with blokes… You know that. And then you come along, and it was… we was doing so well, I thought… until I opened me big fuckin’ mouth-‘

‘No! No, it’s not that at all.’ Manni just about stopped the words from twisting in his throat. God, seeing Sweet in such a state was turning Dey’s heart to lead. He wanted to reach out. Should he reach out? It was the resort all over again.

‘Are you giving me the old ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ speech?’ Sweet asked, bottom lip tightening under his moustache, soft chest working even harder.

‘No! Fuck no!’ Dey shouldn’t have retorted so loudly, but he’d forgotten all notions of stealth in this place, just for a second. ‘No, it’s not like that…’

‘I thought… I thought you liked me big belly and… and all that. I thought-‘

‘Arthur, I was engaged to be married.’

This acted like a gigantic red stop sign. All conversation suddenly died.

Sweet let his mouth remain open, unspeaking, heat drained out of him. The tunnel dripped. The drip echoed.

‘You what?’ he eventually uttered. His face had screwed right up.

‘It’s… Listen,’ Dey’s eyes found the ceiling again and he blew all the air from his body. His hand ruffled his quiff back.

Had he meant to say that? He couldn’t be sure anymore, but seeing Arthur so upset, all worked up like that, it was wringing his insides out.

(I’ve said it now. Broken the seal…)

He was just going to have to tell Sweet the whole thing, in all its shitty and depressing glory.

(Oh fuck, here goes.)

‘It’s a long story,’ he said, getting the words out reluctantly, ‘and… and it’s hard for me to talk about. I’m… I’m not proud of it…’ He blew out some more air. ‘There was a girl, years before coming to London, when I was still a constable back in Cambridge. My family sort of… pushed us together…’

Sweet waited, blinking.

Manni forged on, ‘Neither of us wanted it - not the relationship, not the wedding, any of it. We - we went along with it because… well, there was just so much pressure. She was a good person. Kind, funny. We were more like friends, honestly - good friends - we got along really well, but just… not like that, you know… Anyway, it got the point where we were engaged to be married; it should never have gotten that far, but we did it just to sort of appease our folks. Her family were so, so strict, and mine were almost as bad. Maybe worse in some ways, thinking about it…’

Arthur remained silent, listening intently.

‘The whole thing got… really far,’ Manni continued. ‘Way too far, in fact - I’m talking about the wedding, I mean. Our parents had the whole thing planned out, they’d put money down and everything. I mean, I don’t know if you know anything about Indian weddings but they get fucking expensive! And the date was getting closer and closer, and it was getting to the point where… I couldn’t even sleep, and I was having like these panic attacks…’

Dey had to stop for a moment. There was a reason this had all been packed tightly into the ‘box’. Just recalling the events was extracting a toll.

‘So then I just…’

But he didn’t want to speak it aloud. Too much shame. Too much everything.

‘… You bottled it?’ Sweet asked.

Manni nodded, gazing to his shoes. ‘At the last minute. It caused like this huuuuge fucking mess like you wouldn’t believe… Oh my God. My family were like… Fuck, Arthur, you should have seen the look on my Mum’s face…’ He jammed his eyes shut for a moment.

Sweet lumbered back to him in a few steps. ‘I knew you never came out to them, but I didn’t realise… Shit.’

‘Yeah…’

Reliving all of this was almost physically painful; sealing the lid on it had taken years of work. ‘My parents never looked at me the same way again after that.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Sweet said, after a time.

He looked unsure whether to go on. Surely a hundred things were going round the big man’s mind now; Dey had to concede he’d stolen his partner’s thunder rather spectacularly, but that had sort of been the point, he supposed.

‘Thanks,’ Manni sighed, lengthy and dowsed in sadness. ‘Few years went by but… it never got any better. It was like I’d burned the bridge with my family completely. So… when the transfer from Cambridge to London came up, I pounced on it, to be honest.’

Arthur nodded; he himself had entered the story shortly thereafter.

But this next part was the most important. Manni carried on with a hollow laugh, ‘And you know the fucking ridiculous thing about all of it is - Ever since we got here, to this stupid bloody island, I can’t get the image of them out of my head. It’s like, every time I close my eyes I see my Mum and Dad and their look of just pure, unfiltered disapproval staring at me…’

‘So back at the resort…’

‘Yeah. I knew what you were going to say to me, Arthur. But then their faces popped up, and I couldn’t deal with-‘

‘It’s my fault. I was gettin’ too pushy. Too clingy,’ Sweet spoke up, cheeks beginning once again to flush. ‘I didn’t know you’d been through all of that, with your family and everything. I didn’t even think to ask, I just assumed like an idiot-‘

‘No. It’s not your fault at all. Please don’t say that. You’re right; we have been getting closer, and I do care for you, Arthur, so so much! I feel the same way as you do-‘

All at once, Arthur scooped Manni up into a massive hug and squeezed with all his might, letting all of Dey’s huge musculature sink into his warm, expansive bodyfat. Sweet kissed his temple, tickling it with his ‘tache.

‘You don’t ‘ave to say nothing,’ he whispered. ‘You don’t ‘ave to say nothing.’

And something finally broke inside Manni’s throat. A release came out, a suck of air came in, and somewhere in his mind a demon had been vanquished.

He sniffed and wiped one eye, letting his head fall against Arthur’s padded shoulder where the big man kept him, safe and held.

‘You mean so much to me,’ he whispered back, feeling Sweet’s porky hand brush his hair. ‘I’m sorry I cut you off. I’m sorry…’

‘Shhhh. You don’t ‘ave to say nothing,’ Arthur repeated softly.

Relief flooded through Manni’s being, mingling with the warmth that only Sweet’s embrace could bring. He nestled himself deeper into the big man’s fat, never wanting to let go.

‘You mean the world to me and all,’ Arthur told him, kissing Manni’s cheek. ‘I’ll - Wait…’

‘You’ll wait? For what?’

Sweet had frozen. He cocked his head, now squinting.

‘No, sorry. Wait. Do you hear that?’

Out of the dripping nothingness of the access tunnel, a strange ethereal sound was floating into their ears.

Manni tugged himself from Arthur’s warmth a smidge, hands still on the big man’s obscenely round lovehandles. ‘Does that sound like… music to you?’

Sweet closed his eyes and listened. ‘It’s coming from further down.’

He took Manni’s hand, much to the latter’s great happiness - this was how it was supposed to be. In an instant, the pair were right again. And in some crazy way, even in this strange place, the rest of the world felt right again.

Everything was whole.

Together they followed the strange, flowing sound. The network of pipes in this access tunnel were giving way to a series of panels up ahead, not dissimilar to the one Manni had pried open earlier. One of them appeared open; the music was coming from within.

‘Looks like it leads to a ventilation system,’ Dey said as they drew closer. Investigating together, with no rift between he and Sweet, this was all he needed. It filled him with a contentment he couldn’t even describe. ‘I think we could maybe fit through, just might have to duck our heads a bit.’

He was right. Leading off from the access tunnel, the panel opening turned into a network of metal walls - large vents with occasional grates set into the flooring. The sound was bouncing all along it. The cooler air all but confirmed that this was indeed a ventilation system, just big enough for two well-fed adults.

‘Bloody hope this holds our weight,’ Sweet mused. ‘I got plenty of that, just by myself.’

‘Well, we know the Rookery employs fat blokes, so you’d think this would be built to take their weight when they’re working in here, right?’ Manni reasoned in return.

‘Me old back ain’t gonna like it,’ Arthur grumbled, bending his bulk slightly, but there was the old smile behind his facial hair (Manni had missed that a lot). ‘We should tread careful. Try and soften our footsteps as much as we can. Don’t want anyone hearin’ us creeping about.’

‘Agreed,’ Dey nodded. Being truthful with himself, all he cared for in this moment was Sweet’s hot, hammy hand squeezed lovingly around his. It was stupid to think on, here in this secret facility inside of a mountain on a mysterious island, but he didn’t care.

He went first, setting off carefully into the ventilation system. Though he and Arthur were certainly heavy fellows, they found that by stepping along at a reduced pace, they could adequately cushion the sounds of their footfall, for it was soon clear that there was indeed something underneath them.

Through a grate beneath their feet, the two former detectives spied what looked to be a hospital room, or dental practice maybe - some sort of clinical space with reinforced medical beds and monitors and such. It was currently empty.

Manni silently pointed his finger down at one detail he’d spotted: Metal cuffs attached to the beds.

Arthur saw them too, and nodded, mouthing the words ‘Rookery shit’ back to this partner.

They crept on.

The music grew louder, echoing in all manner of odd ways along the metallic ventilation shaft walls.

‘What is that?’ Dey whispered.

Sweet paused a moment, angling his head. It had sounded vaguely recognisable all along, and now, louder, it came to him. The answer made little sense, causing his brows to knot.

‘Enya,’ he whispered back.

****

Reece was in The Palace.

Actually in The Palace.

He’d made it! Against the insurmountable odds, Holy Hell, he’d made it! He’d even been given his own room. With a view!

High, arched windows framed a stunning vista beyond; lush gardens and lawns bursting with colour, canals of crystal clear water, mile-high fountains, poplars casting soft sunset shadows, peacocks - bloody peacocks for Christ’s sake! And among it all, large, swollen Palace staff tending and labouring, shearing immaculate hedgerows or watering the most vibrant of flora.

(I’m actually here), Reece marvelled to himself. (I can’t believe, after all this time, I’m actually standing in The Palace, in my own room. No more dorms, no more ceremonies, no more mess hall and idiot gaining lads…)

No more Lucas…? Reece pondered - not for the first time since being taken to this room - what had become of that kid. It had all been a blur back at The Lab. All that ruckus going on.

And there was a thought that brought Reece back down to earth. Hard.

He may have pulled off the apparent impossible by landing himself here, but it had come with a hefty catch:

The plug.

Once he, Lucas and the other lads had wound up in The Lab, chaotic though it was, he’d been dragged off to a laboratory room and swiftly put to sleep, his protests ignored. When he’d woken, two things became clear - whatever disruption had wrought itself across the facility had died down, and, more disturbingly, something had been inserted into his arsehole.

Reece could feel metal around the ring of his rear end, and the feeling continued up inside him. How deep was an unknown, but his whole colonic region was raw and tender. And what was worse - it wouldn’t come out. Upon leaving The Lab, the only parting words the doctors had left him with were ‘It’s permanent’ and ‘Don’t worry, you can still poop’.

(Gee, what a comfort…)

Reece assumed the plug was probably some pervy sexual thing that knob Nightingale had stuck in him, probably as a way of exacting one final piece of petty revenge before relinquishing Reece to pastures newer and greener. Something he gave to all the lads he disliked. A parting gift.

It was immediately after receiving his “gift” that Reece had been loaded back onto the tram and shuttled straight to Swan Palace, where an impossibly large guard walked him through the grounds, amused by Reece’s gaping jaw before showing him to his new quarters. He hadn’t even touched Reece. No grabbing of wrist, no throwing him around like a human ragdoll.

‘We have to keep the doors locked, I’m afraid. But that’s more for your own safety,’ the huge man had said after letting the stunned Reece inside this room. ‘Someone will be along a little later.’ And with that he’d left.

Things really were different here at The Palace. You got treated like a human being, for one thing!

Of course Reece tried the door anyway, ‘cos why wouldn’t you? But the bloke hadn’t been lying - it was locked. So on the plus side of things Reece was finally getting what he wanted, and was, crucially, one step closer to Mr Swan - his endgame. But the minuses included being now locked into this (admittedly gorgeous) room, and having some metallic contraption stuck up his arse.

(Once I get to Mr Swan and seize control of this place - might take a good while, granted, but I’m no stranger to playing the long game, am I? - then I’m sure I can get this thing removed. It’s a nuisance, nothing more. I’ve spent my life putting up with nuisances. One more ain’t gonna kill me. If I can get my fingers on some tools, might even be able to dismantle it sooner. There’s ways around everything. Always are).

A velvet-padded stool lay by the window. Reece parked his ample size down onto it, tensing from the still-fresh tenderness in his lower regions. That would go away in time, he supposed.

Time. There was something he suddenly had an abundance of. Here in his new room, with this unbelievable view, he’d actually have time to map out his next moves, to ruminate on how best to garner Mr Swan’s favour, slide his way into the old man’s best books (he assumed Mr Swan was old, but actually had no idea - he’d only glimpsed the guy once from behind). It wouldn’t be quick, and it wouldn’t be easy, but that was okay. Reece knew how to lay groundwork, plant seeds. He’d done that well enough with “little” Lucas, and had earned his ticket to this Palace.

(Guess there’s no point thinking any more on that angelic lump now. Got my use out of him. Still… kinda novel, to leave one alive for a change… Ah well).

The route here had taken a few unexpected turns, sure, but what mattered most was that he was here.

Reece could only chuckle; this room was like the swankiest hotel suite he’d ever stayed in - silk sheets on the bed, gold thread in the bathroom towels, marble pillars, even bunches of fresh grapes in a golden bowl. Almost cartoonishly lavish. From all he’d seen of The Palace so far, it had put him in mind of Roman Emperors, or some shit like that. Probably said a lot about Mr Swan’s ego.

He wondered how mealtimes would work here. Could he order whatever he wanted? And would he actually be given a role, as the gossip boys had theorised? Studying the rotund workers toiling outside and finding himself amicable to the prospect of joining them (not bad as jobs went), Reece now understood something else - this Palace must be located in another region of the mountain to the ceremonial site, given the complete contrast in landscape. No lawless jungle out on this side. Everything here was ordered, pruned to perfection. He wondered if old Swan had had his Palace carved out of the very mountain itself. The man clearly favoured opulence and grandeur, that much was obvious.

(And some day, not far away, this will all be mine. If I have to scheme for a year or more, I’ll take it. I’m taking this whole damned island).

A short double-knock at the door displaced Reece’s thoughts.

He rose to open it, perhaps expecting a nice large dish of supper served up to his doorstep, but had to sag a mite at the reappearance of the massive, dinnerless guard.

‘If you’ll follow me, please,’ he said, tone polite yet commanding.

Reece nodded in uncertainty and left the suite he’d barely gotten to know. Something about this hulking escort said "If you try to run, you’ll regret it" without having to say that at all. Effortless authority. Reece actually admired that, in a way.

He followed the man through marble-tiled walkways, shooshing indoor canals of azure flowing alongside them, and out to one of the many lawns spied earlier from the window, complete with its beds of rhododendrons and birds of paradise. Before his brain could decipher whether or not he’d just spotted some breed of big cat (which poked at a recent memory, then was gone), he was inside again, more clacking of heels and aquatic ambience. A man with a huge belly, dressed in waistcoat and shirt with not a single speck of him out of place nodded stiffly to the guard and passed by. Reece looked back. Everyone here was so… pristine.

Notions of asking where he was being taken, or what was going on stayed on Reece’s tongue. This was The Palace. A fresh start in many real terms, and an opportunity to shed himself of the beleaguered reputation he’d amassed back in the dorms. Better to stay silent here. Listen and learn. Soak it all up.

(You never know what you’ll pick up that could be used to your advantage later. Keep your head down and your ears open).

The corridor led to a kind of indoor-outdoor space, partially formed from the mountain itself, as Reece had surmised this Palace would be, and punctuated by beautiful pillars of vermilion and cream marble, twined in gold. Austere busts judged from quiet nooks, vases of probable untold worth rested here and there. Impeccable staff waited at stations such as a gold-trimmed full bar, every beverage accounted for, and a hot towel dispensary, all of it facing outward to the brilliant gardens and glistening oceans beyond.

And at the centre of it all, atop a luxuriant chaise, reclined a shirtless man in designer sunglasses, with a designer beard, wearing designer shorts. He looked like one of those exorbitantly wealthy middle-aged people who could easily afford to have their bodyclocks turned back, and as a result bore skin without blemish or wrinkle. He looked in very good shape. Behind him was… a box thing bolted to the ground with an attachment that passed a resemblance to a hoover, looking thoroughly out of place.

Reece’s escort brought him before the reclining man and said, ‘Mr Swan, my Lord,’ with a deep bow that Reece, at a moment’s realisation, cackhandedly attempted to mimic.

So this was Mr Swan…

‘Er, hello…,’ Reece uttered, feeling something close to starstruck, which was stupid, he knew. ‘How do you, uh, do?’

Mr Swan made no motion at first, only continuing to read from a tablet in his hand before eventually looking up. He then sat upright in the chaise, peering over the top of the sunglasses to inspect Reece.

Reece hadn’t expected the man to be so... handsome, frankly. It was like finding yourself in the presence of Hollywood royalty or something.

‘Turn around for me,’ Mr Swan instructed.

Reece did so.

‘Good good,’ was Mr Swan’s reaction, though his mouth stayed unsmiling.

‘Uh, thank you… Sir…’ If there was a protocol or anything, Reece was clueless over it, and so muddled through as best he could, the importance of this first impression not lost on him.

(This has all come sooner than I thought, but there’s no time like the present to get into this rich arsehole’s good books).

Mr Swan gazed beyond Reece to the hulk behind him.

‘Well? Get it plugged in, then,’ he commanded.

And before Reece knew what to make of that, the huge guard bent down to the hoover-thing beside the chaise and drew out its attachment, which looked to be a spool of thick flex-metal.

‘What, uh…?’ Reece began.

‘Remove your trousers and underwear, please,’ the guard instructed.

Reece snorted. ‘You what?’

He saw a smirk appear on Mr Swan’s face, then felt his waistband yanked down, both trousers and underwear in one go, some part of them ripping from the force of the motion. Then his shirt was quite literally torn from his upper body, again in one fell swoop.

‘Wait,’ he started. ‘What are you-‘

Next the guard seized his ankle in one massive hand and placed the end of the flex-metal attachment against Reece’s now bare arse.

‘Stand still, please,’ the huge man said.

Reece wasn’t sure he had much of a choice; the grip around his ankle was like a vice. Twisting his fattened torso around for a better view, it looked as though the guard was screwing the metal pipe into his anus. Into the plug.

‘What are you doing?’ he tried again, not liking this one bit. A fluster of powerlessness was seeping into his nerves.

He heard a metallic click, and looked down. As far as he was able to discern, he’d been ‘attached’ to the featureless box via the metal cord, essentially tethering him to it. It wasn’t particularly lengthy either, meaning he wasn’t going to move far from this spot in his current state.

Hole sore and heart fast, he asked Mr Swan, ‘What’s… What’s going on?’

A need to comply, to present cordiality as part of his long game fought with outright panic inside of Reece.

He had a horrible feeling he knew what was coming.

Mr Swan, for his part, removed his sunglasses entirely, holding them aloft for all of two seconds before a member of his staff ran to collect them. He then took his time in locating a palm-sized device from his pocket while Reece resisted hyperventilation. It was a remote control.

Mr Swan pressed it.

Almost at once the bolted-down box rumbled, and in the same instance Reece felt what he’d been dreading: air flowing from the tube into his arse.

‘Ughhh,’ he groaned, lips grimacing.

It was like a building of slow pressure, inflating his colon, causing discomfort and a kind of cramping inside of him. He could feel the air continuing up and up, bearing similarity to the sensation of trapped wind. And it was getting worse.

He wanted to express his displeasure. But he also needed to stay on Swan’s good side, and thus opted for simple grunts and huffs.

Mr Swan reclined back, grinning lightly, and proceeded to place one hand down the front of his shorts.

(Does he want me to join him? Is this like a sex thing or - Oh God…)

Looking down, Reece now saw that his stomach had begun to bloat. He patted it down with unsure hands, but alarm bubbled up; he’d expected to feel his usual doughy surface and instead got something firmer, harder. The skin was stretching.

And what’s more, it was starting to hurt.

‘Ugghhh,’ he let out, not knowing what to do, where to look.

None of the staff, hulk included, would face his way. Mr Swan appeared increasingly amused, and had started playing with himself.

Reece’s blubbery middle was filling out into a tighter ball shape, pain stitching all along the sub-dermal and the internal. Cramping, pressurised pain.

In a moment of consternation he tried to reach back to his anus to dislodge the cord, but found his expanding frame wouldn’t allow for such an articulation. His torso couldn’t twist at the middle. Too blimped out.

Mr Swan seemed to particularly enjoy this display. The trying, the whining, the failing.

‘Ughh, please… could we… could we stop, Sir?’ Reece’s resolve broke, pain taking over.

(Good first impression be damned, this hurts too fucking much!)

The question only invited harder self-strokes from old Swan.

Reece turned to the guard, horrified at this new buoyant feeling in his insides as he did so, and asked,

‘Can you help? Can you… turn it off, please…?’

The guard, who’d not half an hour earlier shown politeness, even respect, merely stood there, massive arms folded.

‘Come on…,’ Reece implored to the space at large. No staffers even looked his way.

(Fuck… fuck…!)

His stomach, fat though it already was, had doubled in size. Probably more. It stretched right out in front, to his sides, presumably behind too. His skin was howling in pain, insides on fire.

He had to do something. No-one was helping, they were all just standing there! Or in Swan’s case, fapping. Though movement now brought further pains, Reece balled his fists and began to march away. If none of these preened pricks were going to step in, he would step out!

Only his inflating body was yanked back after only a few paces, causing an agonising ripple through his colon. He turned back and saw that the cord was firmly sealed to the box, as well as him. He tried to bend down to pick it up, and found in horror that he could no longer make his body perform such an action; he’d been pumped so tight he couldn’t even bend at the hips!

A soft laugh came from the chaise, and Mr Swan stood lazily, his mighty errection skewering his designer shorts.

‘Going somewhere?’ he smiled.

‘You gotta… you gotta… you gotta turn this off!’ Reece sputtered back. ‘This fuckin’ hurts!’

He’d tripled in size. Stretchmarks were zipping wildly up and down his torso, itself now so tightly packed full of air it was making breathing harder. Reece found he had to widen his own stance just to stay upright, and couldn’t be sure the rest of his body wasn’t beginning to fill out, perhaps because the invading air had nowhere left to go. His internal organs knew only an unbearable searing agony.

Mr swan paced over to him in bare feet.

‘Does it want to stop?’

Reece nodded emphatically. Any delusions of overpowering this man, of snatching that remote from him had crumbled to dust. His head was swimming. Pressure and pain were his world. And it was only from difficulty in nodding that Reece realised his chest had begun to inflate too. All creases, bumps and ridges across his torso were being smoothed out as the whole thing slowly blew up into a sphere. Two moles on his side were growing wider and wider apart. His nipples had become the size of coasters. He even felt air work its way into his limbs, and wasn’t sure his neck would be spared.

Suddenly a localised oversensitivity prickled at the part of Reece that just minutes prior would have been his groin - now it was just expanding skin like the rest of him. Flitting his eyes downwards only revealed curvature, but the close proximity of Mr Swan caused Reece to realise,

(He’s pressing his dick into me. Oh, fuck, what is happening?! I’m a fucking balloon!!)

‘What are you doing to me?!’

This was beyond pain. This was beyond anything Reece had experienced in his life. He made to push the older man away but his arms wouldn’t comply; the air had forced them not only to stick out at his sides but to swell in size themselves.

‘No…! No…!’ he whinnied, eyes bulging. He felt the pressure in his neck, it was coming…

‘Oh yes…,’ Mr Swan breathed, thrusting his member against Reece’s expanse of skin.

Reece tried to waddle back, only his legs barely moved, joints all blown up and stiff. He must have quadrupled in size by this point, maybe more.

Mr Swan’s hot, precum-laden penis again dug into Reece’s unyielding flesh.

(I’m gonna pop! I’m gonna pop! Oh fuck, I’m literally going to pop!)

‘P-p-please…,’ Reece squealed, sweating. He couldn’t turn his head. He no longer possessed a neck. His head was semi-submerged into the gigantic ball of his body. He could hardly breathe. ‘P-please… stop…!’

Mr Swan continued to thrust his groin into the human-balloon Reece had become, panting in lust and raw sexual energy.

‘Plsss…,’ Reece begged, feeling his throat constrict. ‘Plsss… no… morrrr…’

He was the size of a shed, still expanding, still growing. His skin had started making ominous creaking sounds, just like an overfilled carnival balloon…

(Fuck…!!! I don’t wanna die…!!! FUCK…!!!)

Swan’s member humped against Reece like an iron rod against stretched rubber. Reece had long lost the ability to discern one pain from another. Everything had merged into one horrific sensation: pressure. Even his eyes felt like they were bulging, closing them had become difficult.

‘Nnnnoooo…. mmmmooorrrr…. pllllsssss….!’

His fingers popped into inflated stubs, toes too. The creaking was getting louder and louder.

Mr Swan’s motions had sped into a blur, he was exhaling like a madman, grasping at Reece’s swollen flank but failing to gain purchase on the sweat-drenched skin.

‘I’mmm… begggginnnggg… yooooo…’

And, as though these were the magic words he’d been longing to hear, Mr Swan exploded across the enormous ball that was Reece, white-hot seed splashing up and across in copious thick gluts.

‘Uuuuuggghhhhh!’ he released, head back in ecstasy. ‘Uhhhhhhh, fuuuuck, yessss!’

Reece could hardly care. He was about to explode, literally! He didn’t know how his skin had lasted this long, but the certainty that his end was nigh was all that could penetrate the fog of pain he now inhabited.

Vaguely aware that the older man had sort of draped himself across his spherical bulk and was drawing in breaths of recomposure, Reece tried his best to keep pleading.

‘Pllllssss… Missssterrrr…. Sssssswwannnn…. Plllllssssss…. Plllllsssss!’

He was on the edge of life. He had to be. Any more air was going to tear his body apart. That he was still here in one giant piece was something of a dwindling miracle itself.

Mr Swan stood back, steadying himself, wiping his hair back. He sought the pocketed remote once more and, to Reece’s gargantuan relief, pressed the button.

The box stopped rumbling.

Reece could only suppose the air had ceased flowing into him, since all of his senses had become shattered. Nothing made sense any more. His mind barely worked.

The guard who’d dutifully stood by and watched while Reece was forcibly stretched into a man-ball now knelt down and unscrewed, then detached, the metal tube from the rear surface that used to be Reece’s arse.

Reece could not turn. Reece could not move. He could only… exist in this inhuman shape.

‘I want it kept like that,’ Mr Swan told his bulky subordinate. ‘The plug will keep most of the air in but you know what they’re like, burping and such. Make sure it’s topped up regularly so it doesn’t deflate for when I’m next in need.’

He snapped a finger and a towel was brought before him, which he used to wipe himself down.

(Kept…. inflated….?) Was all Reece’s mind could hold onto. (Kept… like this…?)

He felt one of his ballooned hands taken ahold of.

‘B-b-buuuuuttt…. h-hhhhooowww…. aaaammm… IIII… sssspooossssed… t-t-t… llllivvvv….?’ Just blubbing the question out took every inch of Reece’s reserves. He felt tears welling under his bulging eyes.

Mr Swan, still wiping and already pacing back to the chaise, simply said, ‘Very carefully.’ He sat himself back down and brushed his beard, picking the tablet back up. ‘Have it stored in a boiler room or something,’ he added absently.

(A boiler room…? What about my new suite…? What about… everything?! I can’t live like this!)

‘C’mon,’ the guard said, tugging Reece’s hand harder.

‘B-b-b-buuut….’

Mr Swan gazed back to his guard. ‘Why is it still talking?’

The guard pulled more fiercely, eventually getting Reece to sort of swivel on his axis, albeit in a rather awkward, laboured way.

With great effort he was ‘walked’ away, only able to make slow, doddering steps in a wide, exaggerated waddle, every moment of it causing renewed pain.

Reece let the warm tears roll in freefall down his greatly expanded cheeks as he was led off.

To the boiler room, to be stored, ready for his new life as Mr Swan’s personal balloon.