End of Hibernation

After getting in the house, and taking off her shoes & socks, she took in a deep breath, and pulled out the balloon from her purse.

For all sakes & purposes, it was an ordinary balloon. Orange; not her favorite color, but not a bad color either.

But it was the first balloon she had brought home in quite some time. Time, her part-time job, and a misguided attempt at a couple of blind dates had taken her attention away from her little “thing” for balloons. Almost a year to the day in fact, since she had decided to “clean out” the little plastic bag she had kept for years under her pillow in her home.

For a while she had pretty much forgot about balloons. Just a month ago she was even worried she had lost her ‘special’ interest in them entirely. She had even thrown away the old baggie during her last spring cleaning, along with the last couple shards of colored latex from the corners, as the bag had been just another empty piece of plastic for seven months as far as she was concerned . . .

Yet by pure chance a new party store had opened in town, just a few blocks from where she had been shopping that afternoon. Certainly a little look would not hurt.

It was not the store itself that caught her attention, or the assortment of balloons (Although she did feel a small tingle within her body over the big balls of happiness she had not looked at for so long.), but rather the poster behind the counter.

A carnival would be coming to town. One that specialized in balloon games & themes.

She could not quite explain why, but the sight of that poster pulled in her full interest, and she read it from top to bottom, word for word.

At the very bottom, in bold yellow letters, was a notice about a “Balloon S2P Contest”.

Very few people would know without explanation what “S2P” meant, in relation to balloons.

She was one of those people.

The clerk working behind the counter, noticing the young woman’s obvious interest in the poster, went to explain about how the party store was a sponsor of the carnival, and that many of the decorations, as well as the balloons, would be contributed by the store themselves.

She did not really care about any that. Her head was swimming with thoughts of the listed contest, and sitting upon big bouncy balloons, stretching & creaking under her behind, before exploding with a loud BANG!

Half distracted, she purchased one balloon. One. Just one. It did not mean anything, really. It was not for any particular reason, either; just an impulse buy.

So she had inflated it a couple of times, when she had gotten it back to her car. The second time, the balloon was much more stretchy, and squishy. Oh how it was squishy.

She knew she had to get it home!

At first she had thought the feelings she had were dying down again, but as she held the flaccid rubber in her hand, they came upon her again like a wave.

The balloon was inflated for the third and last time; she had to catch her breath for a moment, as her lungs were no longer used to having to inflate something this fast. She teased the idea of doing a B2P instead, but her body wanted to do her “favorite” way.

“This is just for old time’s sake.” She told herself, as she set the balloon on the floor. “If I were going back for real, I would be doing this naked, in the bedroom.”

A thrill of electricity went through her body about that thought. No, she had to control herself. She was above silly little things like this now. Just this one time. That would be all.

The balloon squished underneath her butt, and around her legs, as she rocked around, riding the orange air-filled toy. She had missed this feeling.

“N-now for the best part . . .” she said out loud. She could not stop the smile from coming to her face, as she squished her fingers into the bulging side of the balloon underneath her.

She knew it would not last long. It did not.

BANG!

The balloon popped much louder than she had expected, and she was perfectly okay with that, as orange scraps hit the carpet for the first time in months.

“I really SHOULD have done this in the bedroom, after all.” She said with a giggle, touching the one shred of rubber she still held in her hand to her body.

Sitting there unfulfilled, yet somehow happy, she realized her interest in balloons had only been hibernating. And like any hibernating animal that had just awakened, it was “hungry”. It had been a year now; she had some catching up to do. As well as some shopping.



As she went to place an empty zip-lock baggie into her purse before heading out again, a piece of folded paper she did not remember seeing before caught her attention. She half expected what it was before she even finished unfolding it. Obviously the clerk at the party store was either very observant, or borderline psychic.

It was a mini-version of the carnival poster; with the “S2P” contest line highlighted in bright orange.

She could not help but smile again.


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Unexpected Things That Happened:

- A small Tron Bonne picture that took me less than two hours to complete has been popular enough to be submitted to 3 other DA groups (I also submitted it to my own.).

- My DA balloon art group has had a bunch of submissions by just one member of mostly photographs of balloons, which I ended up placing in their own section. I do not have a problem with this, I just was not expecting so many photos of just balloons themselves.

- In trying to make two pictures featuring the "Before" & "After" of a girl sit-popping a balloon, I decided to see if I could combine them into a single picture that slowly switches frames instead, and see what happens.

This is another one of those stories that I originally intended to be small, but it kind of got away from me while I was writing it.

Anyway, I hope everyone likes it.