It felt like a still-life. It was just Yelena’s vast, nude figure, motionless in the center of the room, the skein of moisture on her glittering under the warm overhead lights. She had taken on so much volume that she was nearly as tall (the chaise half her width she was laying splayed upon included) as I was standing.
The bathing room was simple: a bevy of overhead shower nozzles and vents and lights, a handwash sink and cabinet of bathing goods at one wall, drain in the center of a floor sloping toward it, and a couple of water-proof pieces of furniture (custom-made for heavyweight sitting and reclining).
It was also her own addition, the one room in the house she drafted herself. Just having the floorplan of it excited her. Before it was built, I caught her every now and then just staring at it laid out on her desk, fidgeting, biting her lip, and breathing real slow. The comings-and-goings of the contractors over the month of building didn’t dull the anticipation of what she could do in it.
Yelena had become so massive that I couldn’t see her (eclipsed) face when I walked in. Her breathing was deep and a little strained. She’d been away from home for a few stressful weeks. Probably was looking to blow off steam by blowing herself up. I thought to myself that she may have overdone it. A reasonable amount of Gravidesque would give her that pregnant look (the ready-to-burst one) she liked so much. A larger amount would cause the rest of her to follow suit. Her thighs and arms being thicker than usual would suggest at least double dose. The heroic dose she had taken had brought her well beyond that. She was the biggest I’d ever seen her be.
I had to walk around her to make eye contact. Even her face was plumper. Cheeks especially, and her lips (unable to not pout) too. Eyes closed, like she was resting.
“Hey,” I said, kneeling down to bring my face to hers. “Are you okay? Would you like a little help?”
Yelena didn’t speak for a little bit. When she did, it was slurred like she was tired and had a mouthful of food (even her tongue was affected?). “ i f e e l g o o d ,” she said. “ l i k e i ’ m f l o a t i n g i n m y s e l f . ‘ t ’ s n i c e . ” Her voice was deeper, almost cavernous.
“Sweetie, I saw the wrapper in the wastebin. Was that an entire bar?”
She stirred a little, frowned. “ . . . y e a h . ”
I remembered the times she had talked about getting spherical (she wasn’t now, her limbs were thicker but not subsumed in the rest of her). It would take several months to condition her body to get there, so she was banking vacation time to do it. “I’m just worried. I don’t want you hurting yourself,” I said.
“ i ’ m b e i n g g o o d , ” she grunted. “ i t u r n e d o f f t h ’ s h o w e r w h e n i t h o u g h t i w a s g e t t i n g t o o b i g . ”
I tried not to smile. “I thought you didn’t think there was such a thing as too big,” I mused.
She did smile a little (with those lips, oh). “ t o o f u l l . i m e a n t t o o f u l l . ”
I took another lookover of her immensely bulbous shape. Gravidesque was a super-science food designed for what, I didn’t know. It does this weird thing with water osmosis. Allowed more water to be drawn into the body, by drinking or by bathing. It took weeks to deactivate on its own. Downing salt pills accelerated the process some. Grav-Undo (an antidote of sorts) cut that timeframe down to a half-hour. You sweat it right out. The wetness of her body, when she should’ve (thirstily) absorbed it by then, was a question mark.
“You’re still wet, sweetie. Did you have an undo?”
“ n o , ” she said, grinning a little (still with the lips, mercy). “ w e t i s r i g h t t h o u g h . i g o t c a r r i e d a w a y , c a m e h a r d , t h o u g h t i w a s g o n n a f a i n t . g u e s s i ’ m s w e a t y . ”
“It sounds like you had a lot of fun,” I said. I reached out to stroke her cheek (so much to touch).
“ y e a h , ” she said.
“Do you want me to rinse you off?” I asked.
She smiled again (and my heart fluttered). “ y e a h , ” she said. “ d o n ’ t u s e a l o t o f w a t e r . i d u n n o i f i s h o u l d g e t f u l l e r . ”
Yelena loved being touched in the places she couldn’t reach in this state. With her dose so high that her arms were full and taut, she could touch her breasts and just the top of her belly. I fished the bucket and sponges (kept for moments just like this) out of the bath cabinet, got them ready, and began to bathe her.
I squeezed as much water out of the first sponge as I could, and dragged it down her side. She hummed pleasantly. The sound was much deeper than when she was at a more typical size.
“i f e e l i t a l l t h r o u g h m e , w h e n y o u t o u c h m e ,” she whispered. “i t c h a n g e s t h e p r e s s u r e a l i t t l e .”
“Do you like it?” I asked.
“ y e s , ” she said.
“Is it good?” I asked, pleased.
“ s o g o o d . ”
I did my best to be attentive and thorough. With the sponge as dry as I could manage, I wiped off the rivulets of sweat running down her curvature. What little moisture remained on her surface after each pass would absorb into her skin, leaving her dry and slightly more swollen (oh so infinitesimally, she knows it and she moans for it) than before.
I thought of what Yelena must’ve been doing before entering the shower. Staring at the whole bar of Gravidesque. Talking herself into consuming all of it. Staring up at all of the shower nozzles pointed at her, hand on the main flow control. All of her would’ve been shaking in equal parts apprehension and anticipation before throwing it open.
A thought crossed my mind, and I looked toward the flow control handles mounted on the wall. You could set the output for each one before turning the whole array on. Yelena had opened each one to its maximum before turning the shower on.
“You really went for broke this time,” I said.
“ y e a h ,” she said. “i w i s h i d i d n ’ t h a v e t o s t o p . ”
“Oh?” I asked. “Do you want to be bigger?”
“ y e s s s , ” she said with a gentle hiss.
“How big do you want to be?” I asked.
“ i j u s t d o n ’ t w a n t t o s t o p , ” she said.
“Are you sure you want to be even a little bigger?” I asked.
She’s quiet for awhile, before her answer flows from her lips like a melody rolling from atop a hillside. “Y E S”
What I did was that I filled the sponge with water, pressed it to her stomach (a high point right beneath her navel, magnetic north), and squeezed. The water soaked into her and disappeared.
Immediately she gasped, and her gasp escalated into a wavering harmony. I didn’t see her swell, but I knew she felt it and I knew she felt good, and I could not see her face but I could picture it (rapturous, overwhelmed).
She is a stellar body, a planet in climax. Once adrift, I am now caught in her orbit. I would burn just to reenter her atmosphere, but she is here and I don’t need to. I reach as far as I can (because I want) to hold as much of her as I can and (to give her what she wants) I nuzzle and kiss her surface. She quakes, and I persist (and I want her joy to ache and never end and never end and never end), and the sounds she makes are aurora in audio, ethereal and oscillating and beautiful (there are nebulae and stars and galaxies that glow in the night sky and then there is her, astronomic and heavenly, beneath me and holding me in her cosmic horizon).
We’re like that for awhile.
Once she was done quaking, and her breathing slowed down, I stood up as gently as I could. Thinking she may have been spent, I poured the leftover water in the bucket down the floor drain instead of sponging off the new layer (a troposphere) of sweat.
“Yelena, how are you feeling?” I asked.
“ . . . n i c e , ” she answered.
“Do you need me to get you anything?” I asked.
“ d u n n o , ” she answered.
“Okay,” I said. “I enjoyed that. I’m going to go clean myself up, okay?”
“ o k a y , ” she assented.
I made my way toward the door, and out of the room.
“ . . . A r i ? ” she asked, as I stepped into the hall.
“Yes, sweetie?” I asked.
“ . . . C a n y o u p l e a s e g e t m e a n u n d o b a r ? I d o n ’ t t h i n k I c a n m o v e . ”
I smiled. I thought sometimes she would want to stay like that forever (permanent was not what I wanted, moments like this were), and it was good to know she had other inclinations.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, and I left to get her what she asked for.