Living in a CTLSO

Dear Bink,

I recently discovered your website and I’m thoroughly enchanted! I thought that your readers may be interested in my story. I have been a bracing and casting enthusiast since childhood, but it wasn’t until six months ago that I began to pursue my interest as a lifestyle. Ever since that time, I have been living in a CTLSO with some specialized modifications. I have a master’s degree in rehab, and my job entails counseling people who have been injured and helping them find employment. In addition, I testify as a special witness for people who have been hurt, and estimate for the court how much money they will need to compensate for their injury. I really enjoy my work, and expert testimony is a very lucrative business. Needless to say, I spend most of my days talking to doctors and lawyers. To cut out the not so interesting details, about a year ago I worked on a particularly difficult case with an orthopedic surgeon whom I’ll call Stephen. We got to know each other pretty well during the case and when it was over we decided to see one another socially. After our fourth date, we wound up at my apartment and decided to share a bottle of wine. I could tell that I was going to have to explain my sexual dysfunction to Stephen soon, maybe even that night. Not often known for my subtlety, and slightly uninhibited by the wine, I let him in on the secret to my solitary life. Sexual arousal is impossible for me without some medical form of highly rigid immobilization. It’s tough for most guys to accept having sex with a gal in full body traction. Stephen’s eyes grew wider as I delivered my little monologue.

“So how do you fulfill your needs?” he finally asked. I explained that about once a week I “check in” to what’s generally called a dungeon. Although most people who go are men visiting mistresses to be spanked or humiliated, my dungeon also accommodates medical bondage fetishists. It’s a nice setup for me really because I’m not interested in having a traditional relationship, much less in ever getting married. I could tell that Stephen was shocked by everything I’d said, but nothing could have prepared me for his response. This charming, handsome, extremely eligible man had remained single because of a similar sexual kink. He explained to me that he specialized in orthopedic medicine because early in his rotations he realized that he was deeply sexually aroused by applying casts and braces to people, by immobilizing them, and in general by modifying and restricting their movement. Instead of being attracted to beautiful women, he loved to watch the way people, male or female, moved after he had treated them. He explained that he felt such guilt over his sexual feelings that he generally stuck to meaningless sexual flings with women – enough to keep up appearances as a normal heterosexual doctor, and masturbated alone with his orthopedic catalogs and journals.

We sat there staring at each other as our sinister little minds went to work. It seemed too good to be true – how often do people with this kind of fetish actually find one another? It was obvious that we had to capitalize on our mutual interests. And so, since we’re both cautious people, we set everything up as a business relationship. He would provide me with orthopedic appliances, and I would allow him to spend evenings or weekends with me as he wished. He suggested a few things to get started with – a Malibu collar, a clam shell, maybe a different SOMI. But I explained to him that my needs were a little more involved and would probably require some creativity on his part. His interest was piqued and so we went to work designing the appliance of my dreams.

The first requirement I had was that the brace be made for extended wear. If he were going to build the thing, I wanted to be able to wear it as often as possible. (Little did I know, I would never want to take it off) Second, it had to provide extremely rigid and strict immobilization from head to hips, preferably with a traction component. Finally, I wanted it to be adjustable and removable only by him. When I’m wearing a brace, I need to know that I have to completely surrender to it – I can’t take it off by myself. Stephen happily agreed to these conditions and said he would give thought to some extra modifications that I might enjoy. After a few weeks of plotting, we had come up with quite an apparatus. He still hadn’t filled me in on his “extras” but he promised the next time we got together that he would unveil the completed plans for my brace. I could hardly wait to see what he’d come up with. He came over to my apartment on a Friday evening with a briefcase full of sketches. And over another bottle of wine, he explained the exact design of my brace. The body was to be made of custom fitted thermoplastic that was reinforced with steel bars four inches wide – one in the front, from collar to pubis, and two in the back, on either sides of my spine from nape of the neck to the bottom of the brace which would be low on my buttocks. The body portion would have four openings – a collar ring, two arm rings, and the base which would encircle my hips and rest on the pubis in front and the buttocks in back. The front and back halves of the brace would fit together at my sides in a jigsaw puzzle fashion. Metal seams with interlocking teeth fit together and were fastened with a special type of rivet that could only be undone with assistance.

The cervical component looked especially impressive. It would be mounted to attachments on the body of my brace. Two metal posts would extend from the chest plate to a wide chin cup. The chin cup was larger than others I had seen and used – it would cradle my entire mandible, from just under my lower lip to just in front of my trachea, and it extended back to just under my ears. Two metal posts in the back extended from the brace to a large headrest that would be shaped to fit the back of my skull. A wide, padded forehead strap would be attached to the headrest and could be used as an optional accessory. Then Stephen pointed out one of his little extras – the metal rods of my cervical attachment were to be fully height adjustable. By lengthening the rods in front and shortening the ones in back, my entire field of vision could be changed as my head was tilted further and further back against the headrest. Knowing that I would probably be wearing the brace a great deal, Stephen had to figure out a way to minimize the long term use damage that a chin cup can do. (Unpleasant things like deformation of the jaw and permanent damage to teeth.) And so he developed one of my favorite extras, an oral alternative to the chin cup that I could wear in the evenings or when eating, even to bed. He worked with an orthodontist who came up with a retainer that fits like this: the top portion consists of a plastic plate that would fit the roof of my mouth; a wire runs from the plate, between my teeth, and through my lips on either side to end in a curve of wire about an inch outside of my mouth above my upper lip. The bottom portion is similar – a plastic plate would cover the tongue side of my bottom teeth and connect to bands around my molars; a wire then runs through my lips on either side and ends about an inch outside of my mouth, below my bottom lip. Adjustable headgear straps would then be attached to all four wires, and they would lead to the four corners of the back of the headrest. Each strap had a tight spring within it so that pressure on each mouth plate could be adjusted to allow or restrict mobility. I loved to think of how the straps would feel running across my face to the back of my head. (And they actually feel better than I had imagined.) The next extra Stephen pointed out was the abdominal bladder built into the front of the body portion of the brace. A valve would be built into the front of the brace to allow the bladder to be filled with air or water. This feature, he explained, would ensure the absolute rigidity of the brace, and would greatly increase my abdominal compression – providing a potentially very uncomfortable and constant reminder of my complete immobilization. At this point, Stephen mentioned that the measurements for the brace would be taken after I’d spent seven days in full body traction. Plenty of time to get me completely stretched out. This would pretty much guarantee that the brace would be fairly uncomfortable, at least in the beginning.

Knowing my deep love and need for being strictly immobilized, Stephen hadn’t neglected to include attachments for my arms and legs. I would only be able to use these accessories with Stephen’s assistance, but I was looking forward to them already. Two wide Velcro straps would encircle the body of my brace, one at the level of my hips and one over the top of my breasts. Each strap would then encircle my arms, essentially binding them to my sides. When these attachments were applied, I would have no mobility in my arms. They would hang at my sides, tightly bound to my brace and immovable. Finally, Stephen produced a pair of HKAFO’s that could be attached to the bottom of my body brace and locked into place. Because of the absolute rigidity of my CTLSO, Stephen said that the leg braces could not be used for walking and would have to serve strictly as immobilizers. That was fine with me. When he concluded his presentation, I was so wet that I was sure the couch was probably stained. I simply could not wait to get into that brace. I was practically speechless with delight, and my obvious pleasure was deeply gratifying for Stephen, who was equally excited to see me locked into his creation. The month that it took to take the measurements and build the thing seemed like an eternity. But finally Stephen called and uttered the two words I’d been dying to hear, “It’s ready”. That afternoon he brought it over to my apartment and we spent two hours getting the brace locked into place playing with the accessories. I wish I could describe how it felt to have my brace on for the first time, but the experience was so intense as to be indescribable. On the one hand, I had never been so utterly and rigidly immobilized, and on the other hand I had never felt so free. Strange contradiction huh? I couldn’t get enough of it – I spent the entire first weekend just trying to move around in it, each time realizing that movement was impossible. Stephen simply loved watching me try to get around in the thing. Walking with the brace took some getting used to, without the help of being able to look down. I had to retrain my breathing because of the abdominal compression, and eating, talking, and swallowing were all compromised by the chin cup. Stephen quickly realized that I was planning to remain braced as long as possible. We set up a schedule for him to remove the brace long enough for me to bathe every day or so. I now wear the brace at least 23 hours a day – I switch from the chin cup to the mouthpiece when I get home from work. Most nights I have Stephen strap me into the arm restraints, and now and again I’ll wear the leg braces as well. I’ve never been so satisfied, in all senses of the word. At this point I have no plans to discontinue using the brace. The transition to full time brace wearing had its humorous and painful moments, all of which I’d be happy to share with your readers if you think they’d be interested. Keep up the good work at NBAK, and let me know if you would enjoy further updates! Your friend in bracing – bRigid