What I Felt When That Balloon Was About to Burst

It was a suffocating July morning when I got up before anyone else to help load the car. That day we were traveling to my grandmother’s house: it was her birthday and the whole family was gathering for one of those long lunches planned weeks in advance. I liked visiting her. I’m the oldest of the grandchildren and we had always had a close relationship, even if she had that strict nature that scared the others.

I’m twenty-five. My cousins, on the other hand, were no older than thirteen, and that was the part I liked least: putting up with a pack of loud, impertinent, and at times exhausting kids for an entire afternoon.

But there was something that worried me far more than the noise. It was a birthday, and I avoided birthdays for one reason only: balloons. Ever since I was little I’d felt genuine panic at balloons, at firecrackers, at anything that might burst. Explosions gave me an anxiety I couldn’t control.

And yet, as we drove, I couldn’t stop thinking about something that had confused me for years.

I watched a lot of television, especially game shows: those programs where contestants go through absurd physical challenges. Sometimes they had to pop giant balloons, twisting and crushing them mercilessly until they exploded. And I, without understanding why, felt a dark excitement watching every gesture. How is this possible?, I asked myself over and over again.

Deep down I knew. Since I was a child, balloons had attracted me. They were soft, shiny, had a texture unlike anything else. But I couldn’t stand other people playing with them near me, because in that moment I no longer saw balloons: I saw bombs about to go off. It was panic and desire mixed into the same image, and I’d never managed to separate the two things.

Those game shows had seeped into my head until they became fantasy. When I masturbated, sometimes I imagined myself as one of those contestants, inflating a giant balloon to the limit, feeling the latex tighten under my hands. I didn’t understand how something could terrify me and turn me on at the same time.

***

After two hours on the road we arrived. The whole family was already in the garden, decorated for the occasion, and to my immense relief, not a single balloon in sight. There were kisses, hugs, the usual noise of a family reunion. While I was greeting everyone, I realized one of my uncles was missing and I asked my aunt Norma about him.

—Esteban’s arriving later —she told me—. Something came up at work at the last minute.

My uncle Esteban was the life of any party. Outgoing, funny, always ready to play with the kids as if he were one of them. Deep down I wanted him to arrive soon, because with him the afternoon felt lighter.

While the family prepared the food and I helped here and there, trying as well to keep my cousins in check, Esteban finally showed up loaded with packages and a bag.

—Who wants a surprise? —he shouted from the doorway.

The children swarmed around him, expectant. He always brought candy, toys, anything that drove them wild. He left the gifts in a room and came out again with a plastic bag. I didn’t think anything of it: I assumed it would be more sweets, something to keep them entertained for a good while.

Until he pulled a second bag out from inside it, and my heart lurched.

It was a bag of balloons. And when he started handing them out, I saw it better: they were huge, much bigger than any balloon I’d ever seen in my life. The brand was unfamiliar to me, imported stuff, the kind you don’t find in just any shop.

My cousins, squealing with joy, started inflating them without a second thought. The little ones asked their parents for help. And I, standing in the middle of the garden, could feel sweat running down my back as I thought about how to escape that hell.

Esteban came up to me.

—Mateo, want a couple to have fun with?

—Uh… no, thanks —I answered, not knowing what to say.

—Come on, don’t be shy. I know you’re not a kid, but take one and have some fun with your cousins, you don’t see them often.

—Seriously, I don’t feel like it right now…

—Are you all right? You look terrible.

I was sweating. Around me, several cousins were already playing with their inflated, knotted balloons, bopping them any which way. It was only a matter of time before one of them burst by accident, and all I wanted was to run.

Then I thought of an excuse: I told him the trip had made me feel sick, that I was going to take a walk and come back in time for lunch.

***

I got out of there as fast as I could and finally took a breath. I walked aimlessly, calculating when to return. In an hour lunch would be ready, and if by then any balloon was still alive, I wouldn’t be able to escape or make up another excuse. I’d have to watch.

But, strangely enough, I still couldn’t get those balloons out of my head. I’d never seen ones like that, and I cursed myself for turning down the chance to keep even one. For a while now I’d been buying balloons in secret to experiment when I was alone, always careful not to let them burst. My mind began fantasizing without permission: having one of those giant balloons inflated between my legs, riding it, feeling the latex squeal and strain under my body. The mere thought gave me an erection I had to put away immediately, because I was in the middle of the street and it was neither the place nor the time.

When I came back, my cousins were playing something else. There wasn’t a trace left of whole balloons, only torn pieces of latex scattered across the grass. They’d already had their fun, they’d popped them all. For once, luck seemed to be on my side.

The afternoon wore on. The clouds threatened rain, so we moved from the garden to the dining room. While everyone settled in and kept talking, Esteban found a green balloon lying on the floor, forgotten between the chairs, still uninflated.

He put it on the table and, to my relief, kept talking without paying it any attention. But the conversation drifted toward balloons, and my father asked him where he’d gotten such impressive ones.

—I work for an advertising company —Esteban explained—. I have access to imported balloons that aren’t sold in stores. We use them to print logos at events.

—And do they really get that big? —my father, Andrés, asked curiously.

—Wait and see.

And to my absolute panic, he picked up the green balloon from the floor.

***

I began to feel that luck was playing a cruel joke on me. I had helped rearrange the chairs when we got back to the house. How had I not seen that balloon lying on the floor? I could have put it in my pocket, made it disappear, avoided all of this. And instead Esteban had found it, the biggest prankster in the family, the last person I’d want with a balloon in his hands.

I watched him bring the neck to his lips and start blowing. Please stop, tie it off and hand it to someone. But the balloon kept growing, oval, shiny, already far bigger than the ones the kids had inflated.

That drew everyone’s attention. Eyes kept locking onto that green balloon swelling over the table in a broad, taut shape. Esteban stood up from the chair; the balloon was so big the table was in his way.

I thought he’d tie it off. I was sure he would stop. But my father, laughing, challenged him.

—Bet you won’t dare inflate it any more.

Those words landed on me like a sentence. The dining room was turning into a nightmare, and the stress was becoming unbearable. Esteban answered the challenge by putting the neck back to his mouth, with a crooked smile, a malicious smile I understood far too well.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I got up and locked myself in the bathroom right across from us. The stress was brutal, but it wasn’t the only reason I ran: my cock was so hard it hurt, and only my loose clothes had hidden it. The fabric had already begun to show a damp stain, from how aroused I was.

I closed the door and covered my ears with my hands, wishing with all my strength to muffle the noise I knew was coming. And at the same time I kept thinking about that balloon. God, I’m so turned on. I didn’t want to move my hands away from my ears, but I needed to see. I longed to watch them inflate it mercilessly, maybe even burst it, and I felt an urge I couldn’t possibly masturbate away.

***

I cracked the door open. From my position, in the reflection of a large mirror, I could make out my uncle inflating the balloon, which had already formed a long neck and was beginning to take the shape of a gigantic pear.

I gathered the courage that only extreme arousal could give me. I stopped covering one ear, unzipped my pants, and pulled out my cock to start touching myself.

Esteban held the balloon against his chest with one hand. With the other, he dragged his palm roughly along the latex, making it squeal. From his smile I knew he was doing it on purpose, enjoying making everyone uncomfortable and tense. To me it was almost enough to make me cry, and at the same time it turned me on beyond measure.

The balloon kept expanding in width. The dark green had become almost translucent. How can it get that big without bursting? Esteban was already struggling to hold the neck, blowing with effort, and the balloon had reached a size that was impossible to believe. Sweat was running into my eyes as I jerked myself harder and harder, and then everything happened in an instant.

The balloon vanished in a deafening explosion that shook the walls, made the adults scream, and the children cry.

I felt the biggest shock of my life. My whole body jolted and, immediately, a series of uncontrollable spasms ran through me. I came with an almost painful intensity, in long, warm spurts that shot out farther than I had ever reached before.

Some moan escaped me, but the uproar the explosion caused in the family completely drowned out any sound I might make. I collapsed exhausted onto the toilet, sweating, gasping. My legs were shaking, my hands too, even my breathing came in broken bursts.

I knew that balloon would make noise, but the blast had been infinitely worse than I imagined. A nightmare made real. And at the same time, the most intense and pleasurable orgasm I had ever felt in my life.

***

That confusion again. Part of me never wanted to go through something like that ever again. The other had enjoyed it to the point of ecstasy. In my mind I went over every instant: how my uncle inflated that huge balloon mercilessly with the clear intention of making it burst, how he mistreated it, how the overinflated latex moaned under his hand while he kept blowing. Watching it swell to the impossible and then explode… it was something I would never forget. A fantasy I now knew I needed to repeat.

I straightened up, washed my hands and face, tried to pull myself together. I flushed the toilet to disguise my long stay and came out. My family welcomed me by shouting about the show I’d missed, not knowing I had seen everything. There were still dozens of torn pieces of latex on the floor; the balloon had practically disintegrated in every direction.

Night fell and with it came the goodbyes. I hugged the relatives who were still there and, last of all, my grandmother. I was already walking toward the car when she called me from the doorway.

—Wait, Mateo, I have something for you.

Intrigued, I went back. She handed me a bag. When I opened it I was stunned: inside was the bag of balloons, still with quite a few uninflated ones.

—Here you go, my little grandson. Today you helped us a lot with the preparations and with your rowdy cousins, and since you didn’t get to enjoy them, you can take what was left so you can have some fun yourself —she said with a sly smile—. But don’t scare anyone with them, all right?

On the way home, sitting in the back seat with several dozen huge balloons on my lap, I couldn’t believe my luck. I started getting turned on again, imagining everything I would do with them alone, without witnesses, without anyone else’s panic.

And then, right in the middle of the fantasy, my face of happiness twisted into a grimace of horror. I had just remembered something. When I came out of the bathroom, so dazed and exhausted from what I had just lived through, I had completely forgotten to clean up. The spurts of semen were still there, splashed across the door, the tiles, and the floor, waiting for someone to walk in.