"Pump Your Confidence Up"

Chris walked through the empty street with only his phone for company. His footsteps rung louder in the uncharacteristic silence of the boulevard, its cobbles and benches devoid of people to muddle the sound of his approach. He could even hear his heartbeat, pounding in his chest, rising to pulse in his ears. He removed his beanie to wipe away the sweat which had built up on his forehead.

Maybe this isn’t a good idea. Chris thought.

Chris found a bench to rest on, just for a bit. He had time.

The empty stores, absent of customers on a Saturday afternoon, were an eerie sight. Their doors left open, their wares and people’s belongings laying where they had been dropped in the chaos. Chris suppressed a shiver, opting to check his phone. He tapped the screen with his thumb, accidentally loading up the wrong app. Chris cursed the width of his fingers.

He wiped away more moisture from his brow. Not being able to travel far without breaking into a sweat was one of the impracticalities of his weight.

Chris was over three hundred pounds, probably closer to four hundred if he was being honest with himself. He had been a chubby kid, but most of his weight came from college. Unsupervised by family, armed with a student loan and unbridled access to fast food, he ballooned dramatically. Chris was not particularly tall, so his weight gave him a strong horizontal presence. His wide belly, buxom hips, and encroaching love handles took up more than two thirds of the bench he had perched on. He could hear the old metal and wooden boards beneath him groan softly in protest, warning him to not stay seated for too long. Chris has destroyed enough seats in his life to know when it was time to get up and go.

Maybe I should just turn back, maybe lose some weight.

The app he fat-fingered was a news service. It buzzed with information from a recent supervillain ‘attack,’ featuring the suited perpetrator’s face on the thumbnail for a longer article. He had a wide, round face, with a double chin even more prominent than the one Chris sported. His hair was near-black, tinted purple in the light; his super-suit was a similar gradient. Chris tapped the thumbnail, an involuntary smile from dimple to dimple lit up his face.

Biohazard Ben. Human balloon, the bombshell bad boy of crime, and most importantly; Chris’s idol. Chris followed his work with a keen interest in his message. Despite the title of supervillain, there had never been any true horror or casualty to the Biohazard’s acts of pneumatic chaos. He preached a message of ‘big is beautiful,’ albeit taken to an extreme which most found grotesque. He used his platform as a masked enemy of the superhero community to challenge people’s perceptions. He called to light the problems with society’s idolization of superheroes. And more importantly, in the opinion of Chris, the way modern superhero culture coalesced with marketing and diet culture to promote thinness as a beauty standard. Having someone so big, and bold to look up to; who looked more like him than an artificial strong-jawed hero; made Chris feel more confident.

Maybe I should just keep going...

Over the last two months, Chris had been in contact with the man responsible for the absence of people. This section of the city was cordoned off, Chris had to sneak in. It had been the site of a villainous ‘parade.’ The mayor of the city had been transformed into an inanimate parade balloon, in his own image. Gas was released from atop the float, inflating some of the bystanders to the same proportions as their mayoral candidate. Not everyone was horrified, however, some people - Chris included - had deep fantasies of ascending skyward like a balloon.

Chris stood up and dusted himself off. He continued along the street until the trees to either side of the main path changed from green to pink, their trunks darkened and swollen with runny purple sap. Cars were parked upside down, the windows and doors popped off their hinges, exploded from the inside as they failed to contain something that was forcing its way out. Chris has studied the powers of Biohazard Ben’s infamous purple gas. It only inflated people who – in some capacity – desired to be ‘bigger.’ It often exposed the repressed urges mild mannered people had to indulge in the bizarre sensuality of self-inflation. But it could also affect people on a metaphorical level.

Strips of torn fabric littered the pavement, signalling where the ‘victims’ of Biohazard Ben’s attack had stood before they summarily blew up. Like balloons. That was the villain’s modus operandi, and if the man himself was to be believed, it only targeted adults who harboured an urge to grow. The vectors for infection were vague, Ben had explained to Chris through their conversations. The catalyst didn’t have to be a literal desire to become larger in body, it could be emotional, or goal driven. A person who wanted more corporate power over their peers in an office environment, for example, would balloon; as would someone who sought to have their artistic skill, like a singer, reach a larger platform, they would balloon too.

Chris turned a corner into a street which had been so upturned by the chaos, that he swore he had meandered into a movie set. It was that sort of over the top, upside down cars, busted fire hydrants style of destruction. And seated on a pile of crushed cars, larger than life, luxuriated the man responsible. Clad in form fitting black latex, holding counsel with his inner circle of elite henchman, Biohazard Ben smiled invitingly when he glimpsed Chris approaching from the corner of his eye. “Ah, so glad you could make it.” He gestured widely. Everything was a shade of purple, decorated with his personal aesthetic, or filled with goons inflating one another in celebration. “Do you like what I’ve done with the place, not too much, is it? Oh, what am I kidding? Too much is my motto!” He turned and pointed at a floating henchman. With a finger gun motion, the man inside the gas mask and black latex doubled in size. Chris was speechless. “Case in point. He’ll pop if you add any more pressure, want to give it a go?”

Faced with one of his most esoteric fantasies Chris found himself uncharacteristically silent. He just kept staring at Biohazard Ben. Awestruck by his size and power, the beauty which came with that enormity entranced him. He was a living balloon, with a full tyre-like double chin and thick, soft breasts which were still prominently displayed despite being vacuum sealed in black latex. Chris felt his cheeks grow warmer, a subtle twitch down below. He was caught half-way between an intense attraction to the supervillain on his throne of wreckage, and an overwhelming desire to be as bombastic and confident as him.

“I... couldn’t possibly,” Chris stuttered. He struggled to maintain eye contact.

Ben chuckled. “Hey, Smith.” He spoke in the direction of the slowly rotating orb which used to be a regular sized man a few minutes earlier. “Is it alright if big Chris here pops you like a cheap balloon?”

“Ah come on boss,” the balloon designated Smith laughed behind his gasmask. “I’m at least a moderately priced balloon.” He stopped spinning in the air like space debris and floated towards Chris. He squeezed a round finger into his palm, causing a hose to detach from his costume and dangle in front of Chris. “I’m fit to burst, newbie.” He spoke with the welcoming confidence of a senior worker explaining procedure to a new intern. “Just blow, you want to see what it feels like to make a guy go pop, right?” Chris guiltily took the hose. He raised it to his lips. “I’ll reform in minutes... so send me off with a bang, then it’s your turn.”

Chris inhaled through his nostrils; his chest burgeoned. He blew until he was red in the face. A deafening sound of tearing rubber filled his ears, then a hissing whine like a boiling kettle. He blew, blew, blew, BLEW. He did it so fast and so aggressively so he wouldn’t have time to stop and think about the absurdity of what it was he had been tasked to do. With dreamy eyes, he watched the henchman swell into an uneven sphere and burst apart into scraps of torn fabric, plastic, and a dense purple fog.

The henchman lining the street clapped for Chris. His heart and head were pounding. He could barely think over the combined din of the uproarious balloon-men and the pulsing in his chest. There wasn’t a sense of shame, or guilt, like he expected.

“So how did it feel?” Ben loomed over Chris. Chris had been so focused on blowing and popping the henchman that he didn’t notice the behemoth rise from his crushed car throne striding towards him. A hand as big as Chris’s head gripped his shoulder. Goosebumps rose, a mix of sugar and gasoline permeated the air around Ben. “Your first pop?”

“I’ve... popped real balloons before,” Chris was eye-level with Ben’s stomach. He thought back to the nights in his room, where he placated his interest in self-inflation by blowing up latex balloons with his breath and imagining they were actually him, growing larger with each push from his lungs. “Not talking, thinking ones.” He blushed.

“Why are you so embarrassed?” Ben squatted down, meeting Chris at his level. “When we talked online, you seemed far more confident. You draw such beautifully rounded shapes; your art is something I’m actually rather fond of.”

Chris hadn’t noticed how bright and piercing Ben’s purple eyes were before. Now he had no choice but to stare deeply into them. He imagined sinking deep into the supervillain’s purple fog and just... becoming.

“I’m just some sweaty fat guy,” Chris admitted, rubbing one arm. “I’m not some, big male model like you are. I’m not as big or bombastic as you are.”

Ben’s face softened. He spoke deeply, but empathetically, making sure Chris felt his hand on his shoulder. “I wasn’t either.” He slapped his belly with the other hand. It rippled. “I was a depressed university graduate, who thought no one understood him. I tried the superhero life, got laughed out of it... and realized something.” He squeezed Chris’s shoulder one last time then rose. “That no one else was going to inflate my ego and pump up my confidence, so I had to do it for myself. And I kept pumping until I was a big balloon - literally and metaphorically - that would attract other people who felt the same.”

“So, what do I do? How do I feel like you? How do I just... pump my confidence up?”

Ben grinned. “Well it takes time. You need to stare at yourself in the mirror, spread your feet and just say proudly: I am a big, fat, beautiful, balloon.” Ben repeated the last word, dragging it out. “Balloooooon... you like the sound of that, eh?”

“More than you could fathom.”

Ben leaned forward, making his moobs squeeze together. Chris almost felt his nose bleed at the definition of his cleavage thrust in his face like that. “Then how about I show you what it feels like to -really- blow up?” He was so close; Chris felt the man’s hot breath on his neck as he whispered into his ear. “I’ll give you the power to turn all your negative feelings, and positive ones too, into pressure. You’ll stretch and stretch until you’re grinning ear to ear, and finally.” He paused; Chris shivered with anticipation. “You’ll feel so good, you could... and will, explode.”

Chris’s eyes tinted purple. He said, with absolute conviction. “I want to inflate.”

“Then, do I have your permission to give you a kiss?”

Chris replied without hesitation. “Yes.”

Ben’s lips were soft, warm. He locked them with Chris’s and the two of them gazed into one another’s eyes, deeply, sharing a wordless understanding as Ben blew hot air laced with his superhuman gas into Chris’s mouth. Chris could feel his body temperature rise, a gentle sweat rolling down his face and wetting his long brown hair. He felt himself growing, wider at first, then just a little bit taller. His wide sagging belly rose to firm up with gas. His back, hips and sides all rounded out, giving his central mass the look of a large inflated chamber of skin tone latex that was slowly pushing his hoodie up towards his chest.

“More?” Ben asked, breaking off the kiss.

“I said I wanted to inflate.” Chris was swelling, in confidence as well as size. “I want to be double the size of that henchman I popped.” He laughed; he didn’t know why. In Ben’s shiny fat cheeks, he could see a purple swirl in his eye. “No, triple, no, more, more! I just want to ballooooooon!”

“Well you don’t need me for that,” Ben took a step backwards.

Chris felt it. He had power now. He planted his feet into the earth like a sumo wrestler preparing for a bout and demanded his body grew to match his newfound confidence. His biceps and forearms thickened, stiffening like long tubular balloons. His thighs rubbed together at first, then separated as he rose from the ground with weightlessness. His arms were spread at angles, like he was stuck in a permanent jumping jack position. It looked absolutely ridiculous and felt absolutely divine.

“Bigger!” Chris shouted. His fat double chin became a thick rubbery tyre to cushion his face, his cheeks grew into squished orbs which framed his manic expression. He snorted out hot air and purple gas, like a raving bull. This was everything he wanted and more. He felt beautiful, powerful, most importantly, he felt like a balloon. The most beautiful balloon he knew!

“How long til the euphoria wears off?” One goon said to another.

“Eh, anytime now. Look at him. He’s the size of a house.”

Chris snapped back to reality. He still felt good, but aware. Hyper aware of the fact that his limbs were sinking into his elongated spherical body. He was aware of how his clothes had shredded minutes ago and how he had ignored the fact he was naked bar his dutifully stretchy underwear until now. He turned scarlet. The warm wind on his skin was stimulating to a degree which made it difficult to organize his thoughts. A pleasurable warmth permeated his entire, overblown, rubbery body. And it was trying to escape, trying to explode.

“I’m... I’m going... to pop!”

An enormous black shape rose and rotated in the air until the unmistakably inflated face of Biohazard Ben faced Chris. He leaned against him in the air, still able to use his massive cartoonish arms with a dexterity that Chris’s almost totally spherical shape robbed him of. “Just let it go, Chris.” He said as much to the explosive gas building inside of him as Chris himself. “Because once you reform after your first kaboom, you work for me.”

Chris couldn’t hold on. Purple gas streamed out of his moobs, his belly button, his nose, his ears. His eyes rolled back, and he felt that tingle from the warmth become an overloading sensation erupting from every part of him at once.

“We’re just getting started.”

Chris let out one last declaration of “I’m a big... balloon,” and exploded in rapturously glorious purple.