Puffup the Clown

[6 word request: Bodybuilders ballooned at circus and sold]

The cotton candy in Taylor’s hand felt silly the moment Drew’s demeanor went cold. Everything seemed different: the joyful calliope music seemed to taunt him; the once refreshing breeze made him shiver. Taylor considered tossing the periwinkle piled confection in the garbage, but it was several feet away. With Drew glaring at him the way he was, Taylor was afraid to move.

“So wait a minute,” Drew said, his muscular shoulders heaving with every breath. Taylor visibly watched as Drew’s ire rose: his jaw tightened, his fists clenched, and his huge torso clenched, threatening to bust out of Drew’s skin-tight white t-shirt. (Memories of his earlier excitement to see Drew dressed in such a muscle-hugging top pained him now.) “You’re telling me you dragged me here to this… this circus… because you thought this was a date?”

“No, I knew it wasn’t a date,” Taylor began, gesturing vaguely with his cotton candy, “but I thought that if we spent time together, maybe you would… consider going on a date…”

Drew crossed his huge arms, squeezing his upper chest together. “So that story about your dog dying and you needing a friend right now…” Drew shook his head. His mouth was a straight line.

“Was technically true,” Taylor began, his posture seeming to deflate with each admission, “but my dog died a year ago, and… and I absolutely do need a friend right now.”

Drew shook his head. The 6’5” bodybuilder paced, his huge frame darting back and forth with intimidating urgency. “I cancelled clients for this, Taylor. I cancelled the gym for this!” He thrust his arms in the air angrily. Taylor tried not to look at how the rippling arm muscles bulged and popped as he did so. “You were crying on the phone with me! Can you just fake cry on queue?”

Taylor wished he could; it was a trick he would have used at that moment. “Look,” Taylor said, “I know you just got out of a relationship…”

“My husband kicked me out,” Drew said, stomping a massive foot down. “The love of my life was lying to me for years. Do you have any idea how I feel about people lying to me? Especially now.”

Taylor held up a hand as a sign of surrender. “Look, I know I got you here to the circus under… false pretenses, but now that we’re here… can we just put it aside and have a fun time? I mean, if you want to hate me forever when we leave, that’s fine…”

Drew shook his head. “The circus. The fucking circus, Taylor! What am I, a little girl?”

Taylor was staring at his shoes now. “You said you liked the circus…”

“When I was a kid, not as a grown man,” Drew growled. A passing couple gawked at the enormous bodybuilder expelling rage at the much smaller man. Drew took a breath, trying to calm himself. “Look, Taylor, I have every right to be angry but having this conversation in public is making me look like a real roidhead asshole.”

“So let’s not have the conversation,” Taylor said with a shrug. “Let’s just, I dunno… ride the ferris wheel or play a game or something.”

Drew didn’t move a muscle. The same solemn face remained frozen. His eyes never blinked.

“Okay, let’s go home,” Taylor said, finally tossing the cotton candy in the garbage. It felt like he’d dumped a massive load.

Drew shook his head. “I don’t want to be in a car with you right now,” he said, turning away. “No wonder you insisted on driving,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I need time to cool down. You go, have your circus fun. I’ll text you when I”m ready to leave.”

Taylor nodded, unable to look at his blonde-haired blue-eyed “friend”. “Look, Drew, I’m really sorry. I swear, I had good intentions…”

Drew, who was midstride, paused and whirled around. “Do you want to know why I spend time with you at all, Taylor? Because I feel bad for you. Because I know you’re miserable, and lonely, and you don’t have any friends. But the more I get to know you, the more I realize why you don’t. You lie all the time, like it’s a disorder or something. You badmouth everyone--probably even me when I’m not around.”

“Never,” Taylor said quietly.

“But all the favors, the dropping by my house unexpectedly, you going to the gym only when you know I have a client…” Drew sighed. “I mean, I had some posing trunks disappear out of my gym bag last week. For all I know, you’re the creep who stole them. This--lying to get me to go to a circus to, what… fall in love with you? At a damned circus?”

Taylor had nothing to say. He stared at the dusty ground as he heard Drew walk away.

They had only just arrived when Drew had puzzled out Taylor’s true intentions. He had wanted to bring the big man to the freakshow first, planning to say, “Man, you’re the freakiest in this whole place!” He’d rehearsed the line in the mirror the night before, hoping the adoration would win him points with his gargantuan buddy. He wasn’t in the mood for the freak show now, though.

“Why wouldn’t he want to date me?” Taylor said aloud as he passed the concession stand. He ordered a chili-cheese dog, hoping the heartburn would distract him from his shame. “Because I’m a nice guy, that’s why,” he said. “Because I’m not a big, roided out fr--”

Taylor froze as he saw two massive men walk by, hand-in-hand. One had long blonde hair and a thick moustache. The other had a shaved head and a goatee. Each of them was easily as large as Drew, wearing the same kind of tight-fitting clothes Taylor loved on Drew. The sight of all that mass made Taylor’s eyes light up, but their interlocked fingers broke Taylor’s heart. If only he’d hit the weights and the roids when he was young. Or maybe he should have joined the military when he was younger instead of going to school for accounting. It seemed like all the military gays had flawless bodies and men falling all over themselves to date them.

“I’m sorry for blowing up at you,” came the text from Drew about an hour later. Taylor sat in a ferris wheel car alone. It rocked back and forth as he tried to think of a response.

“I’m sorry for lying to you,” Taylor tapped back.

“I need to put down some boundaries with you,” Drew’s response text read. “We may not be able to spend time socially for awhile, if ever. As your trainer, I’m willing to maintain a professional relationship.”

The ferris wheel’s gears groaned as Taylor’s car, at the apex of the wheel lurched forward. He was eager to get off the rickety old thing.

“Let’s talk about it later,” he texted back. “Where are you?”

“By the purple tent. Clown making balloon animals inside. You’d like them.”

As he got off the ferris wheel, Taylor noticed the bodybuilder couple from earlier passing by. He took a breath and tried to hide the nervous energy he felt in the presence of all that muscle. “I really am sick,” Taylor thought. If a bodybuilder asked for his life savings, Taylor would probably consider it. If the bodybuilder gently touched his shoulder when he asked, Taylor would obey helplessly in an instant. He shook his head, depressed at the man he had grown into.

“Did you see that big guy in the ripped jeans?” said the blonde bodybuilder. His voice was higher-pitched than Taylor would have guessed. He fell in behind them, trying to stay in view of those massive glutes bouncing with every footfall. “We should see if we can find him.”

Taylor assumed they were talking about Drew. There definitely weren’t more than three massive bodybuilders strutting around the circus that day.

“Yeah, he was a treat,” said the other in a lilting voice. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Fuck yeah,” said the other in a lilting voice, giving his partner a gentle high-five. “Let’s take that big bitch home, baby.”

Taylor nearly bit his tongue. What was this feeling in his chest? The idea of those giants actually taking his friend Drew home with him--or rather, his trainer, he reminded himself--made him quake with anger. He veered to the side and walked at double speed. Sorry for walking so fast, Taylor thought, imagining himself sassing at the couple as he passed. My legs aren’t so huge I have to waddle, freaks.

The purple tent was empty when Taylor arrived. He paced around outside, looking for Drew, then walked in. A rainbow of balloons in bunched bouquets hung from posts all around him. Taylor didn’t see a single standard round balloon in the whole place. Each was intricately shaped; some like animals, others like people. He reached out and touched one that looked like a truck and gave it a squeeze. The rubbed squeaked as his hands passed over it.

In the center of the tent he saw a clown with a pink wig and a painted-on frown. The clown’s face lit up when Taylor approached. He beckoned Taylor to come closer.

Please don’t be a mime-clown, please don’t be a mime-clown, Taylor thought to himself as he cautiously approached. To his relief, the clown spoke, “Allow me to introduce myself! I’m Puffup the Clown!” He extended a soft, gloved hand and Taylor tentatively shook it.

“I’m Taylor,” he said. “I’m looking for my buddy, a big guy… he said he was here, maybe?” Taylor glanced around as if he’d be able to find him. A young guy about twenty-one puffing on a vape pen walked in. Taylor noticed the guy had dark eye-makeup and walked with a hunch.

“Ah, do you mean one of those big muscle guys?” Puffup said, miming some strongman poses, punctuating each by honking his own nose. “I do believe I have one of those, right here…” He reached into a balloon bouquet and fetched out a balloon shaped like a bodybuilder. The details were intricate; Taylor had expected a cartoonish representation, but he was impressed with the balloon’s realism. He could see each of the balloon-man’s cobbled abs.

“Ah, no,” Taylor said, holding up his hands. There was no way he could get back in the car with Drew with helium-filled fetish fuel. Drew already thought he was somewhat of a creep.

Taylor froze as the orange balloon passed before his eyes. It looked like--no way, that couldn’t be--

“Drew?” Taylor said as he examined the balloons square jaw and the frozen expression on its face. He blinked and shook his head. He just had muscles on the brain; there was no way the clown had made a perfect representation of his friend in the ten minutes since Drew had texted him.

“Ah, balloons don’t have names!” Puffup said, shaking the balloon around. He grabbed the balloons translucent muscular arms and bent them into different shapes. “Me big! Me have big muscles! Me like to lift heavy things!” Puffup said in a deep, growling affectation.

“I’ll take it,” said the young man behind him. “That thing’s cool as fuck.” Taylor had forgotten he was there.

Taylor looked at the young punk, then back at the clown, confused. He wanted another look at that balloon-man, but Puffup tied a string around its foot and handed it to the punk, who exhaled a thick plume of smoke as he walked away, tugging gently on the floating balloon to make it bounce.

“Hell yeah!” the punk said as he walked away. “It’s like having my own personal ape on a string!”

Taylor shook his head. Maybe it was the chili-cheese dog or the fried dough he’d eaten. He definitely didn’t feel well and he had to get out of there. “Well, you didn’t see my friend, did you?” Taylor said as he backed toward the door.

“If you need a friend, look around!” Puffup said, plucking another balloon-shaped man (this one thick and portly). Puffup rubbed his fingers over the balloon’s huge belly, giggling as it squeaked. “I’ve got a tent full of friends just for you!”

Outside the tent, Taylor texted Drew again. “Clown = weird. I’m ready to go.” As he waited for a response, he saw the pair of bodybuilders approached, rubbing their noses together. Taylor rolled his eyes. Make me sick with the PDA, guys… The two large men waddled into the tent behind him. Taylor crept up to the edge of the tent, eager to see if Puffup was as creepy and weird to them as he’d been to him.

“Why, look at these two big-chested fellows!” Puffup said, throwing his chest and, his arms akimbo, mimicking their oversized statures. “Which way to the beach, gentlemen?”

The blonde chuckled and clapped. The hell is wrong with these douchebags? Taylor thought, growing more disappointed with each new thing he learned about these incredibly hot men.

“What’s your name?” Puffup asked, putting a hand up to his ear and leaning to mime that he was listening.

“I’m Gregor,” the bald goateed brute said, slapping his lover on his chest. “This is my boyfriend Hanson!”

Puffup suddenly produced a seltzer-bottle from nowhere. “Why, balloons don’t have names!” he said, squeezing the bottle and spraying Hanson with seltzer.

“What the fuuuuuccckkk…” Hanson said, his voice rising into a squeak like he’d sucked in some helium. His skin had taken on a greenish hue. “Baaabe what’s…” Hanson’s eyes went wide as his head got rounder and rounder. Taylor couldn’t believe his eyes as Hanson’s head expanded into a jade-colored balloon, his muscular hands reaching for a face and finding nothing but squishy filled rubber.

“What did you do to him?” Gregor squealed. An instant later, Gregor was blasted with seltzer. He winced, then charged at Puffup, who hopped a few steps back as the enormous man charged. But before he’d reached the clown, Gregor’s feet lifted off the ground. He floated in midair, his eyes going wide as he waved his arms, trying to get back in contact with the tent floor.

Meanwhile, Hanson had also lifted off the floor, his whole body an almost transparent green. His rubber body squeaked loudly as he patted each newly balloonified bodypart. Puffup boldly walked up and grabbed Hanson’s groin, squeezing the balloon-cock inside the man’s jeans. Hanson panicked as his body, clearly full of helium now, rose off the ground like Gregor’s.

Puffup giggled and clapped as Gregor’s body, turning periwinkle blue, started to retreat into his clothes. The huge man, now looking as rubbery as Hanson, was starting to shrink! His shoes and socks plopped to the ground first, then his still-buckled slacks and his underwear. His tank top, still resting on top of the shrunken balloon inside, hovered in midair. Puffup grinned as he plucked the light blue balloon man from the tank top, licking his lips as he tied a string around it and attached it to a nearby post.

Hanson’s body suffered the same fate, shrinking out of his clothes. The little balloon man he finally shrank into floated out through the collar of his v-neck, bouncing off some nearby balloons as it headed for the top of the tent.

“Oh, you pesky little balloon!” Puffup said, shaking his gloved fist as the Hanson balloon bounced against the ceiling of the tent. The wind picked up outside the tent, swirling the loose Hanson balloon around. It bounced off the ceiling and bobbed out the door of the tent. Taylor leapt for it but it was already too high. He watched in horror as the Hanson balloon floated up into the cloudless blue sky.

Taylor heard the spritz of the seltzer water again and took off running, hoping to escape the fate of the others. He didn’t stop until he was at his car, finally turning around to see that no one was following him.

He looked around, wondering if he was going insane. Had he really just watched two men turn into balloons, one of them floating away? He texted Drew again, “WHERE ARE YOU RESPOND PLEASE!” but got no response.

Do I just leave? Taylor wondered. The last place he wanted to be was anywhere near this creepy circus, but he imagined Drew texting him later, demanding to know why Taylor had abandoned him at the circus.

“A weird clown turned two bodybuilders into balloons and I thought he would do it to me so I ran away,” Taylor muttered to himself, imagining how that would go over. He’d already fucked up with Drew once today.

That’s when he noticed a flash of orange in the grimy grey parking lot, about twenty feet away. Taylor walked slowly toward it, suddenly recalling the balloon he thought looked like Drew earlier. As he approached, he found it was a balloon--deflated and discarded. Taylor picked it up gently, brushing some gravel off it.

“Drew?” he said aloud to it, staring at the empty rubber man as if it could respond. The bottom had just been untied, Taylor noticed. He could still be refilled. Taylor took a deep breath and exhaled into the balloon. It took a few lungfuls to fill it up. Then he tied the end and looked at it.

The twelve-inch balloon was unmistakably Drew; Taylor ran his fingers along its abdominal muscles, noting the narrow waist and the square-shaped pecs, uncommon features that Taylor had memorized during their training sessions together. He turned the balloon over and examined his butt, seeing a miniature orange representation of the glute-display he’d stared at while learning proper lunge form. The balloon’s head was all rubber, with its shape vaguely denoting hair, but it looked exactly like his personal trainer’s coiffure.

Suddenly the balloon twitched in his hands. Taylor dropped it, watching it gently sink toward the ground. He grabbed the light-as-air object before it landed and held it up. He ran a finger over the bulges that denoted its chest. There were tiny little nubs on the crest of each pec--the balloon had nipples! He ran a hand down the smooth bulge of the balloon's groin, eliciting a squeak.

“Drew? Is that you?” Taylor asked the balloon, no longer caring how insane this felt. He heard the ballon squeak again and watched as the little rubberized man tried to move, his limbs barely twitching back and forth as it squeaked helplessly.

“You’ll be wanting his things, I’d assume,” said a voice behind him. Taylor whirled around, holding the Drew-balloon behind his back, and stared into Puffup’s painted face. The clown clutched some folded clothing between his hands. Taylor took the pile of clothing, recognizing Drew’s jeans and t-shirt. His wallet and phone were still in the jeans. He got a whiff of Drew’s musky feet as Puffup passed him Drew’s shoes, the socks neatly tucked inside.

“Th-thanks?” Taylor thought as Puffup hopped on a unicycle and peddled away in a wobbly arc.

He held the still trembling balloon against his chest and carried the clothes back to his car, setting everything in the passenger seat before peeling out of the lot. Every few minutes the balloon would squeak. Taylor opened a window to get some air, but the breeze made the little balloon man float and bounce around the inside of the car. He wisely shut the window, not wanting to lose Drew again that day.

Back at Drew’s place, Taylor made sure no one saw as he set his things neatly on the man’s bed. He took one long whiff of the apartment before leaving, breathing in the essence of Drew’s cologne and musk.

Later, Taylor sipped a glass of wine and looked up at the balloonified bodybuilder getting tossed around by the ceiling fan. “Tank of helium wasn’t that expensive,” Taylor laughed as he watched Drew’s tiny body bop against the ceiling, falling back into the path of the fan’s blades before getting bopped gently away. “I figure if you’re going to live here, I want you looking your best.” He climbed up on a chair and snatched the balloon man down. It squeaked and wiggled in his hands.

“Now now, calm down,” Taylor said as he tied a ribbon around Drew’s foot. “I mean, this has been a real roller-coaster of a day for you, but what can be done? I don’t have access to whatever unworldly magic that clown had, and I sure as hell am not going back to that circus!” As he watched the rubber man struggling to move again, he reached out and rubbed his thumb against the bodybuilder’s groin. The little balloon squeaked loudly.

“You should at least appreciate that I pumped you up with extra helium,” Taylor said, admiring the extra mass he’d pumped into the little rubber man. “And now we’ll just wait to see if this wears off. And if it doesn’t… you can stay here with me. Not quite the same as dating you, but you didn’t want that, did you? So we’ll have to settle for this.”

Taylor let go of the ribbon, letting his helpless trainer float toward the ceiling again. “Think about it: no bills, no work, just floating around, lighter than air without a care in the world, with your buddy Taylor to take care of you. As long as you don’t pop, that is.”