Quiet Diet
by Phoebegetsit
(revised)

Everyone knows the acronym IM, but in my little milieu it stands for my Inner Masochist, who introduced herself with a vengeance when at some point as I was dragging myself through puberty I hit on the brilliant idea of using Nair on my virgin pubic area. No kid ever reads the instructions on the bottle, right? So picture pubescent me hunched over, yelling, with tears streaming down my face, clasping my burning crotch with both hands in agony while my sister beats her fists on the floor in a fit of uncontrollable mirth. Fortunately, someone knew about EMLA Cream, which helped put out the fire, but after the initial sting faded I found certain forms of pain strangely addictive, much like Arthur Denton, the patient and victim of the evil Orin Scrivello, DDS in Little Shop of Horrors.

So there, I’ll admit it, I’m wired a little differently from the mainstream. Then there was the incident involving the infamous Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Chili Pepper Purée, which mysteriously came into contact with my tender nipples during Truth or Dare at a sleepover, courtesy of that teen beverage of choice, cheap malt liquor. Add to that the supposedly parentally-approved nice guy in high school who got me baked and talked me into draping myself over his knee so that he could spank me with one of those oh-so-nasty wooden paddles with the holes. After about the third thwack I started to scream and cry and gave a convincing I’m-a-nice-girl-how could-you? performance, threatening between sobs to blab it all to his parents and the school principal, reminding him that I was underage and there would probably be serious consequences with the Authorities which would ruin his life if any of this ever got out, and unceremoniously dumped him. I should have earned an Academy nomination for that one, but in high school reputation was paramount and I wasn’t about to concede bragging rights to him, or anyone else.

My IM tried continually to test my limits, usually with relish. As long as these events took place well outside my circle of friends, I felt safe, at least in the social sense, until the fun literally came to a screaming halt when a psycho scumbag on a coke high tied me to a bed and totally laid into me with a flogger. Thanks to the intervention of the neighbors who heard my screams, I ended up in the ER, and as soon as my anxious mother arrived and disclosed that I was only seventeen, the staff called the cops. Despite that little setback, to say nothing of the family humiliation, I swore that as soon as I was able to sit or even lie down again I would choose my relationships with considerably more care. It all confirmed something I already knew: my mantra would include the words pain and gain, but not in the generally accepted sense.

Away from home for the first time in college, and thousands of miles away across an ocean, there always seemed to be someone around who was just dying to try what they thought was something new on me. I played along regardless, thinking that I must invite this kind of attention, and I can’t say I disliked most of it. Following a close call with a real pervert, I soon perfected that invaluable party trick which utilized a bobby pin to remove a pair of handcuffs from behind my back in the dark.

After grad school back in the good ol’ US I entered the workforce more than a few pounds heavier courtesy of late night study sessions and richer food, and blew fruitlessly through numerous fad diets. I hated the gym with a passion, mainly because of the preening hotties of both sexes who sneered at the BMI challenged as they admired their reflection in the mirror while pumping themselves into a frenzy. I was fortunate to be able to work at home, but unfortunate enough to be constantly within a Twinkie’s throw of the fridge. Social eating and drinking combined with general late night grazing forced me to realize that I didn’t stand a chance, and I reluctantly came to the conclusion that if I just ate a small breakfast and a decent lunch, even a late one, and nothing else, I could pull it off. The only thing standing in my way was willpower.

Alone in the dark with only Doritos for company, I hit on a unique diet plan that I knew for sure would never be Seen On TV. Discreet enquiries led me to a guy a few hundred miles north who made custom dungeon equipment and I nervously emailed him to ask if he could produce a single locking ankle cuff welded to a chain long enough to cover the distance between my bathroom and the far side of my bedroom. He must have been intrigued enough to call. "I can," he said, "but it needs to fit properly, or it’ll just annoy you, so I’ll need accurate measurements. Go get yourself a Vernier Caliper and email me."

"Huh?"

"It’s a measuring tool - I need to know the back-to-front and side-to-side measurements of whichever ankle you intend to, um, constrain."

I liked his turn of phrase. He said that he would work out the geometry, and asked what it was for. I told him, and he laughed and said it was a first. I asked him about release mechanisms, and he told me what I already knew, that ice timers usually worked, but weren’t particularly accurate, and I might end up confined longer than I wanted to be. He recommended an electronic safe with a timer, which he could also provide, and added that if I was really serious, I should get some bolt cutters, and leave them with someone I could trust who could be reached in an emergency.

‘Good advice, indeed,’ I thought, remembering an earlier time when they would have come in very handy.

My local Helpful Hardware Man sold me the caliper and used a piece of pipe to demonstrate how to read it. I went to a different store and collected a heavy-duty padlock, three feet of inch-wide plastic tubing and the recommended heavy bolt cutters. I could tell that the clerk was dying to ask, but I wasn’t telling. I took them over to my BFF Melissa for safekeeping, who was puzzled, but having known me since grade school, knew not to ask. It would be over a year before we discovered that we liked each other in a whole new way.

A week or so later I was signing for a substantial parcel containing the safe, along with an oval cuff quite wonderfully made from polished stainless steel, lined with neoprene and sized perfectly for my left ankle. It featured a heavy hinge and a locking Allen screw inside a sleeve, and was firmly attached to forty feet of not insubstantial chain. Just looking at it made me shiver. In my bathroom, I slipped the plastic tube over the first three feet of the chain and padlocked it around the base of the toilet; no point in punishing the porcelain, as it was only going to be an innocent collaborator. The chain reached over to the far side of my bedroom and as I laid the business end on the foot of my bed with the hinge open I stared at it for a while before tucking it under the comforter, then left for what was planned as my final evening meal with friends for the foreseeable future.

I worked most of the next morning to finish a project, and then studied the manual for the safe, put in new batteries and finally managed to decipher the fractured English instructions for setting the timer. Around two I left for a late lunch, came home and finished the project on my desk, and, at about what would normally have been dinner time, I collected a few non-edible necessities, lingered in the shower, put on my Hello Kitty PJs and picked up the cuff. I carefully put it on and tightened the screw, then stashed the Allen wrench and the padlock keys in the safe and took a deep breath. I’ll never forget the whirr of the mechanism as I pressed the button and the bolt slid home, it was like a creepier version of the sound that the one in your hotel closet makes, as this time it was a lot more than my jewelry and passport that I was securing. A little frisson accompanied the realization that I was now incarcerated in my own bedroom, hopelessly out of reach of not only the kitchen and temptation, but also my computer, my big TV downstairs and, horrors, the wine rack, but that was probably a good thing. I made a mental note to trade TVs in the morning.

As I strolled around to test the limits of my confinement, the chain jingled and snagged on the leg of the bed and just about everything else. It appeared that this snug cuff was the epitome of evil efficiency. As I lay down to watch TV, growing hunger pains started to become a serious distraction, and to add to all the fun, my Mexican lunch, probably not the wisest choice under the circumstances, was demanding liberation. I got up and jingled into the bathroom with the chain clanking on the tile and glared balefully at the hardware on my ankle as I sat on the can. Back in bed, I pulled the comforter around me like a security blanket and carefully arranged the chain so that it snaked out from under the sheet. I slept horribly, constantly waking up to look at the clock, afraid that I would be stuck, or that there would be a ‘quake, or that someone would try to break in and . . .

After a restless night the little safe beeped right on time at 7 am, prompting me to punch in the combination and escape. Viola! My IM was thrilled, and I decided that if I was going to be this paranoid maybe I shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. I called a locksmith to come over and check all my downstairs doors and windows. The second night my repose was only marginally improved, and by the third night I was so exhausted that I called my GP to phone in a prescription and was finally able to pass out in Lunesta assisted diet bondage for a solid ten hours. I stuck it out, and after two weeks I was off the pills and down a whole dress size; now each evening I looked forward to tightening down that imprisoning little screw.

My IM was nagging me again, telling me that nocturnal ankle diet therapy was fine, but I needed to resist daytime snacking. I had to work in my office downstairs, and needed to be able to move about freely, so there had to be a different solution. I remembered reading that several hundred years ago unruly women were supposedly put in some kind of metal head device that totally silenced them, which as a byproduct would certainly have prevented any caloric intake. Of course, some sadistic dude must have come up with it; now what was it called? I surfed. There it was, a scold’s bridle complete with bell, but I preferred its other name, brank. Looking at the pictures, I thought, there’s no way. I dismissed the idea. But my IM started to yell ‘Brank me, brank me!’ A week later I was calling the guy up north and booking a plane ticket.

As the cab pulled up he was standing in the doorway of his workshop, tucked away in a nondescript industrial park near the airport. Inside was a small BDSM metal gear factory equipped with some serious looking machine tools. A highly intimidating yoke sat on his workbench.

"Well, well," he said, looking me up and down. "Nice to finally meet you in person. So how’s the cuff working out?"

I had flown up wearing some adorable sandals with multiple beaded ankle straps to obscure the faint fetter marks, which I regarded as a badge of honor. "Great," I said. He was so easy to talk to. "Now I wish I’d asked you to make me a pair!"

He laughed. "So what can I do for you?"

"I came to talk to you about a brank, I want to stop myself from snacking, totally."

He laughed louder. "Why?"

I told him the whole story. "Oh, he said, that’s not at all strange, people do far worse things to themselves!" He was very matter-of-fact as he told me how he had just finished building a real jail cell in a guy’s basement. My eyes were like saucers as he showed me the pictures, pointing to the heavy sliding steel door, the big lock, the regulation sink and toilet combo, a concrete ledge for the mattress, anchor rings everywhere and a surveillance system. "It’s loaded," he said. "This guy’s going to make a fortune renting it out if he can ever tear himself away from it. OK, I can make what you want in a couple of weeks, it’s basically a cage for your head made out of light aluminum, but like the cuff, it has to fit well. People usually want them with a round hole in the front for, well, you know, but you don’t need that. I’ll make a surgical steel tab that fits in your mouth and holds your tongue down, but it’ll be removable because you’ll need to be able to boil it for hygiene purposes. All you’ll do is close the whole thing around your head and lock yourself in, bingo. You know that you won’t be able to talk, don’t you, but you’ll find this thing much more comfy than ball gags . . ."

He grinned. Yes, he’d read me pretty well. VMmm,’ I thought, ‘I love wearing those, too, but only for fun . . .’ He made me promise that I wouldn’t try to sleep in it, and I sat down and looked though his photo album and sipped Earl Grey tea while he took a lot of measurements. When it was over, I wrote him a check.

Anticipation is a terrible thing. After an agonizing wait, it finally arrived. I tore open the box, spilling the peanuts everywhere before I was holding a kind of skeletal football helmet with a neoprene-lined collar, hinged on one side. A note attached to the tab said to wash it well before I used it, so I did, and then pushed it into its little slot from the inside. I held the front against my face as instructed, and the tab slid in over my tongue, holding it down, but not far enough to cause a gag reflex. I saw that it couldn’t come out when the brank was fastened. The brank curved under my chin to hold my mouth closed around the tab, and followed the contours of my head exactly. I swung the back half shut, and realized that I was going to have to learn drool control when I was locked up. My IM woke up and my undies moistened as I gazed in the mirror and admired the craftsmanship. I fished one lock through the hasp on the side of the collar, and then the other through the one higher up above my ear. They clicked against the metal as I moved. My tongue was now firmly under control and eating was going to be out of the question.

Ecstatic, I had to lie on my bed and treat myself to an intense orgasm. My head was now locked in a very wicked and efficient modern version of a medieval device, but I could see that there was going to be a problem with my teeth versus the metal plate. Suddenly, the little bulb above my head blinked on and I took the brank off and fished out the night guards that my dentist had made back when I was grinding in my sleep, and not in the good way. Yes! It was going to take quite a bit of self-control to get through this, but wasn’t that part of the plan? My IM was yelling, "Yes, yes!" I put the guards in, re-branked myself and went to clean up the packing.

I almost missed a little taped-up bundle, which yielded yet another tongue plate; there was a note. Here’s something extra, it said. Enjoy! This tab was just like the first, except that it had about a dozen tiny sharp spikes on the underside. Enjoy? "You bet!" I would have cried out loud, if I had been able to. I was going to be enjoy being disciplined like there was no tomorrow. The only problem was that my hair started to snag under the collar as my head moved. I didn’t want to put it in a ponytail, which I knew from experience would definitely catch on something, evoking memories of a bad, bad time when I had been dragged around by it. The thing was so accurately made that there wasn’t enough room inside to put my hair up, so I released myself and called the girl who usually trimmed my bangs and ends. The next day, I sat in her chair and told her to bob away, and shape the back.

"Well, OK," she said, "but I’ve always liked it long!"

"I know," I said, "but change is good, I’m not a college kid any more, and these days I have the cheekbones for it . . ."

Now the brank fitted perfectly, with a little play in the collar. That evening was cooler than usual, and I was wearing a short sleeve hoodie. I pulled the thin hood up and locked the brank on over it. Now I was comfy! I made a mental note to shop for more hoodies. I took it off and swapped out the tabs to try the spikes, and my IM almost lost it. Now even the smallest movement of my imprisoned tongue was immediately and painfully rewarded. I decided to save that experience for when I was feeling really naughty. I added a couple of timer programs to the safe to accommodate breakfast and lunch, put the keys inside, clicked the lock, and suddenly became really quiet. "I’m being punished, really really punished!" yelled my IM as I tried to work at my desk. "And I can’t take it off!" My hand kept heading for my crotch. I needed to do something about that.

The next day over lunch with Melissa, I told her everything. "Oh," she said, laughing. "Sounds like wicked fun, it’s a bummer you can’t wear it more, oh, I know, how about under a burqa?"

It was my turn to laugh. "Um, I don’t think so," I said wistfully. I was gazing at the dessert menu, but Mel grabbed it, picked up the check and escorted me safely outside. Driving home, I tingled as I thought about her suggestion of wearing one of those very private outfits covering a serious panel gag, a chastity belt, some nipple clamps and a nice set of manacles and fetters, all locked on underneath. I’m just a hopeless romantic.

All was well – my SM urges and my waistline were being nicely accommodated. I shopped for new clothes. A month passed, and by now I was quite used to not eating after dark, and I felt confident that I could go to Girls’ Night Out and not pig out. In the restaurant, one of my friends was unusually quiet. I had to know,

"Oh," whispered Mel, "she’s like, totally sore from getting her tongue, her nips and her clit done a few days ago."

‘Wow,’ I thought, ‘All at once? And I think I’m a masochist.’

Little Ms. Newly Pierced just kept on staring down at her drink and mumbled something about being on pain pills and a liquid diet. ‘

"Lose any weight?" I asked.

She held up three fingers. "After how many days?" Five fingers. Wow!

Back home, as I lay fettered, the little hamster wheel in my brain spun recklessly out of control. I remembered how circus elephants don’t run away when they have just a rope around their foot because when they were babies they were chained to a stake and they never forgot how that felt. Maybe I’d get the guy to make me a second cuff to wear under my jeans when I was out, as a reminder. My brain ran amuck as Harry the Hamster spun up and I slowly devised a long game.

The next afternoon found me in, well, ok, what we’ll be polite and call a less desirable part of town, boldly introducing myself to a pleasant but seriously tattooed dude. I felt a little out of place in my sundress and cute pink sandals. I told him what I had in mind. "Does it hurt?" I asked. ‘

"Only for a while," he laughed. His leather-clad assistant, who looked like she probably wore a size zero, tottered over on eight-inch platforms. She sported a heavy septum ring and more facial piercings than I could quickly count. "Open your mouth, Miranda," he said. "She has two, see?"

Yep, they were twins, big ones, glittering right there side by side on her tongue. "How is it to talk?" I asked her.

"Oh, she doesn’t say much," said the guy, grinning. She glared as she gave him the finger and split.

‘Uh-huh,’ I thought, ‘I bet she doesn’t.’ I could be like her. I looked back at him. "They can always come out, can’t they?"

"Sure," he said. "You can just unscrew them, but the holes will slowly close up. For the first week or so there’s going to be swelling and you’ll be sucking a lot of crushed ice. Don’t play with them, do lots of mouthwash and salt rinses, no kissing, oh, and no, um, you know, contact for a couple of months."

He grinned as I turned beet red and nodded. "Let’s do it," I said, "just like hers," as he handed me the release forms. He checked under my tongue for blood vessels and marked two spots on the top with a pen. ‘I can’t believe I’m really going to do this,’ I thought. He rinsed out my mouth and grabbed my tongue with some kind of forceps.

"Are you sure you want them both?"

I was and it was over before I knew it and when he held up the mirror, behold! Twin silver balls, twinkling on my tongue just like Miranda’s.

These piercings were strangely erotic, and my nipples were sending sublime messages down below, so I thanked him and left to buy a case of mouthwash. I would do without the brank for a while. That night, my fingers rummaged around under my nightie more than usual and I couldn’t help clicking the beads on my teeth. The night guards helped.

The next morning, the swelling had set in with a vengeance and I discovered the reason why the barbells seemed too long the day before. Owww! As soon as the safe beeped, even gently brushing my teeth was a bitch! The payoff was that I was getting the kind of post-spanking rush that I loved, but that’s another story. I chugged mouthwash for the first of a dozen times that day. The lower balls caught on my bottom teeth and threatened to pull the top ones through my tongue, and I almost passed out. I had to learn to control that particular muscle in a whole new way. l hardly spoke for the rest of the week. ‘Holy cow,’ I thought. A couple more painful incidents followed, including one in the car when I was admiring my new jewelry in the rear view mirror and hit a bump.

‘Oww!’ was all I said quite a few times that day. I distracted myself with work.

After about three weeks the swelling was down enough for the return visit. "How ya doin’?" said Mr. Tattoo.

"Well," I mumbled, ‘it’s just hard to talk, but they helped me drop a few more lb’s."

"Well," he said, "you insisted on two studs, we don’t usually do that, but you sure look good!"

I blushed as he changed out the barbells for a shorter version in a thicker gauge, with cute acrylic pink beads. Now I was more comfortable. "Ok," he said, "if you need to go someplace where you don’t want anyone to know, we have these flesh colored things called No-see-ums, you just swap them out, this is a new kind that has a disc on top, and the balls screw on underneath as usual. They lie flat on your tongue, which makes them practically invisible."

I pulled out the plastic and got a dozen. Oh joy, I was going to be branked and pierced! I thought briefly about other, more intimate holes I could have made in my anatomy, but decided that I was going to get enough grief from my dentist as it was without my crotch doctor and her assistant Igor-ette ganging up on me, too.

As I got used to the hardware I was able to eat more solid food, and I developed what I thought was a cute lisp. I was totally into my self-imposed restriction, especially being forced to keep quiet not only at home, but now talking a whole lot less when I was out. I became a Good Listener. Enforced behavioral disciplinary therapy at its best, I decided.

Now that the swelling was gone, It was time for the final part of the plan, the elephant bit. I craved the total persuasion of the brank without the headgear when I was outdoors, something more than the tongue studs. I called Mr. Metal Genius and asked if I could come up again. He was pleased to see me and listened patiently while I described what I wanted – a plate just like the one in the brank, which would be smaller and fit exactly over my tongue, with two holes for the barbells to hold it in place. Sure, no problem. I held my mouth open wide while he wielded a couple of sophisticated measuring devices.

"Go get a long lunch and do some shopping," he said. "It’ll be ready when you come back."

It was, crafted from heavy polished surgical steel with rounded edges. I had been back to the piercing place and brought longer jewelry, and I pulled out the no-see-ums, unscrewed the bottom balls from each barbell, pushed them through the holes in the steel tab and my tongue, then screwed the bottom balls back on. It was a little awkward, and I was going to have to learn to swallow with it, just like the first time, but the effect was delicious, like the brank without all the hardware. Now I was the elephant.

"I know you can’t talk," he said as I pulled out my checkbook. He shook his head. "No, this one’s on me," and hugged me.

I undid the plate, replaced the no-see-ums to keep the TSA at bay, thanked him and floated out to the waiting cab and the airport. My IM was speechless, for a change.

Life was good. Food never tastes as good as thin feels, and I was definitely going to be vewy vewy quiet, and vewy vewy thin for a long time.

The End

Copyright© 2014 by Phoebegetsit. All rights reserved.