chapter 3

Tension crackled in the air between the two women as the formerly-pudgy Morgan grew and grew and her lithe, willow captor looked on with a fierce intensity. For several moments, beyond Morgan’s coos, only the sounds of stretching skin, popping seams, and rustling leaves filled the silence, both women too focused to break it.

The silence of her assailant would have chilled Morgan in any other circumstance. As it were, the larger she grew, the less she seemed aware of anything around her. With the exponential and unbelievable growth, the taxed stretching of her skin, and the oddly comforting warmth soothing her from the inside as it made her bigger and bigger, it was difficult for Morgan to even straighten her thoughts.

So lost she was in them that she failed to notice the woman approaching her, hands outstretched. Only when her large palms and dainty fingertips pressed flat against the exposed flesh of what was formerly Morgan’s stomach, offsetting her balance, did she come back to earth.

“Wha—hey! What are you doing?” Morgan cried. Her jaw bumped against her chest, pushing up closer to her face.

The woman ignored her and continued to push, slowly teetering Morgan backwards, rolling her onto her back. Morgan shrieked and protested, uselessly flapping her hands—to her horror, she discovered now hung off puffy cones that used to be her arms, disproportionately short to her now-spherical body.

Her protests stopped short and muted into muffled whimpers when the expected sensation of being off-balance didn’t come. Instead, Morgan realized she felt light—too light.

The woman paid no mind as Morgan fidgeted and flexed what she could; namely, her wrists and jaw. She stared intently at her living balloon’s skin, walking around her entire circumference. She occasionally poked or pressed her hand into Morgan’s vast expanse, sometimes humming in approval.

Morgan’s attention had reverted and returned to Earth, mostly. She tried to watch her captor with what field of view she had, occasionally moaning at a jab or when a stronger surge pushed through deep inside her. She felt as though the growth had slowed but the effects on her had not; the gentle prods and the woman’s intense focus on her caused her cheeks to flush.

The woman concluded her inspection, it seemed, and returned to Morgan’s kicking feet. Morgan blushed again; by some miracle though her clothes had torn and stretched, they had mostly remained on, including her loafers. She gasped when her captor removed them both and slipped something around her ankles.

Morgan furrowed her brow for a moment, then understanding dawned on her.

“N-no! No-no-no!” She thrashed about or at least tried to. Where she would have had swinging limbs and kicking feet before, Morgan had been reduced to stiff and puffy fingers sticking out of a slight bump that remained of her arms on the smooth, round surface her body had become. Leaves crunched and rustled as she rocked back and forth, met with creaks and groans of her skin.

Suddenly, the woman appeared in her view again. She cupped Morgan’s cheek, her original and deceptively sweet smile playing again on her face.

“Shh,” she said, not unkindly. With one finger pressed to her lips, she brought it down to Morgan’s own mouth. Instantly, Morgan’s face tingled, that familiar overwhelming warmth and tight feeling filling her cheeks.

“Mmmphmmphh!” She cried through now-inflated cheeks, her lips plumped taut into a comical and permanent kiss with the same warmth that had filled every available inch of her body cavity.

But the woman’s smile remained and she simply patted Morgan’s face. Her free hand traced down her face, what little remained of her neck, and down her shoulder and side. Whatever was inside her—air, gas, magic—awoke and stirred at the woman’s caress.

Morgan sighed and shuddered involuntarily, already lost to the sensation. She felt enormous and yet altogether weightless.

Because she was.

She felt her face awkwardly pressing into the woman’s hand before it released and she realized she was rising—floating!

Morgan tried to scream but it was muffled by her own face as she rose. It was much too slow for her nerves; all she saw was the canopy of trees inching closer, their sharp branches suddenly in focus and far more numerous than Morgan recalled.

Still, her instincts to fight and preserve her life kicked in and she protested as she had before and her energy remained just as ineffective; resulting only in her bobbing awkwardly, hair bouncing and cascading below her as she rose further and further.

And then: it suddenly stopped as quickly as it had started and she was yanked back upright. The jolt on her ankles both startled her and calmed her nerves: her captor would not allow her to float up away into the night, or worse, into the branches.

Morgan gulped: for now.

And still, Morgan fussed, huffing and groaning. Where bumps had remained of her arms now inverted; her hands tucked into puffy divots, but the warmth and surges had appeared to dissipate, calmed and satisfied just as the woman had appeared moments before.

Whether the woman heard her protests, Morgan could not tell, as her vision was obscured by the vast diameter of her ballooned body and so she resorted into settling in herself. She embraced the heat filling and holding her aloft, occasionally grunting when she felt a tug on her ankle.


---

THE END

Author Note: my apologies for the numerous formatting issues. FF's story editor is pretty craptacular and it especially seemed to hate this file more than others. This is everything in all its glory, no longer abridged and randomly cut off!