Trouble in Paradise

The vacation was getting stressful enough to make Scott Milton wish he’d just stayed at work. First had come the unwelcome 3 a.m. discovery that his son Lewis’s passport was missing, then the maniac cabbie who’d nearly sideswiped no fewer than five cars on the way to the airport. The airline check-in machines couldn’t locate their reservation, and the representative at the counter seemed more interested in TikTok reality show clips than in helping the haggard family. A dozen bottles of sunscreen, proudly packed in defiance of tourist trap rip-off pricing, were promptly confiscated by TSA. Then their flight was delayed by an hour, then two, then finally revealed to overbooked, naturally resulting in the five people whose reservations had mysteriously disappeared from the booking system being the odd family out. The smiling gate attendant magnanimously offered them seats on a direct flight leaving in six hours, never wavering from her insinuations that the whole ordeal was somehow their fault.

Scott’s wife Evie, not one to stand for mistreatment, spent four of the six hours on the phone with Air Antilles, trying in vain to get ahold of an actual human. Scott watched sympathetically as she waited through endless holds in exasperation and finally conceded that yes, maybe it had been their fault for expecting anything else. “Just think how much better we’ll feel when we finally get there,” Scott announced to the family. “We really had to work for it!” His words were lost on his children. Allison, the eldest daughter, was fuming that she’d had to miss work for this bullshit. Well, not really work — the fact was, the cute, nerdy law clerk in the office across from her had been chatting her up in an increasingly forward way, and she was terrified a ten-day absence would throw off their rhythm irreversibly. Her seething eyes bore holes into a copy of “Anna Karenina,” not really processing what was on the page. 

Lewis scrolled his phone in much the same dead-eyed manner as the airline representative had, clearly pleased with the prolonged presence of internet access brought on by the delay and blissfully tuned out of his family’s misery. Jessica, the youngest child and a junior at Stanford, remained quietly optimistic. She flipped through a nature guide about the coral reefs in the Bahamas and thought to ask her parents if they wouldn’t mind paying for her to take SCUBA lessons at the resort. A student of marine biology, she’d always been more interested in what lay below the ocean’s surface than above it, and visions of colorful fish and coral filled her head in the muted, noisy terminal. 

Scott pulled Evie close to him. “Don’t worry about a thing, honey,” he said. “In seven hours we’ll be eating the best meal of our lives at the Flamingo Club, and they’ll be getting up to God-knows-what.” 

Evie allowed herself to smile. Her wavy blonde hair, frizzy from stress, fell across her face, still full of youthful whimsy even after the toil of raising three children. “It’s all part of the fun,” she mused. “I just like to feel a little self-righteous sometimes.” Scott admired the way she treated life like a game, never taking its various tribulations personally, always ready with some self-aware remark. Whenever the kids were at their worst, when they seemed ready to eat him alive, or when his manager made him want to bash his head against a wall, Evie was always there to remind him of how minor everything else really was next to their love for each other. 

Amazing as she was, she couldn’t prevent another series of misfortunes, which started with their new plane sitting on the taxiway for an hour due to a mechanical issue, involved two of their suitcases ending up on the wrong flight, and culminated in another wild taxi ride which, due to the retrospectively obvious ambiguity in asking for a ride to the “Paradise Resort” on a tropical island, landed them at the wrong hotel, a good forty minutes from where they needed to be. Needless to say, by the time they hobbled into their Paradise Resort, thirsty and miserable, they weren’t ready to hear that their rooms were still being cleaned. Just when Scott thought Evie was about to get angry for real, they were offered complimentary margaritas, and the mood immediately shifted to one of consummate relief. Evie spoke for all of them as she toasted and said, “We made it.” 

*

Owing to their early start, it was still light out, only four in the afternoon. Leaving their surviving luggage with the concierge, the Miltons took their margs outside to inspect the grounds. The landscaping was exquisite. Laid out before them was an array of pools, pool bars, and mini-golf courses stretching off toward an infinite ocean, as heavenly as if it were a collective hallucination. The sun beat down upon them, and they realized that the crushing tropical humidity was no myth. “I don’t know about you all, but this guy needs a dip in the pool,” said Scott. 

“And this girl will be joining you,” said Evie mischievously, already feeling the effects of the drink thanks to her long-empty stomach. 

“Do you think,” said Jessica, “I mean, is there any chance…” She blushed terribly. 

“Jessica wants SCUBA lessons,” Lewis said disdainfully. “But if you actually buy them for her, you’d better be getting me a jet ski.” 

“Well, I can think of how Jessica would use a SCUBA license constructively,” said Evie. “I’m afraid I can’t say the same for you with a jet ski.” 

“Honey, I didn’t know they offered SCUBA here,” said Scott. “We’re a bit over budget already, so don’t get your hopes up, but I’ll look into it at the front desk.” 

Jessica blushed even deeper and quietly said, “I’d really appreciate it.” She’d become like this over the last few years, modest almost to a fault, especially with her parents, feeling beyond indebted to them after they’d paid for her to study across the country at Stanford. The truth was, now that she’d asked the mortifying question, she wanted nothing more than to take a quick dip and curl up in an air-conditioned room with her book about sea life. 

Allison, meanwhile, chewed the scenery morosely, her black hair blowing defiantly in the ocean breeze. It was all so gaudy to her, so insulting. A third-world slum paved over for tasteless middle-class slobs. Lipstick on a pig. She imagined herself in Paris, in Barcelona, in Prague, of course with John the law clerk, sharing a glass of wine by the riverside or the seaside, not a sugary watermelon margarita by a plastic palm tree. Was her family really so easily impressed? She supposed she should feel guilty, twenty-four years old and still ashamed of her parents’ lack of worldliness, but she couldn’t help the feeling they were wasting their few precious travel experiences on basic tripe. 

Evie, for her part, knew it was tripe and didn’t care. She’d been to Europe and Asia in her youth, and she knew her children would eventually have the chance to go if they wanted. What she wanted was to lose herself in some lunatic travel agency’s imaginary world, not to feel that she’d left the North American continent but that she’d left Planet Earth itself. What she wanted was to swim in what was indicated by a nearby sign as the “Grotto of Relaxation,” forgetting everything about who she’d been at home, everything except her love for Scott and her children. The stress of the day was already fading. “Come on, let’s see if those rooms are ready,” she urged. “I know which pool I want to go in.”

As it turned out, the “Grotto of Relaxation” was not a title that was bestowed lightly. The pool’s water was infused daily with a certain mild sedative, illegal in the United States and Canada, which nonetheless was formulated to induce sensations of profound tranquility in the bathers. As would later become widely known, the reason for the substance’s illegality was not the danger it posed to humans but the precariousness of its supply chain, which involved harvesting certain plants and processing them in unsanitary facilities deeper in the tropics. Contamination was not unheard of, but the producers of the drug were diligent in announcing to buyers when it occurred, although they were sometimes a bit late in doing so. Earlier in the day the Miltons arrived at the Paradise resort, a memo had come in announcing that the latest batch had been improperly synthesized, and there was a small chance exposure to it could prove harmful to humans. By that point the pool had already been treated for the day, so the decision had been made to close it. If not for a devious adolescent guest who, in giving the proverbial middle finger to authority, had undone the fence latch and absconded with the “Closed” sign, the Miltons never would have stepped foot in the Grotto of Relaxation.

*

But they did. At least, three of them did. Scott realized with horror that his bathing suit had been in one of the missing suitcases and elected to venture to town to buy a new one, while Lewis, though he changed, decided to hold off on swimming in exchange for more time on TikTok, which he’d been sorely missing till he’d received the hotel WiFi password. Evie, Allison, and Jessica, after changing clothes and briefly surveying their luxurious two-bedroom suite, dove in the water without a second thought, floating on their backs and butterfly stroking around. The medicinal properties of the water seemed to be working, even on Allison, washing away the miserable anxiousness of the day. “This is fascinating,” said Jessica. “You float so easily in here. Even the Dead Sea isn’t this saline.” 

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but it’s a freshwater pool,” said Evie, taking a taste. “So your calculations might be a bit off.”  

“It’s awfully peculiar,” said Jessica.

Evie asked what the kids planned on doing while she was at her formal dinner with Scott. They all shrugged. “I might go for a walk to inspect the premises,” smirked Allison. “See what other kinds of losers hang out at a place like this.”

“I will be watching the Yankees game on my phone,” Lewis announced proudly.

“I’m ready for bed already,” said Jessica. “This water’s putting me right to sleep!”

“I know!” said Evie. “It’s so relaxing!”

“It’s probably drugged,” sneered Allison. “They get you high and convince you to book another week.”

The trio gradually made their way to the pool steps, where they sat together and watched the hot sun descend toward the horizon. “I’m really glad you guys decided to come with us,” Evie said to her daughters. “I know this place wouldn’t be your first choice. You’re getting too old for this kind of thing.”

“I really don’t mind at all,” said Jessica distantly. “I already love it here.”

“Come on, Mom,” said Allison. “I know I can be a bitch sometimes, but I love you guys and I wouldn’t miss this for anything.” 

Evie suddenly felt herself choking back tears. “God, what did they put in those margs?” she laughed. “Well, I’m just so happy to have you here. Your father is too. I really think we’re gonna have a great time.” 

Suddenly she was whisked back to the time after she’d just had Allison, when she’d gotten a job as a pharmacist and Scott was finishing his master’s degree. They worked long, alternating shifts then, and when they did see each other there was barely enough energy in them to kiss and say good night before falling asleep. Still, they’d held on to the dream that someday it would all be worth it. “I don’t want a perfect family, I just want a happy family,” Scott had said to her, and she’d hit him with the line from what was now her daughter’s book: “Happy families are all alike.” But of course she’d agreed with him, and now she was filled with such love for her family and such pride with how they’d all turned out. She thought of each child’s accomplishments, of Jessica’s senior project in high school, a bathymetric mapping of New York Harbor, of late nights listening to the radio show Allison had hosted in college. What an immense joy it was that these children were hers, that this family was hers! She hugged them both, felt their warmth in the cold water. 

“Don’t get sappy now,” said Allison, but hugged her mom back. 

“Oh, what time is it?” cried Evie suddenly. “I’ve got to get ready for dinner! God, that last hour just flew by.” She dashed out of the pool and wrapped a towel around her dripping body. “I’m going to head back the room,” she said. “You kids have a great night, and stay out of trouble!”

“We’ll see about that…” said Jessica, grinning.  

Evie headed back to the room, and the others got out of the pool and leisurely dried themselves off. Allison asked Jessica and Lewis if they wanted to go exploring. “That’s a no from me, dawg,” said Lewis, engrossed in his phone. “I’m heading back to the crib.” 

“Same here,” said Jessica, yawning and stretching. “I’m gonna go get ready for bed.” 

“Oh, you guys are no fun,” chided Allison. “We’re on vacation! There are bars everywhere! Jessica, you can drink here, come on!” 

“Aren’t you the one who’s been shit-talking this place every chance you get?” said Lewis. 

“Well yeah, but we’re here now. And I guess it’s starting to grow on me.” 

“You can go ahead and do that, then. I’m heading back to the room.” Lewis got up and headed out the gate, followed by an apologetic Jessica, leaving Allison alone. “What a bunch of losers,” she thought. “I’ll go see what’s good around here.” After drying off slowly and plotting her next moves, she too headed out the gate, happening to pass by the pool boy who’d closed The Grotto of Relaxation that very morning. He grimaced slightly, realizing he perhaps hadn’t made it clear enough that the pool was closed, but continued walking, figuring it was no big deal. 

Allison made her way along the winding resort paths, past a luxurious mini-golf course tricked out with windmills and pirate ships, to a bar overlooking the white-sand beach and a glorious sunset. She sat down on a stool and ordered herself a mojito, charging it to the family’s room number. There was no one else at the bar, so she sat there enjoying the breeze across her pale, damp skin and the sound of the waves. She wondered if she shouldn’t send a video of the scene to John, just to let him know she was thinking of him, just to keep the flame alive. But wouldn’t that be too much? She didn’t want to seem desperate. Maybe she should go all-in and write, “Wish you were here, baby.” She chuckled to herself at the thought, supposing this was why she’d never had much luck with men. Apart from a timid one-year ordeal in her freshman year of college, she’d never been one to make the first move, relying on men who all too often proved cowardly and demure. “If that’s the way the world is now, I’m fucked,” she thought, sipping at her mojito. 

In firm defiance of her pessimism came a voice from behind her: “Is this seat taken?” She turned around and saw a tanned, dirty-blonde man of about her own age, a Southern California surfer type. She asked God for the strength to keep a straight face. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I was thinking about letting someone else have it.” Fuck, that was so stupid. She cursed herself. 

“Well, I’d better grab it fast, then,” said the man. “I’m Ethan, by the way.” He sat down next to her and asked the bartender for a rum and Coke. “What brings you down here? Honeymoon gone wrong?” 

“Family trip,” said Allison. “Lame as that sounds.” 

“Only lame if your family is lame. Are they?”

“No, I’m the lame one. Drinking alone out here.” She smiled in what she thought was a flirtatious way. 

“Nothing lame about that,” Ethan smiled back. “The view is to die for.” 

Allison saw his eyes flit to her petite body, but she didn’t mind. She looked down at her drink, stealing a glance at his muscled chest. “And I’d guess you’re here for the Republican International Convention.”

“Ha. Nah, it was supposed to be a surf trip with the bros. They say there are pretty good waves on the other side of the island, but my stupid friends all got hooked on this place. They’re into this tacky shit.”

Allison laughed. “Finally, someone who gets it.” She couldn’t believe what was happening. She’d been all wrapped up in her thoughts about bookish John from the office and now here was a real man who was not only not an idiot, but had no problem expressing his interest. 

“Yeah, stuff like this isn’t really my deal, you know,” said Ethan. “I told them, ‘you wanna surf, let’s go to Portugal or something, Indonesia, I don’t know, somewhere real.’” 

“Yeah, I totally get that.”

“Glad I found someone of, uh, like mind out here. Hey, you know, if your family doesn’t mind, you should come out with us one day.”

“Out surfing? Me?”

“Yeah, you’d love it. It’s a blast even if you’re just starting out.” 

Allison suddenly saw a brilliant vision before her: an Orange County beach, a gorgeous husband, a million-dollar home in the hills and a garage full of surfboards. It wasn’t a life she’d ever dreamed of, but… maybe she just hadn’t had the courage to dream of it?

“Of course,” she said. “Yes, I’d love to.”

*

Evie took a circuitous route from the pool back to the room, drifting around the resort in a state of what she could only describe as advanced relaxation. Whether it was the margarita or the pool she couldn’t tell, but she knew it was the best she’d physically felt in years. It almost reminded her of the times in her youth when she’d tried psychedelic mushrooms, the same sensations of universal connectedness, the barriers in her psyche breaking down, making her aware of just how wonderfully she felt her life was going. There was a sense of abandon too, of total resignation to whatever should come next, which she found strange but pleasant. The cooling air was divine on her bare shoulders, peeking out over the towel that she’d wrapped tightly around her body. 

Lost in thought, she accidentally bumped into an older woman taking up the whole footpath, who cried, “Watch where you’re going!” 

“Pardon me,” murmured Evie, though her state of tranquility had her convinced that she’d been exactly where she needed to be. On the other side of the hedge she saw a man who looked ten years her junior eyeing her in what looked like a suggestive manner. She smiled at him and kept walking. It must have been something in the tropical air, she decided, that made those who weren’t used to it lose their inhibitions. Not to mention, they were in a private resort, sequestered from the judgment of the outside world. There was a sense of anything-goes, a blank slate upon which to live out a miniature, week-long life. She couldn’t blame the man. Looking down at her slender frame, her smooth white skin, she remembered that she really did look far younger than her forty-two years. Scott was a lucky man, and she couldn’t wait to show him the dress she’d packed for dinner that night.

Eventually Evie arrived at the outdoor elevator which would take her to her room. She pressed the call button and waited, leaning against the wall, wishing that she could melt into it, becoming a part of the resort forever. The bell dinged and the doors glided open. She got inside, pressed the button for the twelfth floor, and waited for the doors to close again. It was one of those old, interminably slow elevators which are detestable everywhere except a tropical paradise, where they’re somehow comforting and homey. When there were only three inches left between the closing doors she heard a distant voice crying, “Can you hold it?” She jammed her fingers in the crack just in time.

Sure enough, it was the man who’d looked at her before. He thanked her graciously and she nodded politely, then he turned and looked away from her. It seemed he wasn’t looking for anything after all, had just happened to catch the same elevator as her, and anyway she wasn’t interested. He stood awkwardly off in the front corner facing the door while she leaned against the opposite back corner, feeling the same melting sensation as before. 

The man was a shy honeymooner named Mark, and he was mortified to be sharing an elevator with the attractive lady he’d seen before. He knew she’d caught him looking at her, although he hadn’t really been doing it consciously. She’d just been carrying herself so gracefully, so confidently that she’d caught his eye. Mark fixed his eyes on the door, silently urging protesting motor to take him to his room two floors above hers (or was it only one? Usually there’s no thirteenth…) He held his breath, wishing he could disappear. Over the humming of the elevator he could only hear her gentle breaths, like miniature, angelic sighs.

Then something very peculiar happened. With each of the woman’s breaths there began to come a soft but urgent noise. It sounded to him like fabric being stretched over skin. He didn’t want to turn around and look, but he wondered if she was in some kind of trouble. Maybe she was just readjusting her bathing suit. No, she couldn’t have been, the sounds were so rhythmic. They became increasingly high pitched, continuing from the fifth to the ninth floor. Just when it sounded like something was about to break, the noises subsided, and Mark dared to hazard a glance to make sure everything was alright. What he saw made him go weak in the knees. The woman was taller. Not by much, he might not have noticed if she hadn’t been wearing the towel for reference, but it was now pulled incredibly tight around her body, rising up above her thighs and exposing her shapely legs, falling lower across her chest and showing off… Christ, were those there before? The towel was pulled taut around two breasts which were noticeably larger in proportion to the rest of her body than they had been before, and a generous portion of their mass bulged above of the fabric, unbearably round and tantalizing. 

Her eyes were closed and she looked to be in a trance. When the elevator dinged for her floor she opened them lazily and looked at him looking at her, his mouth agape, though she didn’t seem to really notice him. She pushed herself off the wall and stood up to her full height, which Mark realized to his amazement was now at least an inch taller than his five-foot-nine, when she couldn’t have been taller than five-four as she’d let him in the cab. On the way out the door she accidentally brushed against him and he smelled a combination of old perfume and chlorine which was somehow more intoxicating than anything he’d ever imagined. She turned around, offering him a dazed smile and one last look at her incredible figure, and then continued on down the hall. The door creaked shut and left Mark alone wondering how in the fuck he was supposed to keep living his life after witnessing something like that.

*

Evie, you could say, was approximately half-aware of what had happened to her in the elevator. She’d consciously felt herself growing, expanding with each breath, her back sliding up the wall, her increasingly round butt pressing into the railing, her heels inching out past the edge of her cute sandals. If you asked her on the spot to describe what had happened right then and there she’d have been able to do it in perfect, sultry English: “I just kept growing… and growing…” 

But it seemed that the implication of her transformation was lost on her, the fact that her body had done something which it was very much not designed to do. In a more sober state she would’ve been freaking out, calling emergency services, scared shitless. The pool had left her feeling a different kind of way, though, and so the process had seemed more like an unburdening of her soul. It reminded her of how she’d felt the times she’d first masturbated or tried psychedelics: she’d shrunk back from the unfamiliar thoughts and urges at first, fearing she’d be punished for the sin of excess, until finally she’d given in to the realization that it was all natural and allowed the sweet release to wash over her. Her sudden growth spurt seemed to her to be cut from the same cloth — simply a transition to a more pleasurable, but not at all more unnatural, state of being. Like she’d always been that way, and was only now discovering it. 

She entered the family’s suite and noted that some of the children’s towels and bathing suits were flung on the couch which overlooked a wide picture window and a view of the ocean. Jessica and Lewis must have beaten her back and locked themselves in their room. She called out to them, “Guys, I’m going to get ready for dinner,” then went into the master bedroom, finding that Scott wasn’t back yet from his expedition to procure a new bathing suit. Ever fanciful, she imagined him in an exotic market, haggling over pennies with a harried salesman, and giggled. She went into the bathroom and hung her towel on the rack, wondering if her children would ever learn to do the same, then turned to examine herself in the mirror. 

The scent of chlorine coming off her body filled the tiny room and she reveled in it, certain that this was her platonic ideal of a vacation. In her dreamlike state she was nearly unaware of the discomfort caused by her ludicrously tight bathing suit, which was somehow hanging on despite its wearer shooting up half a foot in less than a minute. The top, which had previously been a modest, matronly, satiny piece, was now stretched nearly to bursting across her expanded torso, her breasts compressed inward and bulging obscenely out of the suit in every direction. The bottom was giving her a deep wedgie, and a gentle tug was all it took from her to snap it clean in two. “That’s better,” she sighed, and undid the hook of her top, allowing her boobs to drop into their natural position, still perky despite her age. She jerked forward a bit when they did, not accustomed to their increased weight. Not taking her eyes off herself, she felt all over her body and noticed all its subtle differences: waist thinner, hips slightly more flared, legs even a bit longer in proportion. She’d never felt so desirable in her life. Scott wasn’t going to know what hit him.

Evie turned on the shower and stepped in, delighting in the water’s warmth against the air conditioned room. Passion is a battle between fire and ice, she mused, and nowhere is this more apparent than at a tropical resort. Losing herself in the steam she dunked her hair in the water and shampooed it, relishing the tingly sensation of her fingers on her scalp. She rinsed once then worked in the conditioner. While she waited for it to sit she soaped down her whole body, starting first with her neck and shoulders, down the gentle slope of her chest, slightly convex to where her nipples pointed out and then nicely rounded underneath, then further down across her soft tummy and between her newly thicker thighs. She performed the action so gently that it sent tingles across her whole body, and as she did she began to slip back into the trance, feeling as though she were melting and floating down the drain. Was it really about to happen again?

She closed her eyes and leaned forward against the wall, letting the sensations take over her, only this time there was a bit more resistance on her part. “Isn’t this too much?” she thought. “I’ve got to be real, here. What will people think…” 

But her drug-induced inebriation won over and she submitted gently to what apparently was nature's will. She pressed her head against the wall this time, cupping her hands above it as though praying for mercy. Her body heaved and sighed repeatedly as once again she felt herself creep up the tiles in little spurts, her hair elongating and falling down her back, her thighs squeezing tighter together, her breasts quivering outwards till she felt her nipples grazing the wall. More and more of her skin slipped out of the water’s warm cascade, and she stepped backwards to get back under its therapeutic flow. Still she rose, feeling butterflies in her stomach and whimpering a little as her once-petite shoulders began to climb above the showerhead. 

When it was all over, more out of fear than relaxation this time, she allowed herself to slip back into the psychedelic mindset that what was happening to her was entirely natural. She hunched over to rinse her hair which seemed to have doubled in length, making her spend twice as long as she would have normally had to in the uncomfortable position. Finally, she turned off the faucet and began drying her gorgeous body, marveling at the feeling of her expanded curves through the folds of the towel, wondering how the hell she was going to fit into her brand new dress.

*

“I don’t care what you say, Ted Lasso is an awful show and I will walk away this instant if you defend it one more time!” 

Down at the pool bar, on her third mojito, Allison was feeling terrific. Ethan was everything she’d ever dreamed of in a man: handsome, witty, charming, and tasteful… well, except for his inexplicable love of the aforementioned sitcom. But she would have time to sort that out, all the time in the world. A few episodes of Twin Peaks would surely cure him of that bit of boorishness. And then she would parade him around in front of all her colleagues like a pet dog (“See, I can get a man who’s not a total freak!”) and wouldn’t Office John be jealous, wouldn’t he wish he’d just decided to call her up a minute before two hundred pounds of California sun walked into her life? 

But Office John was immaterial now. She had Ethan right where she wanted him, and it seemed he had her where he wanted her, and these are the kind of mutually beneficial arrangements that usually work out for the best. Her head was swimming in a mix of infatuation and general pleasure, which she attributed to either the drinks or the dip in the Grotto of Relaxation.

“Well, how about this,” he was saying. “My buddies are probably out at some club right now, and I’ve got a room to myself, and we’ve got whisky and tequila in the fridge, and maybe I might end up liking that Twin Pines show after all…”

Allison was preparing to all but throw herself at him when the bartender approached Ethan and told him that his room card wasn’t authorized for alcohol purchases. “Shit,” Ethan muttered, then regained his cool. “My buddy’s dad is sort of, uh, financing us, and I guess he didn’t want us to enjoy ourselves.” He laughed sheepishly. “And my wallet’s not on me.”

Allison feigned exasperation and exchanged a knowing smile with the bartender. “Just put his on mine,” she sighed. 

Ethan protested, naturally, insisting that he’d go back to his room to get his wallet, but Allison wouldn’t hear it. She didn’t want to let him out of her sight. Ethan teased her mercilessly. “It’s fucked up for a woman to pay for a man. I won’t let it happen on my watch,” he said. 

“Sit your ass down!” she cried. 

“You can’t make me! I’m going to get it!”

“Sexist if you do!”

“Sexist if I don’t!”

He made to run away and she stood up and grabbed his arm with all her might, pulling him back to her, back where he belonged. As she did, she felt a pair of odd twinges in her chest and groin, but didn’t pay them much mind due to her preoccupation with stopping Ethan. Still holding his arm, she sat him back down on the stool, laughing.

“It’s really fine,” she said, sitting back down herself. “We can go up to your room once we’re finished and you can pay me back then.”

“And I’m supposed to trust you’ll pay your parents back? No, I think I’d better give the money directly to them.”

“My mom would looove you, she definitely had a thing for surfers when she was young.”

“So does that mean your dad’s a surfer?”

“Hell no!” 

Allison suddenly realized she was still holding onto his arm, which was resting on his leg. She hesitantly let go, and then noticed a hint of confusion on his face which seemed less concerned with her arm and more concerned with the rest of her. When he saw she’d noticed, his eyes immediately started darting around, looking anywhere but at her. 

She looked down and immediately picked up on what he was so interested in: her formerly petite boobs, which she’d always believed had left something to be desired, had swollen to a considerable size, stressing her tiny black bikini top which had fit so nicely just minutes ago. “What the fuck…” she thought, not wanting Ethan to realize that something was up. “It’s probably just hormones. Maybe because this is what it’s like to actually be horny for someone.” 

As a show of fortitude she tried to chug the rest of her mojito, but it still had too much liquid and she gagged, causing Ethan to chuckle nervously. “In a rush now, are you?” he said. 

“I just think it’d be nice to watch the sunset from your room.”

“Well in that case…” He downed the remaining half of his rum and Coke. “Your turn.”

“You’ve got to give me a minute to catch my breath,” she said, thrusting out her enhanced chest, feeling it would cancel out the embarrassment of her gagging. Whether it did or not, it sure got his attention. His mouth hung limp for a split second before he snapped out of it. “I bet you can’t finish it in ten seconds,” he said.

“You’re on.” She started chugging the rest of the mojito looking in his eyes, which really couldn’t seem to help wandering down her figure. “So this is what being hot is like,” she thought. “Well, I guess I all but invited him to stare.” 

She successfully finished the drink, but nearly gagged again and let a little residue trickle out of her mouth. Ethan burst out laughing, and she laughed too, wiping it off. “You’re something else,” he said, shaking his head. 

Then Allison felt the same pinching sensation as before, only this time she was fully aware of it, and looked down to see her breasts pulse even larger, pressing together to create a deep valley of cleavage in her now painful bathing suit. They jiggled with the force of their own expansion, an effect that would have hypnotized her if she hadn’t noticed something else. In the background of her point of view, the ground had gotten further away. Looking back up, she saw that her eye level was somehow above Ethan’s head. Good fucking Lord… was she getting… taller?

Allison felt none of the sedation that her mother had, and all the happiness was now flushed out of her to be replaced by terror. She realized Ethan was staring at her with concern, and if he somehow hadn’t noticed her growth he could certainly tell from the look on her face that something wasn’t right. “Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, no,” Allison gasped. “Sorry, I guess the drinks just really hit me.”

“Well, if you’re not feeling well, we can always…”

“No, no, I’m fine!” cried Allison, beginning to feel like she was trapped in a nightmare. “I finished my drink, let’s go back to your place.” 

“I mean, if you’re sure…” Ethan leaned forward to stand up, perhaps a little farther forward than needed, far enough to steal a closer glance at Allison’s highly constricted bosom. He got a closer look than he was expecting: her body picked that moment to lurch upward once again, accompanied by the sound of tearing stitching, and her breasts, now nearly the size of his head, came to within centimeters of it, certainly close enough to notice her areolae beginning to peek out under their cups. He leapt to his feet and cried, “Oh God, I’m so sorry, Allison—“

He stopped when he was finally confronted with the physical impossibility of what he was seeing. Allison, tears forming in her eyes, slowly lifted her shapely bare bottom from the stool which it now easily overflowed. Even though he could sense her enormity before him, Ethan couldn’t help but watch in utter shock as she rose higher and higher, keeping eye contact with him the whole time, first at his eye level and then up and up and up. The bartender, similarly looking on in horror, passed out standing up. There was an intense heat radiating from her body, making Ethan feel like he could barely breathe. Finally standing straight, the top of her head almost nine feet in the air, Allison involuntarily fixed her posture, as she’d trained herself to do over the course of so many years, only she hadn’t taken her height or the protrusion of her breasts into account and Ethan found himself suddenly thrust backward by the now-colossal mass of the person who was once the cute, funny girl he’d been looking forward to spending at least the week with.

Allison looked at him splayed out on the ground and began to weep openly. “Oh, God… oh my fucking G-g-god,” she wailed. The heaving of her chest was enough to finally put an end to her top’s struggle, and Ethan got a much earlier look at her perfect teardrop breasts than he’d expected to. They were truly glorious, impeccably round globes sitting high and proud thanks to her excellent posture, capped by almost comically small nipples which, at her size, were still the width of a half-dollar. Allowing himself only a moment to stare at the colossus his would-be date had become, Ethan picked up her towel off the ground and handed it to her. “Allison… holy shit…” was all he could muster. Still weeping, Allison took the towel and wrapped it around her upper body, where it did little to hide the shape of her enormous chest. She covered her pubic area with the hand that wasn’t holding the towel, and with one last tearful look at Ethan, full of an absurd mix of pity, regret, and wonder, she ran off crying into the falling darkness.

*

There were only twenty minutes left until the Milton parents’ dinner reservation, and Evie was not happy. Not only was Scott not back yet, she was totally lost as to what to wear that would fit her enlarged frame. She went through her suitcase over and over again in vain, as if in the wild hope that she’d packed a contingency look for the event that she should grow two feet taller on vacation. Whenever she got frustrated she reminded herself that it was not her fault: it wasn’t that she was too big, it was that the clothes were too small. She was perfect the way she was. 

These affirmations started to lose their appeal, however, as the reservation approached and she still stood stark naked in the bedroom. Additionally, whatever psychological effects the pool water had had on her were beginning to wear off, and the reality of her absurd situation was setting in. To keep her mind off that unpleasant subject, she decided to make an executive decision: ditch the bra, ditch the panties, even ditch the shoes. We’re going commando. Maybe Scott will do it too. And as for the dress…

She picked up the one she’d originally planned for the evening and looked at it lovingly, remembering when her biggest problem was whether it would make her look fat. It was a beautiful soft pastel shade, the color of dahlias, and had a lovely lacy hem and neckline. It was the perfect outfit for the perfect vacation for the perfect family. She wasn’t going to let a little wardrobe malfunction get in the way of dinner at the Flamingo Club. 

Sighing, she lifted the dress over her head and pulled it down. Thankfully it’d had a low-cut neckline to begin with, so her enlarged head fit through with ease. There were no sleeves, and though it was a bit snug in the armpit, her arms went through with only a bit of struggle. This left her with the issue that between her increased height and severely augmented bust, the dress barely hung down past her hips, and would hardly be decent if she were to sit down in it. Fortunately for her, her new size made it so that the dress, rather than hanging loosely and elegantly, was practically painted on. This meant that if she cut it at the midriff and pulled the lower section over her waist, it wouldn’t be going anywhere. She’d known when she packed that the first aid kit would come in handy, and now the medical scissors most certainly did. With a bit of tugging and wriggling she was able to fashion the bottom half into a decent if immodest pencil skirt that emphasized her already-emphasized hourglass shape, while the top did an uncanny job showcasing her new assets, giving them a suitable window to swell into on top while allowing them bulge out the bottom as well. Although the skin coverage was altogether the best you could ask for given the circumstances, it did little to hide the definite shape of her breasts, curling out as they did toward somewhat pointy nipples. 

Well, it would have to do, Evie decided. All that was left was to wait for Scott to arrive. And arrive he did, right as she was taking one last look at her impossibly sexy form in the bathroom mirror. “After a long and painful journey, I have obtained a swimsuit!” he exclaimed from behind the closed bathroom door. “I hope you’re hungry!” Indeed, Evie was famished — all that growing, she supposed, really did a number on her. Perhaps she could persuade Scott to buy her two mains at the Flamingo Club… 

“Oh, baby, I thought you were kidnapped!” she called from the bathroom. “Are you excited to see my new dress?” 

“I’ve been thinking about it all day,” Scott said mischievously.

“I don’t know, maybe I won’t wear it tonight…”

“It’ll break my heart if you don’t…”

“I don’t think you really want to see it…”

“I would cut off my hand just to look at you for one second in that dress.”

“Are you sure? Maybe I should just wear a blazer…”

Scott was growing titillated beyond belief. Though unaware of her recent “improvements”, his wife was still the sexiest person in the world to him. “Honey, if you don’t let me see you in that dress I’m gonna break the door down.”

“Alright, but only since you asked nicely…”

Evie unlocked the door and slowly opened it, and Scott Milton’s face went white was treated to the most surreal surprise of his life. “What the hell? Is this a joke?” his voice cracked, and indeed the woman before him looked different enough from how his wife had, even excluding the size difference, that she might have been a hired actor in a strange prank. 

Evie made a pouty face at him. “You don’t like my dress?” she said. 

“Evie? Is that really you? What the hell happened to you? Oh, Jesus.” He ran to the bathroom, pushed past his wife’s sturdy form, and vomited in the toilet, pausing only to stare up at her pitiful expression before turning back to vomit again. When he was finally empty he moaned and flushed the toilet. Standing up he was confronted by a pair of very large, very exposed breasts. Evie stood very close to him, with a serious expression on her face, and he found himself growing aroused in spite of his terror. It was dawning on Evie that her growth wasn’t something she’d be able to gloss over, with Scott or with anyone, and she’d been stupid to expect that it would be. She began to feel a panic settling over her but forced it down, trying to recall her meditative state from earlier. “Honey, this is me,” she said as calmly and measuredly as she could. “I took a little dip in a pool today which I think was treated with some strange chemicals. It seems like whatever it was made me go through some… changes…”

“Some fucking changes? Evie, you look like Xena the fucking Warrior Princess! This is not normal! We need to get you to a hospital right now!” 

Evie gripped his shoulders and pressed her breasts in towards his neck, her voice cracking, her mind on the brink of snapping. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Don’t you like me like this?” She leaned down and tried to nibble on his ear, tried to envelope his form in her long slender arms.

“Evie, I love you however you are, but this does NOT SEEM HEALTHY.” Scott tried to push her back, but found she was too heavy. Evie got the message and backed off, a tear now forming in her eye. 

“Honey, please…” she whispered. “Think about it… You know there’s nothing they can do… I’m going to be stuck like this… I don’t want you to think I’m a freak…” 

“No, no, Evie, I don’t mean it like that,” Scott’s tone softened, and he moved in to embrace her. “I mean, if I’m being honest, you’re the most beautiful woman me or anyone’s ever seen or ever will see. I’m just worried that means something’s wrong. No one, not even you, are supposed to be this perfect.” 

Something welled up inside Evie, and despite everything she just wanted to show her husband, without waiting a second longer, how much she truly loved him. She pressed him into her, and he felt dwarfed by her sheer size, aroused by her tremendous bosom, terrified of what she could do to him if she wanted to. Then she kissed him, and his brain lit up like a firecracker. It dawned on him that this was really his wife, this was the woman he loved and had loved for twenty-four years. In spite of his terror, the sheer surreality of the situation, he could not help but lose himself in the arms of the same beautiful person he had so many times before. He took his hand and traced it across the exposed underside of her right breast, traced the other across the bare curve of her waist. She pressed herself harder into him until his back was against the wall and he could hardly breathe under her weight. Then, taking one of her fingers, she moved it in a straight line down his torso and abdomen, until it was just about…

She pulled away. “Oh shit, it’s almost dinner time. We’re gonna be late.” 

Scott sighed in frustration. “Honey, we’re gonna have to skip dinner. You can’t go out like that.”

“Why not?” Evie tried to slip back into her seductive register, and dragged her hand across her chest. “You afraid I’ll make all the other men jealous?”

“Evie… you’re really not decent… let’s order in tonight. We can sort this out tomorrow.”

Evie felt self-consciousness and anger creeping over her at the reminder of how irreversibly different she’d become. She looked down at the dress, its lacy parts warped ridiculously, its pastel fabric groaning and stretching with her every movement, trying desperately to contain her tremendous proportions. “I am too decent!” she cried defensively. “You’d have to be a — a pervert — to think this was indecent!”

Fate decided to settle the decency debate for her. Evie’s eyes suddenly went wide and she exclaimed, “No, no, NO!” She seemed to strain against an invisible force, on the verge of tears, her face reddening with effort. It was no use, though. With a mighty groan she gave in to whatever she was fighting and began to cry in earnest. “Not my dress… not my fucking dress,” she sobbed. “I can’t take this anymore…” Then came the stretching sounds, sounds of the beautiful, mangled dress being pulled tighter and tighter across Evie’s growing form. Scott stared in disbelief as his wife of twenty-two years expanded before his eyes, her breasts warping the fabric of the dress beyond its natural limits, her hips and butt doing the same to the bottom half. All the while she cried and looked at him helplessly. “I can’t stop…” Scott, filled with terror and pity, ran to her and hugged her, his eyes now level with the copious underboob escaping from her failing top. He felt her growing wider, sliding up past him, her gargantuan body still wracked with sobs, remembering with sadness that just hours ago she’d been a petite charmer who loved to fall asleep in his arms, but knowing he would love her no matter what the future should bring.

Evie’s head hit the nine-foot ceiling and her growth continued a moment more, so that she had to just hunch over, but then tapered off and stopped. She flopped down on the bed. “God, my DRESS!” she wailed. The top had slid up above her breasts, which now hung fully out the bottom of it. The bottom had rolled up above her loins and looked more like a waistband.

“Honey, I know this is scary,” said Scott. “Listen, we’re gonna get to a doctor and see what they can do—” He paused and grew horrified. “Holy shit. Was anyone else in the pool with you? Where are the kids?” 

He bolted to the living room. As if on cue, the door burst open and Allison Milton, his firstborn child, a future lawyer, the pride and joy of his life, squeezed through. She really had to squeeze — she was at least fourteen feet tall by now, and had to force her waist through the door frame with such power that the frame simply caved inward to let her through. She was still weeping. “What the fuck is happening to me?” 

She still wore the towel around her chest, although by this point her boobs were more outside of it than inside it. Once inside, she allowed it to drop away, revealing to her father that she, too, was receiving the same set of enhancements that her mother had. Scott’s jaw dropped and his heart sank into his stomach. “Oh, Allie,” he murmured. “This can’t be happening.” 

Allison looked dizzy, moaned, and then shuddered outward in every direction, expanding to sixteen feet tall in a matter of seconds and banging her head on the ceiling despite crouching. Evie entered the room, fragments of her dress still clinging on, her head scraping the ceiling. “Allie!” she cried. “Oh, my poor, poor baby…” Allison shuddered again, trying to wiggle her now even larger butt out of the entrance hallway, knocking paintings off the walls and a glass vase off a table. She curled up in an L-shape on the floor, trying to cover her breasts with her forearm, staring in terror and confusion at her parents.

To top off the cacophony Lewis burst in, already in the process of saying, “Guys, I think something’s really wrong with Jessica!” Upon noticing his giant mother and even bigger sister, his jaw dropped. Then Jessica stumbled in, clutching her stomach and moaning. She was dressed in her cute sea turtle pajama set, which formerly had hung loosely around her slight frame, but now appeared skin-tight, betraying the lusciously rounded shape of her thighs, a substantial and perky bust which hadn’t been there before, a flat bare midriff which it was no longer long enough to cover. Allison and Evie both went silent and stared at her. If Jessica was able to process what had happened to her mother and sister, she certainly didn’t show it. She was far too preoccupied with what was happening to her. “Guys…” she moaned. “I… oooh…” 

She fell to her knees and wrapped her hands around her abdomen for a moment. The buttons on her pajama top strained and one popped off, exposing a deep line of cleavage. Her head jolted up and she looked at each of her four family members with fear in her eyes. “I just wanted to go fucking SCUBA diving,” she whispered, and let out a small whimper.

Then Jessica absolutely exploded. In every which direction, faster than anyone could process it, her body erupted into her sea turtle pajamas, her tan skin quickly shredding right through them. She surpassed both her mother and sister’s sizes in seconds, moaning in discomfort all the while, spurting up five feet at a time and convulsing rhythmically, her growing legs forcing the family members out of the living room and into the entrance hallway. Her head burst through the roof above, and then quickly through the roof above that one, right into Mark the honeymooner’s bedroom, where he was watching television with his new wife. Jessica’s growth came to a stop and she looked at the two figures curiously, breathing heavily, taking in her new size, about forty feet tall. Her head was two-thirds the height of the room, and it nearly reached the ceiling, her eyes higher than the top of Mark’s head even after he leapt up in shock. Jessica sat perfectly still, afraid to move, still kneeling on the floor of her family’s suite. Mark and his wife cowered in fear. “What in the absolute fuck…” Mark gasped. In spite of himself, he couldn’t help but feel aroused by the giant woman’s beautiful, innocent face, her smooth shoulders and prominent collarbone, the tops of what looked to be her truly prodigious breasts peeking into the room. 

“I’m… I’m sorry…,” said Jessica confusedly. “What’s happening to me? How am I going to get out of here?” For a moment, Mark and his wife felt safe, realizing this woman didn’t mean them any harm, and was clearly scared herself. Then she clenched her stomach in pain, taking out a wall on the floor below in the process. “Oh God,” she pleaded to Mark and his wife. “Help me!” Her body resumed its furious expansion and she quickly burst out of Mark’s room, her breasts augmenting the size of the holes she made in the floor and ceiling and flipping Mark’s bed over against the wall as they passed by. 

Before Mark knew it he was staring at the navel of the growing girl, now some seventy feet tall. Jessica, dizzy from her rapid growth spurt, burst through floor after floor, dimly terrified for the safety of her family and all the others in the building, realizing that her old life, with all its hopes and dreams and fears, was all over, and a new one was being constructed before her eyes. She felt the absurd power of her body, demolishing and deforming the once-sturdy structure of the hotel, and for an instant she considered submitting to her body’s will, embracing the role of goddesshood it was clearly intent on achieving.

Then all hell broke loose. The floor of the Miltons’ suite finally collapsed under Jessica’s immense weight, and she felt herself suddenly in near free-fall. The momentum of her body caused her to continue breaking through floors like a knife through butter, punching out story after story with barely any resistance, with no time to think about who might be underneath her, twelve stories down to the ground floor of the Paradise Resort. It was a 170-foot drop, but at this point that wasn’t even twice her body height. Plus, she’d had the floors to slow her fall, so she was mostly okay. 

The shock of the plunge seemed to stunt her growth, and she took stock of her new situation. Still in the kneeling position, her head rose up through a hole made massive by her legs to the sixth story of the tower. A male room attendant, who’d just managed to avoid being crushed as she fell, stared up at her in awe. Two floors below, a middle-aged man stared at the largest, most tantalizing set of breasts anyone had ever laid eyes on. They heaved up and down as she panted. Transfixed, unable to think rationally, he inched toward them, taking care to mind the gaping hole in the floor, his arm outstretched. 

Jessica suddenly looked upward with terror at the hole she’d made. Plaster dust and pieces of tile rained down on her face, causing her eyes to tear up. “Mom?” she called out tentatively, her voice booming. “Dad? A-are you o-okay?” No answer came, but there was screaming emanating from the lower and upper floors, which she’d mistaken at first for the whine of small hand tools. “Good God… I’m so big,” she thought miserably. 

She felt a tickling on her chest and instinctively jerked backward to see down to the floors below, destroying more of the hotel’s superstructure in the process. The dazed man stood at the edge of the hole, his arm still outstretched, his mind unable to think of anything but the soft feeling of the massive girl’s soft, elastic flesh in his hand. Jessica recoiled in shock. “Wha… what were you doing?” she said. The man stared at her young, beautiful face with an expression of regret, as though dejected he’d never be able to comprehend her sheer enormity, and then he lost his balance and plunged four stories to his death at her knees. 

Jessica suppressed a scream, which came out as a small yelp. She couldn’t bear it anymore: she had to see if her family was okay. Slowly, nervously, she rose from her knees, taking care not to disturb the building’s remaining structure, inspecting each floor for any damage to life or limb. There was a woman screaming in one suite, and a man sobbing inconsolably in another, but thankfully most people were out at dinner and the rooms were empty. At least, the parts that hadn’t been destroyed were. She shuddered at the thought of looking under her legs.

When she reached her full standing height, she still hadn’t seen her family’s suite, and it occurred to her that even though she was massive beyond belief, she wasn’t quite twelve stories tall: the suite was still one or two floors higher. “Mom? Dad? Are you up there?” she called. Then a face peeked out over the hole. It was Lewis. His eyes boggled as he stared at his 120-foot tall younger sister from above. She noticed them linger on her breasts, which were so big they even blocked her own view of her lower body. Why did that have to happen, too? She’d always enjoyed being petite and slim, and now she looked like a fertility goddess. 

Lewis turned and called back, “She’s fucking huge!” Jessica, feeling insulted, wanted to punch him, but decided it probably wasn’t a good idea at her current size. Then the faces of her father, mother, and sister all appeared, looking down at her. Jessica burst into a smile in spite of herself. “Thank God you’re alright,” she gushed. “I was so worried!” She jumped up and down, sending a horrible shaking throughout the building. Her sunny mood faded in a moment when she noticed the terrified and confused expressions on the faces of her family, and remembered that whether or not her family was safe, they were all in big trouble. Evie had remained her same height, her beautiful dress fragments barely clinging on, while Allison seemed to have spurted up another four feet or so, though it was hard to tell with everything that had happened. Jessica finally came to the realization her mother had. “It was the pool,” she said. “I knew it made me feel weird. That’s what did this to us.” 

Allison was fuming. “I’m gonna fucking kill whoever did this,” she said tearfully. “I’m gonna find them and I’m gonna kill them.” 

Scott and Evie remained silent. They were thankful everyone was uninjured, but couldn’t help thinking that something had been taken from them, something precious. A normal, happy family, teetering on the brink of perfection, now augmented in size but crippled in terms of the ability to lead anything approaching that normal, happy life again. Evie hugged Scott closer to her, and he felt her warmth, her size, the softness of her chest, the absurd girth of her legs. He looked to his giant, weeping daughter Allison as she attempted to use her phone with her oversized hands, no doubt searching for a cure for a condition which until an hour ago had never been seen before. And down below was Jessica, the sweetest girl any father could have asked for, now blessed (or cursed, whichever it was) with power approaching omnipotence. The future seemed wonderful and terrible at the same time. Scott wondered his family could stick together through it, prayed they’d even be allowed to. There was one thing he was certain about: it was going to be a long vacation.