Pumping the Breaks

Chapter 7

[ Summary: Shopping is going smoothly for Odette and Theo until stimulation from Theo's vibrating phone makes Odette think twice about her little "game".]

Odette’s blond blanket of hair tickled the edges of her ears as it fluttered weakly behind her. Her left foot hung off the front of an industrially sturdy grocery cart, her left arm raised, index finger extended in the direction of the next item on their shopping list.

Theo was the muscle behind the rusty old buggy, the irony being that he wasn’t really all that beefy and had just sustained a minor lower back injury. He was a perfect match for Odette who was having too much fun riding around on the front of the cart and cracking jokes to be considered a navigator of any form.

She thought she made a fine figurehead though, and didn’t let her questionable competence with charting courses interrupt what she and Theo were enjoying as part of an impromptu shopping game:

Two Flu Fighters on a mission to gather the ingredients that would turn into a meal to heal their sick friend—with occasional breaks for Theo to text his friend Neveah on the phone that Odette confiscated earlier and kept snug under her blouse, pressed against her figure-dwarfing breasts.

“Next is the cooked chicken,” Odette said.

“That’s at the deli. On the way should be spices and snack foods. Did we have any snacks or spices on the list?” Theo asked, already in motion.

Odette pulled the crumpled yellow legal paper out of the buggy and read both her and Theo’s lists. “There’s the organic cheesy cheddar zoo animals on my list.”

“Those are snacks. . .” Theo pressed his lips into a thin, thoughtful line. “But they might be with the other organic, gluten free stuff. We could swing by there after, then pick up anything perishable. We should also probably text Amanda to see if she’s sure this is all she needs.”

Odette blinked. She executed perfect gymnastics as she made a one-eighty turn on a moving cart to face Theo. The two were nearly the same height when she had stood on the buggy. She tilted her head to the side as if looking to see if the old Theo was hiding behind the new one.

“What?” Theo asked. “Why are you grinning like that?”

“You’re pretty smart, Theo,” Odette said, nodding. “Like, much smarter than me. Sometimes I hear you say things and I think, ‘Wow, that makes sense. Why didn’t I see it that way?’.

“Are you. . . making fun of me?”

“Hmm. Maybe a little.”

“Seemed sarcastic.”

“But not too sarcastic. Like, twenty-percent. I don’t think other people plot out paths through the grocery store, but I also don’t think most people could.”

“Is Odette making fun of the average Fresh Farmer shopper?”

“No way. The average Fresh Farmer shopper is wise, kind, considerate—. . .”

“Now that’s sarcasm. Hold on. U-turn.”

Odette held the buggy tight. The main walkway was blocked by a man in a striking, black and white Hawaiian shirt chatting on his smartphone with a lone bored pair of teenagers nearby. Theo didn’t fret over it, however, seamlessly recalculating the route and warned his passenger to lean into the turn.

If Theo was a car, he would be one of those cool, self-driving ones.

Then Odette recalled the former conversations with Amanda and Janet: how boys related to cars because boys were like cars—in a metaphorical sense, and in the sense that Odette was apprehensive about being too involved with either of them.

There was truth to it, she realized. Maybe Theo wasn’t a self-driving electric car, but when she treated him the way she might treat such a vehicle, he seemed much more at ease.

Giving him actionable tasks—“Push me around in a buggy”.

Allowing his big, smart brain to generate mental maps of grocery stores.

Entertaining him with fun, humorous conversations.

All of it had been effective.

But leaving him to wander on his own made him useless. Worse, when left on his own he looked at Odette like she was some infinitely suffering thing, the sort that confounded him to the point of suffocating her underneath his anxieties. That’s how she felt around that Theo: suffocated, bombarded, uncomfortably filled—an SD card being transferred every worried and worrying thought in Theo’s head.

And those worrying thoughts—the possible feelings of romance she could do nothing about—were best averted.

“I wouldn’t make fun of people I don’t know,” Odette clarified. “And I wasn’t making fun at all. I was complimenting you on how high your IQ must be.”

Theo couldn’t look Odette in the eye as she praised him. “You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for too, Odette,” he deflected.

“Oh, I know,” she replied. “But I’m too humble to mention it much. I wouldn’t want to intimidate anybody.”

Theo grinned. “Humblest lady I know.”

The two arrived at a large display of spices tucked away at the end of the baked goods aisle. Odette passed Theo his list and leaped off the buggy to join him in front of the racks. Each shelf had eight or nine red boxes labeled with their respective spice or seasoning: lemon pepper something, dehydrated whatever, crushed green stuff—though no salt or pepper, which were the seasonings Odette knew best. At the front of each box was a “U” shaped opening and a plastic hourglass full of seasoning, and if one was taken, there was a spring loaded mechanism to push the next vial down and into the slot.

Odette glanced across the wide selection of red-topped vials.

“I halfway expect to see ‘Eye of Newt’ in one of these containers,” Odette leaned forward, squinting at a red label. “Do we need ‘chakalaka’?”

“Was that some kind of reference? If so, I didn’t get it, though I haven’t brushed up on any of the ancient languages in ForeverAge,” Theo mumbled, the yellow paper rustling as he adjusted it for better reading.

“Wasn’t a reference. This spice is called ‘chakalaka spice’. Wonder what they use it for.”

Odette took the plastic hourglass in her hand. Another bottle came tumbling down to fill the space of the previous one, emitting a satisfying Ch-Chunk! sound. She turned the container in her fingers, looking for any hints to the odd spice’s usage. Theo reminded her that they didn’t need the spice, but she wasn’t satisfied until she’d read around the whole vial and found no detailed instructions.

“They should have info cards with recipes,” Odette said. She held up the spice vial for Theo to see. It seemed rather unfriendly not to have some additional information nearby to help people understand how to use a given spice. “How am I supposed to know how to use this? What if I were a complete culinary noob.”

“You. . . are a culinary noob—with all due respect.”

“That tone didn’t sound very respectful, especially from a fellow noob.”

Theo glanced at her, looking her over once out of the corner of his eye. “I. . . have no defense.”

“You’re just retaliating because I was twenty percent sarcastic earlier. No harm done,” Odette gave Theo’s back a pat. “But seriously, why assume that people are born with an intrinsic knowledge of all spices?”

“I-I think they just assume that the people who want it already know about it,” Theo answered.

“What if a hypothetical noob wanted it, though?”

“She could hypothetically use her phone to look it up.”

Odette bopped her slender hips, sassing Theo playfully. “And what if she didn’t have a phone?”

“Then I would wonder what she’d done with the one she took from me,” he said. He took the vial from Odette and examined it briefly. He hunted diligently for where it ought to be reshelved, furrowed brow an indication of his struggling. “These spices aren’t in any order at all—nothing is under the correct label. We just need bay leaves and thyme, but they’re all shuffled up. How’s anyone supposed to—. . .”

“It goes here. Give it,” Odette said, offering her hand. Theo returned the chakalaka seasoning blend and Odette stooped over to return the vial to the line of other similar vials. “Boom,” she said, pushing the previous vial back into the chamber and reslotting the old one.

“Thanks. But still, how is anyone supposed to find spices here? The rest of the store wasn’t this bad.” He sighed, drawing his fingers through the tangles of blond hair at the back of his head while he busied himself with a continued search.

Odette’s lips bunched on the left side of her face, pouting. She retrieved the same blended bottle of chakalaka—Ch-Chunk!—and extended it to Theo. He took it without question, his attention entirely on the other vials of spice. He thanked her, nod respectfully, and checked the vial.

“This is. . . chakalaka,” he said, flatly.

“That is chakalaka,” echoed Odette.

“We need bay leaves and thyme.”

“Oh, do we? Whoops. Let me take that back.”

Theo dropped the vial back into Odette’s waiting palm, and she returned it to its spot. “Boom,” she whispered, and immediately looked up to Theo for acknowledgement.

Instead, he meticulously scanned through more spices and seasonings, missing out on the best spice-related joke anyone had ever come up with on the spot—or even in a prepared set, Odette thought.

Odette glowered at the spice-absorbed Theo. “Hmph!”

Ch-Chunk!

Once more—he’ll get it on the third one for sure.

This time, she bobbed her head to the mental count of ten, then thrust the spice vial at Theo with the entirety of the wrapper covered by her squeezing fist.

“What spice is that?” Theo asked, an eyebrow inclined toward her.

“Thyme.”

“Spell ‘thyme’.”

Odette deliberately paused, thumbing her chin with a finger. Just when Theo looked ready to speak, she answered. “T-H-Y-M-E. Thyme—didn’t you just say I was ‘smarter than I give yourself credit for’? And now you’re asking me if I can spell ‘thyme’?!”

“S-Sorry. You’re right. That was rude and I should trust you more.” Theo opened his palm and Odette lowered the vial into the center of it, keeping her hand in a fist around it. She slowly unrolled her fingers. The redness of the wrapping appeared between her fingers. She pulled away with a snap.

Theo’s expression hardened into disappointment before cracking into laughter. “This. Is. Chakalaka.”

“Now put it back.”

“I trusted you—. . .”

“As you should!”

“I got the joke the first time, Odette. ‘Boom Chakalaka’. It sounds like ‘Boom! Shakalaka’, okay? I got it. It’s funny, but not that funny.”

Theo went to return the vial to an empty rack. At the same time, Odette moved toward the vial Theo’s hand before he could retract it. He made a “hey!” in protest but didn’t retreat as her fingers wrapped around his wrist. Odette felt him lock up when he touched him and patiently waited for him to relax. She urged him to put the bottle back where it was supposed to go, then offered him a tour to the dispenser next to the chakalaka spice blend. There, Theo’s fingertips brushed a vial of ‘thyme’ which was facing upward, all but sending smoke signals to make him aware.

“Oh,” he uttered. He turned his head and showed his large, wide eyes as the start of an apology chattered on his pink lips.

“Now that? That’s funny,” Odette smirked.

She released Theo’s wrist, let a leg drop back behind her as a retreat, and threw her hands behind her back to allow Theo to bask in her wit.

Theo always became too wrapped up in completing “missions” and Odette always infused the fun back into the dry, brittle task just in time to be comedic. The same was the case when they adventured together in ForeverAge 2. She always became the “journey” he needed when his focus was narrowly on the “quest”.

Those late, great nights playing online role playing games together stood out as Theo stood speechless before her, giggling as much at her joke as on the situation he created by losing the forest for the trees.

And so long as Theo was engaged with Odette, he would remain her best friend Theo.

As Theo turned back to the spice racks, she held onto the image of his face in profile. Her fancy, electric car friend only needed steady fuel to keep it going. That fuel was humor, fun, and—. . .

Odette’s thoughts were interrupted by sudden, rupturing delight.

Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzzzzzt!

“Mph!” Odette grunted, barely suppressing a moan. She stood ramrod straight, her spine curling back, serving up her breasts to whatever invisible entity was pleasuring them.

Her breath was short and heavy afterward. She’d been so busy reflecting that she’d forgotten about Theo’s cellphone in her shirt. When it went off, the blustering buzz took her by complete surprise, and even afterward she could feel the tingles washing through her as her breasts bobbed in time with her breathing.

“So was that the only joke? Or do you have another one ready for when I ask for bay leaves?” Theo asked. While Odette was quietly observing him, he had resumed the mission and was already conceding after another fruitless search. He rubbed his flat palm over some scraggly hair near his cheek, then checked on Odett when she didn’t answer. He happened to catch her flustered, chest heaving, eyes in bedroomy slits. “A-Are you alright?”

“M-Me? Fine,” Odette managed, praying that the vibrations were over.

“Just. . . ‘fine’?”

This again. “I haven’t found any bay leaves. I just happened to see thyme first. Must be here somewhere, though—. . . Mmph! Mmhaah!”

Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzzzzzt!

“Odette!”

Her arms crossed, clawed hands meeting one another at the same point on her chest. The second flurry of vibrations was less of a surprise but no less of a turn-on. It felt like someone had taken an egg beater to her boob when Theo’s phone vibrated against her flesh, followed by a rippling pleasure when the massage was over.

Odette was blustery after the vibration. “Too much,” she sighed, her tongue feeling heavy in her mouth, drawing her lips apart, her knees slanting inward toward one another.

“Odette? Odette—you need to sit down, a-and I need my phone,” Theo panicked. He searched for a place nearby and buzzed his lips when he couldn’t find what he was looking for. Hovering, he searched Odette, finding her tits—for reasons beyond the obvious. “M-My. Phone. . .”

Odette wished she didn’t sound so startled when she replied, “I’m almost certain that what you’re looking at right now isn’t your phone.”

Theo whimpered. The tips of his ears went cherry red. He backed down, arms lowered at his sides before a new resolve could fill him, turning his loose fingers into fists. “Can you please cooperate for a minute? I’m trying to help you.”

“No amount of looking at my chest is helping me. It hasn’t helped me all day,” Odette answered. A tremor of pleasure made its way through her sensitive boobies, turning “day” into a half-moaned “da-a-aay”.

“Wait. I-I didn’t mean to. . . I’ve been looking at your chest a-all day? I’m sorry! I’m the worst—. . .”

“Nevermind,” Odette said, word clipped. She’d said too much—she wasn’t even upset that he couldn’t help looking at her chest. There were much more worrisome things than harmlessly acknowledging her size. “I-It’s fine to look. Really. I’ve got great boobs, after all. Boobs you should not worry about—not one bit. Umm, here. You’ve done good so far, so you’ve earned a little texting break.”

She had to get Theo away from his negative thought spiral before she lost him. Her brain still felt foggy and detached after the barrage of pleasure, able to move her hand to the top of her blouse but not totally aware of it. The hard plastic of the phone had shifted some from where she’d originally placed it, so she dug around some before finally producing it.

Though when it came to things Odette had “produced”, she had something else in mind.

“Thank you. It’ll only take a—. . .” Theo began, then held the phone in both hands like a child carrying around a bug he’d found. “Whoa. It’s so warm. Like, it’s almost a little too hot.”

“Boobs are like toaster ovens,” Odette shrugged. “Now, get to texting—. . .”

“B-But this is seriously hot.”

She didn’t have time to appreciate how cute he looked to discover this fact about breasts. “Yes. Indeed. It explains boob sweat and winter pockets, doesn’t it?”

“It does, yea—. . . Wait. Winter pockets? You don’t mean—. . .”

Odette’s breasts let out an intimidatingly loud warble as her milk shifted. She cleared her throat aggressively to cover the intimidating omen. “I do mean. Yup. Whatever it is you’re thinking. Is that all?”

“Well, uh, actually.”

“Yes, Theo?”

“I was thinking about things the other way around. Are you sure it’s just b-boobs being warm? I hope my phone wasn’t overheating and burning you. . .”

“Trust me, I’ve just got hot boobies,” Odette nodded. She pressed the tips of her fingers into the sides of them and rolled her boobs in tiny, jiggly circles for him. Risky, she knew, but she wasn’t beyond a bit of risk right now. To Theo’s credit, he turned straight away, a turtle pulled back into his technological shell by Odette’s teasing.

And while he was busy texting Neveah, Odette could take a tally on the increased pressure in her mammaries.

Pari’s lessons on body mindfulness kicked in right away. Odette, though surrounded by a grocery store full of distractions, sucked in a long, deep breath and pressed her palms into the sides of her large, soft breasts. Slowly, the distant crying of children drifted away, as did the overhead speaker noting the need for cleanup on aisle eight, and the underpaid employee sighing one aisle over. Then, through parted lips, she exhaled.

It took a few rounds of breathing in, holding, and letting go. Once, she was distracted by a shopper turning their buggy down her aisle before pausing, backing up, turning away, and trying the next one. She appreciated their recognition of her need for privacy, though also wished she had someone else to hear her chakalaka joke.

Boobs took priority, however.

She first focused on her palms, acknowledging each sensation: the fabric of her blouse, the pliant surface of her skin, the warmth radiating off of her body. Gently pressing inward, she met resistance. Rather than yielding, her knockers contended against the added pressure of her hands, springy like kickballs—and almost the same size. Opening her hands, her chest was allowed to return to form. That form was almost unrealistically perky, attention-seeking, and pronounced—distinct in size and shape on her comparatively narrow chest.

As the pressure from her hands waned, her titties encouraged her squeezing with a little burst of pleasure, which she enjoyed despite the sense of foreboding that emerged at the tautness of her titties.

Next, she moved her fingers. Her tips glided over her blouse’s material. Rather than feeling the blended polyester material however, Odette’s finger could sense nothing but her soft, springy flesh underneath. It was as if the sky blue garment was yet another skin stretched atop her shelf of tit, the occasional run of a wrinkle interrupting the illusion. This was the case everywhere she touched excluding her neckline. There, Odette’s doughy knolls went unguarded, exposing the meeting of her bare breasts, flesh kissing familiar flesh, her veins like opal in her growing boulders. Her index finger trailed her cleavage, scratching an itch she wasn’t fully conscious of, and confirmed her increase in sensitivity.

Her fingertips had had their fill. She breathed in, then out, then took her focus from her hands and placed it in her large, creamy chest.

She’d confirmed her own tautness but felt it all over again from inside the blouse, a negotiation that decency was losing when she felt how badly she wanted them free. Her breasts were swollen, heavy, and oppressive, dense like a stone. As high as they were propped, they still tugged on her torso, pulling her down like a bridge in need of additional trusses.

The sleeves of her blouse were more open, and she could feel the cool air rushing into the stretched-out holes on her massive mammaries. Her sweater slung down on both sides of her big, soft shelf of flesh, providing warmth exclusively to her sleeves due to the steepness of her jugs. To actually cover her breasts required a deliberate relocation, the bump of her nipples was still mostly evident.

The increased strain on her body and the way her outfit was meeting its limits was the result of a staggering amount of milk being stored, and brewed, in each of Odette’s breasts. She felt full, like there was nowhere else for all the milk to go. However, fullness didn’t mean her production paused, and every so often she could feel a trembling shiver through her flesh as she pushed just one size larger, inflated by the creamy product.

Odette worried about the briefness of time between trembles. The bubbling gurgles that accompanied each fit of expansion. She could really feel it now that her hands were pressed into her boobs—the speed at which she was changing shape and size. Her breasts had a mind of their own, but as they grew it was like they had more: like they had goals and personalities and hissy fits. Her brattish boobs fought her for indecency, passively bringing her sense of pleasure closer to a point of no return: a complete seizing of her senses and a loss of control over her size and milk production.

Not that she had much control over it now.

“C-Can I help some way?”

“Hmm?” Odette responded. The fuzzy satisfaction from touching her titties translated into a long, deep gaze into Theo’s concerned eyes. “Wh-What did you say?”

“You were staring at them—you’re, erm, chest. I’m not too smart about this kind of stuff, but is it something I can help with? I-If it’s one of those ‘lady problems’,” Theo asked, the pitch in his voice rising as he brought it up. “I’ll stay out. B-But I wanna help. . .”

Odette wanted to be annoyed by his questions. After denying her the chance of worrying about him, Theo was now being forthright about his worries about her.

And he was being all cute and genuine about it, too.

But she sucked at holding grudges even when she wasn’t all zen with her boobies, especially with her friends. And more importantly, there was the issue of having something worrisome actually take place, like her breasts springing a leak in front of Theo. She thought it best to deal with him directly.

“You can start to help. . . by letting me care about you as much as you seem to care about me,” Odette answered. She managed to not sound as annoyed by the fact of his hypocrisy.

“A-As much as I—. . .”

“And,” she broke his stammering before he could even really start it, dropping her hands from her breasts. “You can help by getting us out of Fresh Farmers. The faster we finish shopping, the faster we can get back home where things are safe and nerdy.”

“I love ‘safe and nerdy’,” Theo said, cautious. Odette felt a flutter deep in her chest at his mention of “love” and chose to believe that it was her boobies gurgling. “Hop on. We’re out of here. Next stop is the organic cheesy whatevers.”

“Aye aye. Though first, here.” In Theo’s hand was his smartphone, extended to Odette as he slightly averted his gaze. Odette thanked him for remembering, but squinted her eyes as a question for him. “Oh, uh. . . I thought we were making good progress without it, is all. And you said you are feeling okay, so I-I’m trying to trust that. Really. I’m trying.”

“Really?”

“Really. Plus, you’re having a lot of fun playing navigator.”

Odette hooked a finger in the neckline of her blouse, pulling it out to drop the phone inside. “So you’re not having fun with it?”

Theo averted his eyes. “I-I mean. . . We are having fun with it.”

“Thought so.”

Though no sooner than Odette released the phone and felt its weight slap against her boobies did she recall the panicked digging she’d had to do when it vibrated earlier. She had second thoughts now, wondering if she ought to drop the game to avoid the sudden onslaught of vibrations that had paralyzed her with pleasure earlier.

Any extended stimulation might set off an unmanageable amount of milk production. She could feel the milk building up in each of her party balloon titties, each gurgle and chirp an auditory confirmation of the danger that Theo’s phone posed.

But the game was almost over anyhow. They were a few items away from the checkout line. In just a few minutes, they would both be on their way back to Odette’s house where she and Theo could indulge in actual games instead of the ones Odette made up to keep him from freaking out.

It wasn’t too long. She could handle it.

She could endure just a little longer.

Theo looked impatient, as if he’d run out of things to look at besides Odette’s chest. So, Odette shifted his phone against her skin on the left hand side once again. “Alright, then. Away we go.”

She mounted the front of the buggy.

Theo took his place at the handlebar.

And the duo moved with new vigor toward the healthiest aisle in the store. They plucked up a box of cheesy cheddar zoo animal crackers—extra cheesy, as the regularly cheesy variety was not on sale.

“Plus, Pari likes cheese,” Odette reasoned.

Items found their way into Theo’s buggy. The same items crossed off of Odette’s shopping list. Better yet, the crowds that had bogged the store down before appeared to be thinning out.

Odette could already feel the satisfaction of showing Amanda their cart full of groceries, of returning home and lending a hand with the meal, and of bringing a long-awaited bowl of soup to Pari.

However, just as the two made way toward the deli at the back of the store, they discovered where the bulk of crowds had holed themselves up:

Leaving the snack aisle, Fresh Farmers opened into an open-concept hall. Vaguely like a cafeteria, people stampeded around at a frenzied pace, buggy to buggy, with barely enough room for the shoppers to stand in-between.

Customers lined up to receive free samples from one of a ring of lime green-topped kiosks, friendly staff offering pre-prepared treats on underrepresented items. Said treats, like frozen yogurt or yeast rolls or sausage skewers, were taken to a sitting area where guests sat at durable, polyboard tables and consumed their four ounce samples of low-carb, cinnamon bun flavored froyo under the supervision of a number of jumbo television screens. Each screen aired an episode detailing the ethically raised cows that produced the ethically sourced milk that became the ethically conscious frozen yogurt that was—surprise surprise, wouldn’t you know it—on sale.

On the other side of this chaos was the deli, and in the deli was the final item on Odette’s list:

Cooked chicken.

“This. . . is bad,” Theo said.

Odette’s breasts shifted once more, her size increasing one, near-imperceivable size as milk continued to fill her.

Really bad, she thought.