The Fat Ballon

"Bartender, hit me again!"
"Easy girl, that's your tenth one"
"I don't care, hit me!"
"As you wish” The bartender reaches over and slaps Jessica so hard she falls off her stool and lands on the floor.
"What did you do that for you @#*$@$^?" She demanded.
"You said to hit you. You've had enough, I'm cutting you off." He calmly replied before turning back to the wall of glasses and booze behind the bar. Jessica was about to storm him, but her roommate, who was with her all that night, kept her back. They got outside and sat down on a bench to give Jess a chance to cool off before they headed home.

In case you were wondering, the two roommates, Jessica and Samantha, were at the bar trying to drown their sorrows. Or at least, drown Jessica's sorrows. Jesse had just broken up with her boyfriend of three years because he was cheating on her. He gave the usual 'it's not you, it's me' bull, telling her that she was a wonderful person, he enjoyed being with her, but his true tastes ran elsewhere, and if he thought it was humanly possible for her to change like that, he would have stayed. So now here they are sitting on a bench outside a bar wondering how to get home. Sam had driven them, intending to be the designated driver on the way home, but a drunken Jessica had convinced her otherwise and now both women were too drunk to drive.
"Maybe we should just walk home," Jesse suggested.
"Alright, it is a nice night, and we don't live too far away,” Sam replied. So off they went.

"Hey, is that a balloon factory over there?" Jesse asked of Sam after fifteen minutes.
"Hey yeah, it is," replied Sam "cool."
"Think we could cut through there?”
"Hang on, lemme check that map hanging over there at the bus stop." Sam walked over and consulted the map. Although she was drunk, she was not so drunk that her common sense and reasoning were impaired. After a minute or two she came back over.
"I think that would work out. It'll actually take us a little longer to get home that way, but that may actually be a good thing, give us a little more time to sober up."
"Yaayy!" Was Jesse's only reply. They turned toward the factory and snuck inside.

Once inside, they started looking around at all the stuff that was in there, from the areas where the different types of latexes were made to the vats of cooling latex. Seeing those, Sam got a freaky idea. Now, although her common sense and reasoning were not impaired, like all drunks if she got a crazy idea in her head it stuck.
"Hey Jess!" she called to her friend.
"Yeah Sammy?" Jessica replied from halfway across the room.
"Come over here, I got a proposition for you."
"What's up," Jess wondered, puzzled about what Samantha could be proposing in a place like this.
"I bet you can't drink the contents of that vat over there," she pointed to the tan-colored vat about ten feet away. Now Jessica was very competitive, more so here in her drunken state, so she readily agreed. She walked over and attached one of the nearby hosed to the spigot on the side of the vat. Setting the hose in her mouth, she opened the valve and the latex flowed in.

Jessica drank and drank and drank. Finally she let up and dropped the hose to the floor.
“Hey that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” She exclaimed. She then noticed Samantha was staring at her. “Sam, what are you looking at?” She looked down at her stomach, which was sticking out of her like a medicine ball. “Oh!” She exclaimed, then immediately fainted dead away.
"Well, that's one way to sober up." Sam said, almost as shocked as Jesse was.

Sam opened the door to their apartment and carried Jesse in, plopping her on the couch. She had come to a few minutes earlier and was now trying to cope with what had happened to her.
"What happened to me? Why is my gut sticking out so much?" She asked, teary-eyed.
"Apparently you gulped down too much of the balloon stuff." Sam replied. "It's just swollen from the sheer amount of stuff it had to contain. Don't worry, it'll all digest through and you will be back to your normal size in no time."
"You sure?"
"Yes, don't worry, everything will be fine. Although, just to be sure I'm gonna see if there are any ill effects to swallowing balloon rubber. Here, let me help you to bed." Picking Jesse up off the couch she led her to their room and laid her down on her bed.
"Will you be all right? Do you need anything?" Sam asked.
"No, I seem to be okay, just bloated. I'll be fine." Was the reply from her friend.
"Good night, then Jess. I'll be in in a bit, after I do some checking on this.
"'night" Jessica replied.

"AAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHH!" Was what woke Sam up the next morning. She bolted upright and turned to Jessica's bed.
"Jess, you al-" She stopped, slack-jawed, and stared. There was Jesse, or at least the head resembled Jesse, but the rest of her body was not. Over the course of the night her body had grown very fat. Every part of her body was enlarged two or three times their original size.
"Sam, what's happening to me?" Jesse sobbed.
"I don't know. I checked online and there didn't seem to be anything about ill effects of drinking balloon rubber, certainly not about this." Jesse, through her tears, thought for a moment, then said
"Maybe that's it, maybe it's because I did drink it, and in such a great quantity." She began exploring her new body. She definitely looked fat, but nothing was sagging, almost as if there was something putting pressure on her skin from the inside. "I'm gonna go check my weight." She said. She swung out of bed and stood up, which was surprisingly easy, almost as if she were no heavier than she was before. She walked to the bathroom, again, no hindrance, and hopped on the scale.
"Sam, could you come here, I can't read the scale over my immense belly."
"Sure, no problem Jess." Sam replied. She bent down to look at the scale. "Hey, how much did you weigh before?"
"Uh, about 120 lbs, why?" Jesse answered, curious.
"Well, you've at least doubled your size, but you only weigh 60 lbs." replied Sam, shocked.
"HUH, that can't be right. Like you said I must be at least double my original size, so logically I must be about the same in weight!" Jesse exclaimed.
"Well, let’s go out into the living room and I'll take a look at you." Sam said. They head out and Sam starts taking in her roommate. “You’re right, from the look of you I’d say you should be at least 240 lbs, but your not, you’ve inversely gained weight relative to your size. Hmmmmmmmmm… I got it. Your weight didn’t really go down, it just looks that way. Maybe when you digested the latex, and your body sent the stuff to your fat cells like it normally would, it mutated them, making them balloon-like and thereby increased their buoyancy. This also explains why you look fat, not inflated.”
“So you’re saying that because they’re more buoyant, gravity isn’t pulling on them as much, which gave the illusion that I weigh less.”
“Precisely. Although, since weight is defined as how much gravity pulls on an object, you could argue that you really do weigh less, but with the increase in size that means more substance which means more-“
“Sam, relax. Let’s just say I do weigh less and leave it at that, ‘k?”
“Uh, yeah, sure. Heh.” So their day continued much as it would have if nothing had happened. Thankfully, it was Saturday, so they didn’t have to go to work, or were really required to leave the apartment at all. Sam did, however, notice that Jesse was not eating at all, yet she seemed fine, so she dismissed it considering the weirdness that had already happened. However the next day she didn’t eat either, and Sam then started to get worried.
“Hey Jess, ready for dinner? Got your favorite pasta dish.” Sam tried to entice Jesse, at least so she could see her reaction.
“No thanks, Sammy, I’m not hungry right now.”
“You sure? Your stomach’s not doing a Simba impression and you’re suppressing it, right?”
Jesse sighed “No, it’s being very quiet. I’m fine, really.” And she was, except for the fact that she had yet to notice that she hadn’t eaten anything in two days. Sam started to think. After a while she came to a conclusion, and decided to act on it.

Later that night, Jesse decided to lounge around on the couch watching TV for a little bit, so Sam took this opportunity to go to work. Some time later, Jesse turned the TV off and decided it was time for bed. She walked into the bedroom and was surprised to find Sam sitting in the middle of an empty room.
“Sammy, where are our beds.” She asked, slightly worried.
“Oh, I got rid of your bed, Jess.” Sam replied, standing up and walking towards Jesse with one hand behind her back.
“Ok, I don’t appreciate that, but what about your bed?”
“It’s right here!” And she swept her leg out and tripped Jesse onto her back.
“Hey, what did you do that for?” Jesse asked, shocked that her friend would treat her like this. Sam then brought her arm around, revealing a hose. “Sammy, what are you going to do with that?”
“I’m just going to blow up my new air bed.” Sam replied with a grin. She stuck the hose in Jesse’s mouth and lay down. Soon Jesse started to expand. She got bigger and bigger, but again, she was growing fatter, but not heavier, and nothing was sagging. She kept growing until Sam decided she was big enough, and then took the hose out. She them brought the scale out from the bathroom and placed it under Jessica. After a few seconds it beeped, and Sam pulled it out. “Congratulations, Jess, your new diet has brought you down to 2 lbs.”
Say what?” Jessica explained. She immediately stood up, realizing that she could do it just as easily as if she were her original size. “Why did you do this? You can’t keep me here as your bed. I need to go to work, I gotta see people, I need to eat-“
“You do not. Let me ask you, are you hungry right now?”
“Well, no not right now, but I will be soon, and-“
“You haven’t been hungry since this happened to you. You haven’t eaten in two days, and I’m guessing your stomach is not bothering you, right?” She’s right, Jesse thought. She wasn’t the least bit hungry, and realized that she indeed had not eaten since they were at the bar. “The only thing a human needs to do to survive is eat, and since you’re not doing that anymore, there’s nothing wrong with what I am doing. And before you asked, I already called work and told them you quit, and all the people you were planning to see, and you aren’t on good terms with your family anyway, so no need to call them. Everything is taken care of. Now then, where were we?” Jesse thought for a minute, then lay back down and resigned herself to be Sam’s bed.

It actually wasn’t a bad existence. Since Jesse wasn’t doing anything they saved a lot of money on stuff that she would normally spend: food, clothes, auto insurance (they sold her car; she wouldn’t be needing it), and several other. With all the money they saved, they moved into a regular house. Sam eventually got a boyfriend and introduced him to Jessica. Both parties were glad to meet the other, and although Sam and her boyfriend, Mark, got pretty busy at night, Jessica didn’t mind at all. Sam took very good care of her, always keeping her clean and tidy. One day Mark told Jesse that he had a friend that he thought she would like and he would like her. He brought over Kevin, who did indeed like Jesse, and didn’t mind that she was being used as a bed. Eventually, the four of them got married.
“Hey Jesse, I’m really happy for you and Kevin, but where does that leave us with sleeping arrangements?” Sam asked.
“Oh don’t worry Sam, Mark, Kevin and I figured that one out already, didn’t we Mark?” Sam looked behind her to see her husband behind her holding two hoses. Sam didn’t quite understand until she saw one hose drip a very familiar pink gooey substance.