I’ve always been ashamed of my fascination with braces. I’ve never told a soul, not even my closest boyfriends. However, when I started seeing a guy called Alan, who works as an orthodontist, I couldn’t help but bring the topic of braces up after a few weeks. The temptation was just too strong.
Alan is much bigger than me, and about 10 years older. His age gave him a natural authority and calm demeanour. He was the adult in our relationship. I told him I loved the idea of braces, the feel of them, the mental inconvenience, the look, the lisps… all of it. To my great surprise he took this information in his stride. “You naughty young man”, he chuckled, as I looked at him red faced with shame and embarrassment. “We’ll have to see what we can do”.
The next day, he came in from work at his practice looking unusually happy. “I’ve got a surprise for you”, he said when he saw me. “We’ve got you an orthodontic appointment this Saturday.” I knew the clinic was usually closed on Saturdays.
“Oh”, I said, confused. He smiled again.
“Yep”, Alan said, clearly knowing what I was thinking. “Just you, me and my assistant. It seems that you need some emergency orthodontic work otherwise your teeth are all going to fall out”. I was very excited by the sound of all of this.
Come Saturday I was bursting with excitement. I remember looking at myself in the mirror when I was getting ready to leave for my very “off the record” orthodontic appointment. I was a slim twenty-two year old young man, with hair dyed dark purple, straightened at the front into a long fringe covering one side of my face, and waxed into a messy explosion at the back of my head - the classic emo look. Similarly, I liked the tight fitting dark emo clothes (today I’d gone for holey black skinny jeans which I wore low around my waist, held in place by a bright green belt, a black t-shirt with a metal beaded large skull emblazoned on the front, and big platform doc marten boots with yellow laces). I had a nose and ear piercings and wore lots of bracelets. I also had a tattoo sleeve down both arms. My teeth weren’t perfect, it was true, but they also weren’t so bad that you’d expect an otherwise good looking, image conscious young man in his twenties to want to go through braces. Of course, I did want that, but I’d always been weary of what people might say, and weather someone might clock my dirty secret.
Alan drove me over to his workplace, chatting mildly about unimportant things while I simmered with anticipation. Inside, his assistant, an enthusiastic young Spaniard called Javier, met us. He grinned at me revealing his own “on the house” orthodontic work. Again, I felt my face burn with shame. I grinned back awkwardly. He really was very attractive, and I’d been a little jealous knowing who it was Alan worked with.
Javier and Alan showed me through to the operating chair and I lay down.
“To make this as much of a surprise as possible, I’m going to put you to sleep while I work, when you wake up you’ll be fully braced and ready to roll”.
“But how will you put me to sleep?” I asked, startled.
“Oh well I’ve already dealt with that part. When you had your tea before we left I put a little something in it. You’re probably already feeling a bit drowsy, no?” In fact, I was feeling kind of tired. “Just lie back and while you drift off I’ll set up”.
This was all happening very quickly, but rather than protest, I chose the easy option and allowed myself to relax as Alan and Javier made noise placing instruments on trays behind me.
Before I knew it I awoke, still lying in the same place.
“Ah! Look whose decided to come back to us”, I heard Alan’s voice say. I groaned. I could immediately tell that my mouth felt different even though I was groggy with whatever Alan had drugged me with. I felt around with my tongue. There was what felt like a large metal plate on the top of my mouth blocking my tongue from touching my hard palate. “Expanders”, I thought, excitedly. Down below there was the same. I tried to bite down but I couldn’t go all the way. There was a large bite plate behind my upper row of teeth. I ran my tongue along the front of my teeth and caressed each metal bracket one by one, but there was more going on than just brackets, was that a herbst appliance? And what were the metallic tubes which seemed to be connected to my molars but ran out of my mouth, between my lips, and into the ether?
“Jamie, time to come back to us”, Alan’s voice said above me. I stirred and opened my eyes.
“First things first, I want to start by saying this is you now. This stuff won’t be coming off while you know me.” That sounded a bit hard ball, this was supposed to be fun after all, but I didn’t mind just then, because I was feeling so excited. “I need you to say that you understand. Because if you don’t things will start to become unpleasant for you.”
“I undershtand”, I lisped.
“Good, I’m going to show you your new self now.
Alan revealed a mirror and held it in front of my face. I gasped. Most noticeable were the, not one but two, facebows coming out of my mouth and wrapping around the back of my head. My braces themselves were coloured bright high-visibility jacket green with similarly coloured elastic power-chains. There were herbst arms which somehow squeezed in between the facebows.
Much to my confusion, I was also wearing large glasses. I reached up to remove them, but Alan tutted. “Uh uh, they are going to have to stay in place I’m afraid. They’re actually attached to your headgear”. Indeed, they were welded at the back to the headgear straps.
“What? What about when I remove the headgear?”
“You don’t. It’s welded into position”, Alan said this with a sadistic gleam in his eyes. “So, you’ll find the glasses leave you short sighted, but without them on you’ll find your vision really very blurry. Me and Javier did laser eye surgery while you were out and we degraded your vision. Similarly, I’ve filled your ear cavities with a synthetic wax which will leave your hearing very limited, and you’re going to have to keep those hearing aids in if you want to go about your daily business”, only now did I notice that I was indeed wearing chrome silver hearing aids. It was a mark of how much my appearance had changed that I hadn’t even noticed them.
“I can switch your hearing aids off whenever I like, if I feel you’re learning to much”, he chuckled and pressed some buttons on his phone. Suddenly I found I could hardly hear a thing. I could see his lips moving but I could only vaguely make out a muffled sort of sound, as though hearing someone talk on the other side of a wall. After a few moments he pressed the bottoms on his phone again and sound was restored.
“…excellent, isn’t it! I can use your deafness as punishment if you don’t behave yourself too!”
“Punishment?”, I hadn’t agreed to any of this, and although it did excite me, I was feeling a little blindsided and worried.
“Oh yes, young man. Of course, if you don’t want to continue with the treatment all you have to do is ask. Of course, you’ll never get these braces back if you do, so if you ask it’s a one way ticket to normality, do you want that?”
Of course I wanted that, except, no, that’s the opposite of what I wanted. I wanted braces and I wanted Alan to want me to have braces. I was scared and the realisation was coming on rapidly that I might have to accept Alan’s games. I shook my head and mumbled sadly “no, I don’t want that”. My admission was barely audible.
“Didn’t think so”, Alan said. “You’re my little lisping-emo-nerd-braceface from now on, Jamie. Do as I say and I don’t see why we can’t make this work”.
He was right, I was his by necessity but also emotionally. I was too scarred to try to tell anyone that my very extreme braces weren’t part of any serious orthodontic treatment, and Alan had cleverly laid this trap in a way which played as my wildest fantasy, so even if I was brave enough to try to escape (and yes, as far as I’m concerned asking for my release did require bravery - lots of it), I was never sure I’d really wanted to. It was the promise that I’d never have this opportunity again which trapped me in his game; it was the certainty and the finality of it. He had me worked out to a tee.
We drove home in silence, me looking down shame faced, hoping I couldn’t be seen by the other drivers or pedestrians, Alan cheerfully whistling as though oblivious to my presence. Eventually he said “don’t act like you’re not pleased, Jamie”.
I looked up at him, and with hurt and stress evident in my voice, said “Thith ith too much Alan. I never wanted all thith…. Lithen to me! I thound ridiculouth”.
Alan just chuckled.
“Ah sweet thing. You’ll get used to it”. I looked back down at the ground, my face red. It was humiliating, I wanted to make a serious point but sounded like a spoilt five year old who couldn’t navigate basic consonants. Worse than the lisp were the very loud clicking noises of the herbst appliance and the two facebows sliding against each other. It was like I was a cockroach/human hybrid from an episode of Doctor Who.
“And my eye thight! My hearing! Ith it going to be like thith forev…”
“No no, don’t worry about that, I can easily correct both. But you must understand when I say this, only I know what I did to both your eyes and ears (well, me and Javier), so only I can mend them again. It’s another part of the whole blackmail thing I’m doing, you see. If you go running and telling you’ll not be getting your senses back so readily.”
When we got back to Alan’s apartment I walked in quickly, passed the living area, and into the bedroom closing the door behind me. I was angry and scared, but also elated and turned on. I felt like crying because of how much of a hold Alan now had on me. I went into the en-suite and looked at myself in the mirror, doing my best fake smile. So this was me now, a skinny 5’8”, 8-stone purple haired emo with the worst braces in the world. Their high visibility green shone out of my mouth, the facebows wrapping around my cheeks and head like a fairground ride.
Alan had come in behind me. “I hate you”, I said with venom, “get away from me! You thycho!” But he smiled at me sadly and gently shushed.
“Jamie, Jamie”, he said consolingly, “please calm yourself, you’ll soon see that this is for the best”. He was hugging me, and I was crying. “That’s it, Jamie, let it all out”. His 6’4” frame towered over me. He was stroking my hair with one hand and patting my back with his other as we embraced.
After I calmed down he unwrapped himself from me and said, “that’s better now isn’t it?” And he was right. I was feeling better after a good cry. I nodded sadly. “Good, so now we’re in here I can show you one more part of your treatment.” From his pocket he pulled out a large plastic bag full of orange rubber bands. “These need to stay in all the time unless you’re eating”, he said matter of factly. He came near and hooked the bands onto my K-9’s and then zig-zagged them back to my molars. They were thick and very noticeable. I turned to the mirror again and looked at my now even more alien appearance. I can’t wear theshe too” I half-heartedly protested. “I won’t.”
“Jamie”, Alan’s tone had changed to one of warning, “you will and you must. I think it’s time I showed you what happens if you don’t comply”. He took out his phone once again and pressed some buttons. To my astonishment I felt my mouth force itself closed.
“What ith thith?!” I tried to say but it came out so muffled it was almost incomprehensible.
“Your herbst appliance has a lockjaw function for just this eventuality. It’s hydraulically operated by a small motor of my own invention. Like your hearing aids and glasses I have control from my phone. I can also lock it all the way open like this…” My mouth now opened against my will to its fullest extent. I was trying to argue but only a ridiculous yawning type noise was coming out. I also wanted to know what he meant by “control of my glasses”. I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
“You see, this kind of noisy racket is exactly the kind of thing that earns punishment periods, Jamie, I think you’ll have to go without your sight for a few hours.” Again he fiddled with his phone and suddenly my vision grew foggy. The lenses of the glasses had clouded up so much that I could now only see vague blurs in front of me. I felt my mouth forced closed again, and now Alan was saying, “no speech, sight or sound for you until tomorrow morning, I think. Just so you learn your lesson”. Sure enough, as it had done back at the dental practice, my hearing now also went dead.
And that was that, apparently, because I saw the blurry outline of Alan move out of the bathroom, and after waiting to see what was going to happen, I confusedly decided to follow. I fumbled my way after him. I tried removing the glasses but to no avail. They were welded to my head. Eventually I made it to the living area, and unsure how to protest without my senses, I fumbled my way onto the sofa and sat, feeling deeply wounded and at a loss. I felt Alan’s hands stroking my hair again. He was sat next to me, intimately caressing my face. How long was I going to be like this? Alan’s plaything. The punishment period was one thing, but did he intend to keep me braced for weeks? Months? Years, even? I was crying again. I was sure that if I could find the strength I’d be more than able to tear my glasses and facebows off right now, but I was small and weak, and I loved Alan, and I wanted him to look after me, and I knew he wouldn’t if I wasn’t a good boyfriend, and I knew that I had to be compliant for him, and for me.
One day I might find the courage to be free, all I had to do was ask for my release, but that would not be today, I knew. In the morning I’d be able to see and hear and my jaws would have unlocked. I’d go about my day as normal. I’d shower and shave, and put on my ripped skinny jeans, and my Slip-Knot tour t-shirt. I’d wear my bracelets and long chain necklaces. I’d wax my purple hair into my favourite style and wear my red converse shoes as I went out and about. The only difference would be my braces, my herbst, my expanders, my bite plate, my purple elastics, my glasses, my hearing aids, and my facebows. It would be wonderful. On Monday I’d explain away my treatments to my bemused (but polite) colleagues, who’d listen attentively as I lisped and clicked my way through all the problems Alan was helping me with. I’d soon learn to endure the stares I’d receive from the general public. But it was all for the best and all for my own good. I understood that now.
