Tom in Space Part 2: Spacious Feasting

(CW: Massive Weight Gain, Space)

Commission for CynicalGage

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“... are you with us?”

A voice tugged at Tom’s consciousness. It was strong, and masculine, and tangible enough to rouse him from sleep. His memories were a jumble of moving parts, rushing past each other but never quite connecting. He had a distinct image of a clunky grey spacecraft lodged in his mind’s eye. There was something just beyond it, a large, cylindrical structure floating in the depths of space. And a feeling of vertigo. And a fullness, which built, and built to such an overwhelming apex that his concentration was obliterated. In a flash of hot red panic, Tom bolted upright. Frightening the doctors.

“I think you just got your answer, doctor.”

Two humans stood at the foot of the hospital bed Tom was realizing he had been sleeping in. One was tall, feminine, and clutching an info-tablet to her chest. The other was short, hirsute, and wearing a three-eyed scanning apparatus over his natural right eye. He grunted, and pressed a button which made the apparatus rotate. With a more powerful lens to work with, he studied Tom with extreme care. Tom assumed it was a medical scanner, currently in the process of checking his vitals through a complex sequence of x-rays and thermal readouts.

“He’s fine,” the doctor said.

Tom breathed a sigh of relief.

“But we’ll need to add the mutation to his medical file and classify him as near-human.”

“What!?” Tom exclaimed. “What do you mean mutation? What do you mean... near-human? I feel fine!” His heart pounded so hard, he thought it would erupt from his chest. Tom began to hyperventilate and forgot to exhale. Air went in and didn’t come out. His hospital gown became tight and uncomfortable, and pinched around the sleeve holes on account of his ballooning arms.

“Calm down!” the female doctor took an anxious step backwards. “You’re not in any danger, and you need to control your breathing!”

Tom tried. He really did. He began blowing, a bit like he was rapidly trying to cool soup with his pursed lips. He didn’t deflate. “It’s not coming out!” He shouted.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” the short, hairy male doctor made his way to Tom’s side. He took out a hollow needle and pricked the bloated man in the side. A high-pitched sound preceded Tom’s deflation, the air which built up inside of him rushed out.

“... I didn’t explode.” Tom said, mystified that he had just blown up and deflated with such ease.

“Not this time,” the male doctor continued. “You came into contact with a colony inhabitants’ bodily substance, which - because you forgot to immunize before disembarking - caused your physiology to temporarily change. You became hollow, elastic, and in the simplest terms, balloon-like. Now ordinarily the substance secreted by the inhabitant would leave your body the moment you expelled the excess air, but...” the doctor’s brows furrowed.

“...but?” Tom urged him to continue.

“The... colony in question, exploited a loophole.” He gestured to the female doctor. She showed the info-tablet to Tom, and he saw an overinflated parody of the human form. Instinctually, he knew it was him. He knew he should have been shocked, or disgusted, but he was just impressed by how large he had gotten. A screen the size of a two-story building had been mounted on his flank, and the rest of the page explained that he had been used as a colony-corporate advertisement blimp for the last month. He began to recall things, but it was like another person’s memories. In his stretched out, comically large form, he didn’t seem to be... fully sentient. Like he had temporarily become an actual, inanimate balloon.

“What loophole?”

“Well you see,” the tablet changed its displayed page. In microscopic print, there was a legal document in which Tom could only make out his own name written half a dozen times in various languages. “Because the transformation was so aggressive, it rendered you completely undetectable to the bio-scan as a human. It registered you as a high-capacity container made of complex polymers, and well...” the doctor looked uncomfortable. “The colony registered you as an advertising balloon and claimed ownership of you as their property. You were advertising their wares for a month, until someone accidentally overinflated you.”

“So, I burst?”

“In so many words, yes. Your time spent transformed without proper medical attention permanently altered your body. You still outwardly resemble your former self, but unless you’re somehow cured of your mutation, you’ll be unable to physically age, cut your hair or alter your appearance naturally, and your elasticity makes you prone to expansion via internal and external factors.”

Tom was secretly elated. “So, can I still eat?”

The male doctor chimed in. “That’s your first question? You don’t want to know about the settlement?”

“What settlement?” Tom was trying not to think about what fun he could have with his new body.

“The colony which claimed you as their property faced a very serious lawsuit, they were forced to award you a lump sum for physical and emotional damages.”

“How much...?”

The female doctor switched the tablet display again.

Tom’s head inflated to thrice its original size when he saw the number. “TEN MILLION CREDITS!?”

***

Ten million credits. To a space colony conglomerate, it was a pittance. To an underpaid freelance delivery pilot like Tom, it was a life-changing fortune. If he was smart about it, he could avoid having to work ever again. He could invest a third, or store it for emergencies, while living comfortably on the remaining seven million. He tried to resist the initial impulse to splurge, and almost succeeded.

A three-dimensional hologram featuring a four-armed frog anthromorph repeated its audio loop to Tom’s left. “All the luxury you can possibly want, at the Burgeoning Forest Spa and Hotel. Now taking reservations for personal visits, long-term stays, and weddings.” Tom had delivered to expensive resorts before, but he had always felt a twinge of jealousy. Doing the heavy lifting, driving for hours, days, or sometimes weeks across the galaxy. Just to drop off a large box full of luxurious food and comfort he would never get to sample on a delivery pilot’s wage.

Until he had become a human balloon, been misused as an advertising blimp for a dubious space colony and received an enormous cash settlement for his troubles. Now, he was going to get some of that bougie spa-living for himself!

“Thomas, we are approaching planet Marglaz. Some recreational amenities will be deactivated as we begin our descent and will not reactivate until a safe landing has been confirmed. Would you like to request use of the ship’s recreational amenities before landing procedures are engaged?” The ship’s AI had been carried over from Tom’s old vessel. He had an attachment to the artificial mind, nearly six years with only its static-coated voice for company made him reluctant to abandon it. He had spent a generous amount paying an engineer to upgrade its memory core, correct its malfunctioning logic circuits, and have a new voice module installed. It now spoke for a velvety smooth, deep and masculine allure. “Thomas, do you require use of the ship’s recreational amenities before they are disengaged?” Tom sometimes found himself making the AI speak, just to enjoy its dulcet tones.

“No, you’re alright.” Tom rubbed at his stomach. He ate well now, almost every night. His new state of the art personal ship, a small yacht class interstellar vessel, came equipped with everything he needed to sate the increased appetite he’d acquired from his mutation. An automated chef droid prepared his meals, a small-scale replicator provided him with every flavour of soda he wanted, and he had enough fridge space to hide a family of earth-grown elephants in the freezer section alone.

“Please take your seat on the bridge and prepare for turbulence. Descent protocol initiated.”

The underside of the ship opened a dozen compartments along its length, sliding back to reveal protruding nozzles. They sprayed out a thick silver gel. The liquid was forced back against the ship’s exterior because of its downward momentum, spreading and sealing up the gaps in coverage before turning a shade of burnished red. It protected Tom’s yacht from the cosmic heat of descending through a planet’s atmosphere, absorbing the friction which would spell doom for the unprepared. His old rust-bucket planet hopper would be thrashing wildly by now, forcing him to bite his tongue and practice deep breaths to calm his nausea. He was elated by the way the new model handled approach velocity, it barely rattled. If it wasn’t for the view through the monitor showing his passage through the atmosphere, through the clouds, and through the scenery of the planet, he wouldn’t have even known he was descending.

Tom reclined in his chair. He twiddled his thumbs and drummed his stomach. The advantages of upgrading his ship’s AI were too extensive to list; but there was one disadvantage which gnawed at him. Boredom. When everything was automated by a smarter-than-you machine intelligence, you sometimes found yourself with nothing to do, Tom thought. He had obtained the bad habit of eating during those periods of idleness. Which had contributed to his current weight and was reminded of it by the way the armrests pinched his flanks. Before the settlement, he would have thought to lose the weight to make the chair last a bit longer. But now, he was flushed with credits. A larger chair to accommodate his larger frame was a paltry expense.

“Thomas,” the AI chimed. “We have landed successfully with minimal heat damage to the underside plating. Docking procedures will be completed in approximately ten minutes, please depart at your leisure. The atmosphere of planet Marglaz is hospitable to human life, meaning external apparatus for exploration will not be required.”

“Thanks,” Tom pushed up from his chair. “Prepare clothes set H-17.”

“...” The AI was silent. Tom could hear the low electric hum of its deliberations, however.

“... computer, is there a problem with my request?”

“The articles of clothing have been properly decontaminated, cleaned, dried, and pressed. Heated to an optimum temperature, and are waiting for you in your private quarters.”

“Then there’s no problem.” Tom said.

“There is one unaccounted for variable.”

Tom walked from the bridge, across the central living area of the yacht’s interior, and into his private quarter. An Earth-Hawaii shirt, and comfortable blue shorts with accompanying sandals. Tom noticed the problem immediately.

“Computer?”

“Yes Thomas?” The AI responded.

“... do we have a functioning tailoring unit on board?”

“No, we do not, Thomas.”

Tom groaned. “How long would it take to install a fabric alteration protocol in one of the chef droids.”

“Approximately six hours.”

“... guess I’ll just try to make this work then.” Tom resigned himself to trying on the outfit. He had gained a significant amount of weight since purchasing it, and the redness in his fingertips while trying to close the middle button of his shirt illustrated that painfully. He surrendered, and just wore the shirt unbuttoned. Stomach on display, the Hawaiian print framing his dense middle. The shorts were similarly stubborn and were just tight enough around his legs to not impede his movement. The sandals fit fine, at least. He hadn’t grown so enormous that his footwear needed replacing.

“Not yet at least.” He said out loud, adjusting his glasses while looking at himself in the mirror. He was a thin, rakish man a few months ago. Now he barely fit in the confines of the mirror, and his face was twice its width with newly ballooned cheeks and a prominent double chin. He put his hands on his exposed belly, and contemplated another attempt at struggling with the buttons to hide it behind the shirt. Only to stop, and think... he actually liked the way the fabric framed his gut. It was nice. So big, and curved, and heavy. He could do some serious damage with it. Tom was never a muscular man, but hey, if he ever got into a fight from now on, he had a wrecking ball to pulverize his opponent with. Not that he anticipated a fight in a resort, of course. Especially not one as expensive as the Burgeoning Forest Spa.

“Welcome, honoured guest. We are delighted to have you with us, on this glorious evening.” A tall pale green anthromorph with golden eyes came to greet Tom, standing three heads taller than an average human and sporting powerful reptilian arms. The only near-human sentient Marglian species was the Ar’kaph race. With heads resembling tropical frogs, powerful necks, and thick limbs, they were well known for their martial arts and hospitality cultures. Capable of healing and rejuvenating the body, as laying waste to it in hand to hand combat. Galactic elites paid out the nose to receive treatment from an Ar’kaph.

Tom coughed. In the greeter’s presence, he didn’t feel as big as he had in his ship mirror. The green Ar’kaph was dressed in a modest silk robe, essentially one length of fabric over their chest and a skirt. Their stomach exceeded Tom’s by a wide margin. He had heard that the Ar’kaph ate well, and their beauty culture was entrenched in ideals of enormity and roundness. It was one thing to hear about it; it was another to see it up close.

“Thank you. Which way to my room?” Tom asked, stiffly. He had been on his ship so often since the incident, he didn’t have many opportunities to speak to anything except his AI. It rendered him awkward when he had to speak to another living sentient.

“Please, follow me.” The Ar’kaph’s size belied their grace. “My name is Baaran-Alxaar. You may call me Baaran, Baa, or use my full name. I understand if it is somewhat difficult to remember.” Baaran led the way, the world around Tom changing when they passed through the ship docks. The Burgeoning Forest complex was a synthesis of advanced technology, and the fluid architecture of nature’s grand design. Electricity ran along grains in wooden panels, still textured and redolent of whole trees. A transparent floor showed the rivers beneath the mega-structure, where Tom occasionally caught the local fish swimming and thriving out of his periphery. Baaran gave a concise explanation as they walked. Tom found them easy to understand, but he would occasionally miss something the Ar’kaph said because he had stared at their belly and daydreamed of having one just like it. Baaran’s mouth creased, Tom presumed it was a smile. “You too appreciate the beauty of the curve?”

“Beauty of the curve?” Tom huffed; he was winded. So much walking. He would have killed for a hover-disc to carry him. “What’s that?” He sat down on a natural stone bench, adjacent to a wide-open forest space where a dozen visitors were receiving famed Ar’kaph deep tissue massages. It looked painful, all that pushing and prodding, but it was expensive so Tom figured it must be good for you.

Baaran’s eyes blinked sideways and lit up with delight. “Why yes! The curve! It’s the principle of beauty which all Ar’kaph, especially the ones employed here, strive to uphold. From the curve of the planetary horizon, to the celestial bodies; right down to the bends in the rivers, the waves of the ocean; and even more personally, the curves of one’s own body.” Baaran inflated their throat, and by proxy, their stomach. They gave it a smack, drumming out a long, resonant note. From elsewhere in the facility, another Ar’kaph drummed; and another; and another. They joined in the round, in celebration of The Curve.

Tom felt brave. He breathed in and blew on his thumb. He lacked the fine control to make his throat bulge like a frog, but he could certainly pump his belly. With his gut distended by a foot in all directions, and packed with air, he raised his hand and smacked it hard. The act seemed to shock Baaran.

“You are capable of using pressure to amplify your curve, like we are?” The lilting professional voice broke, his natural, informal tone came out. He was mystified.

“Aheh, yeah.” Tom deflated. He scratched the back of his neck. “I had an accident, forgot to immunize before going colony-side. Ended up infected with something which doesn’t agree with human DNA and, well. Boom.” Tom paused. He remembered that he had, in fact, exploded once before. “Well... boom, literally. I popped, and apparently, reformed as some inflatable human - it’s permanent.”

Baaran trembled excitedly. “You do not speak of it with disdain, either. Oh, I have met humans who appreciate the curve before, but no, I have never met one which embodies it like you. Do you wish to embrace it too?”

“Embrace it how?” Tom asked.

“Why, by becoming as curved as you can!”

“Oh no, I... don’t think I’m ready to pump up, not yet anyway.”

Baaran’s enthusiasm didn’t waver. “No, the pressure is temporary. I mean with food, good, good food!”

Now Tom lit up with delight. “You mean make me fatter?” He was already hungry with anticipation.

“If it pleases you, honoured guest.”

“Tom.”

“If it pleases you, Tom.” Baaran continued. “I can introduce you to the richest food, and act as your personal... curve concierge.”

“Then let’s get started.” Tom wasn’t sure if this was standard procedure or just the thrill of one strange employee, but a personal assistant to help him really get FAT? Yes, please.

Baaran led Tom to a private room. They told Tom it was ‘his’ room, but it was practically a luxury apartment. It was pale white metals, interspersed with natural water features, and wooden panels with the same electricity running through them as before. Fully furnished, Tom sat down on a sofa near what he learned was a firepit.

“So... let’s go big guy,” Tom rubbed his stomach.

Baaran prepared the food himself. The first course was sushi. Freshly caught, cut, and served on a plate with a local planet-side equivalent of soy sauce. Tom put one of the pieces in his mouth, and unwittingly let out a sigh. It was so good, so full of flavour. Salty, a little sweet, and rich with oceanic umami. He felt his stretchy body rumble. Weight piled on, like someone had recorded him fatten up over an exceedingly long period, and then pressed fast forward. He greeted every inch by caressing his belly, until he was big enough to make the sofa protest his expansion. “Mm, and this is just one dish...”

Baaran themself was surprised at how quickly Tom grew. “Do you still wish to grow?”

Tom laughed. He picked up the rectangular plate and let the sushi slide into his open mouth. His stomach gurgled and stretched. His new fat widened his frame, his fingers bloating up like pudgy sausages. The couch legs were taxed to their limit and collapsed. Tom laughed at that and ran his newly thickened fingers through a nascent fat roll which had appeared under his moob.

“Yes,” Tom let out a belch. “Don’t stop until I’m the biggest guest you’ve ever had.”

Baaran vibrated. He immediately went to work. A plate of spiced poultry served on pita was next. Tom scarfed it all. Hot, spicy, sensual notes danced on his palette. He hummed a jaunty tune, but it could barely be heard over the thick rubbery groans of Tom’s body. He was beginning to lose his shape as a human, but he remembered he wasn’t technically human any longer. He leaned forward to lounge on his stomach, and Baaran quickly turned the firepit off to ensure their guest’s safety. Just as well, Tom grew fat enough to cover it. He was luxuriating on a bouncy, sloshing bed made of his own gut and chest. He wiggled his limbs and laughed. “Hah!” Tom made a swimming motion. “Look, I’m swimming in an ocean of myself!”

Baaran laughed. It was deep, and resonant with the powerful chords of the Ar’kaph. “Not yet, Tom, not yet!” Tom had fattened up so ridiculously, his face was now closer to the kitchen area of the private room. Baaran kept providing new meals. Each more decadent than the last. Tom ate everything. Spicy, salty, sweet, dry, juicy. Tom’s belly filled the depression in the floor which housed the firepit, and the doughy sides of his gut knocked over the couches adjacent to the one he had been sitting on. That poor couch, it didn’t stand a chance.

“Do you still want more?” Baaran had begun intermittently massaging Tom’s fat. Strong Ar’kaph arms, applying pulling, pushing, and pressure that reverberated through the balloon of fat and size wanderlust that Tom had become over the course of a single meal.

“Am I the biggest guest you’ve ever seen?” Tom asked. Fat cheeks partially obscuring his eyes.

“Then please, as this is only your first night staying with us. May I propose a swifter, but no less delicious method of reaching new levels of curve?”

Tom was intrigued. “Go on.” He gesticulated with his hand, which was just comically small, and dainty compared to his heft.

Baaran opened the fridge unit, and disconnected a long tube. He brought it to Tom and nodded. “It is possible to reroute certain fluids to be expunged by the delivery system in your private fridge.”

Tom nodded, he understood.

“You merely need to tell me what sort of flavour I should calibrate it to, and you can drink it down with ease. It does not seem like you require much... pause, for consumption.” Baaran said, politely telling Tom he was a gluttonous monster who didn’t need to pause for breath to eat.

Tom had a craving for something sweet. “Sweetened cream, do you have the stuff they serve at Galaxy Burger?”

Baaran was taken aback. Clearly used to handling less... commonly available foodstuffs. “I can, um, set the replicator to do that for you. Yes. Are you sure?”

“Pump me up, Scotty!” Tom smiled, and Baaran inserted the hose. The latter just, didn’t understand the reference. To be fair, most humans no longer understood it either.

Baaran input a sequence of symbols into the console by the fridge unit. Heavy, sweet, nourishing cream forced the hose to become rigid. It flowed into Tom. He wasn’t just fattening up; he was practically inflating. But it was an entirely different experience than before. Instead of being caught in the delirium of losing his grip on gravity, he was being seduced by the heaviness of his weight. His stomach spilling out, cheeks wobbling and filling up and out of his tortured shorts. Even high-tensile threads had their limit. He shook himself, just to feel himself ripple. Yes, this was it. He was becoming his own private ocean, his face a statue of bliss on a private island of barely recognisable human anatomy amongst the collection of curves and spheres he had become.

“Mmmmmph...” Tom had started to feel full minutes ago, but he didn’t tell Baaran that. His somewhat flabby, wobbly exterior had begun to grow turgid with internal pressure. The cream pumping faster than Tom’s mutated body could convert it to fat. He felt his moobs ache, cream leaking from his nipples, and somewhere beneath his rolling waves he could feel the cool liquid drip from his navel as well. “Mmmmph!”

Tom’s cheeks bloated to capacity. The hose, firmly wedged, threatened to be the instrument of his undoing. A memory stirred, and the feeling of coming close to bursting point from his time as a non-sentient balloon blared like an alarm in his thoughts. He wiggled, harder, and harder. Was he going to explode? He would be fine, this time, right? But was the fattening thing a new variable? What if he just became a big tidal wave of cream. What if he exploded permanently! Oh no, no. Too full, too full, TOO FULL. I’M GOING TO...

Pop!

The hose came free, and cream dribbled down Tom’s chins. Baaran looked at him with genuine concern. “Are you alright?” He asked.

Tom panted. “Oof...” with the fear of detonation abated, his mental compass was heading back towards contentment. “Oh yeah, better than alright. Look at me, I’m huge!”

Baaran laughed. “Yes, and by far the biggest visitor we have ever had.”

Tom grinned. “Give me a good night’s sleep to process aaaaaaall thiiiiis...” he rippled happily. “And I’ll show you BIG.”