Annika sat alone in the front passenger’s seat of her Aunt Libby’s car. She thought of why she had agreed to this. Odd really that she would put herself in this situation, but somehow deep down it felt very right and very comfortably safe. Although she was now a grown woman, she often longed for the submissive feeling she remembered from trips down to the house at the coast with her aunt in her teens. Last time she had been strapped in this seat was five years ago just before her sixteenth birthday. Libby had not put her wrist straps on so she was still able to move her arms, but her body was snugly secured by the chest, hip and shoulder straps of the car seat harness. The strap that came up between her legs, which was connected to the hip strap, was a little too tight. Maybe she had put on some weight. Annika looked down to check. As she did so a small bead of drool found its way down from her chin onto the yellow bib of her PVC dungarees. She quickly raised her head again and slurped up the remaining saliva, but then she thought that it really didn’t matter if she drooled on the pants or on the rubber covered seat. It wasn’t like anybody was going to see her like this anyway.

They were on their way from the city to Libby’s house, but they had stopped outside another house in a suburb to pick up something from a friend of Libby’s. Annika was interrupted from her thoughts when she heard the voice of her aunt and her friend through the open car door window. They came out of the yard of the house carrying a big green plastic box with handles.

- No problem Libby! We never use it for Anna any more. I mean she’s 16 now.

- Thanks! We’ll probably only need it for a week or two.

They opened the trunk of the station wagon and put the box in. Libby moved around the car towards where Annika was sitting. The other woman followed her.

- Who are you gonna put in it?

Libby opened the door.

- Do you remember my niece?

- Annika!? Wow!

Annika’s face first turned white, then red from humiliation.

- Isn’t she, I mean, isn’t she too old?

- She’s never gonna by too old for me to pamper, are you sweet-heart?

Annika swallowed hard and looked down. As she did she drooled again.

Libby bent down beside her.

- Let’s put those wrist straps on you so I can remove the bridle and you won’t drool like that!

Libby secured Annika’s wrists and then proceeded to unlock the bridle. When she had taken the rubber bit out of the mouth of the young woman she stuffed the bridle in the original plastic bag it came out of only a few hours before. She stood up again and turned to the other woman.

- I will take care of Annika for a week at my house.

- Sounds interesting. You must tell me all about it! Maybe it’s not too late for Anna either.

- Maybe not! Thank you for the playpen!

- See you in a week then!

- Bye, bye!

Libby got back behind the wheel and they drove off. It was going to be a four hour drive, but already after having been strapped down for only an hour Annika started to feel itchy inside her PVC dungarees. She tried to move around a bit, but the straps were relentless and she could not do much.

- Please Auntie, can you release my wrists just for a while?

- Oh no Annika! You know I won’t do that!

- Please!

- I’ll tell you what. We can make a pit stop with coffee for me and a soda for you when we get to the next town. It’ll only be half an hour or so.

The whole thing had started a week before when Annika had visited her aunt for Sunday lunch. After the meal Libby carried out the dishes to the kitchen and Annika went into the drawing room where she casually started to browse through a photo album that lay on the coffee table. There were a lot of photos of people she didn’t recognize, but then she got to a section of pictures from a long weekend she and her aunt had spent together some seven-eight years before. In these pictures her aunt was dressed in a long black rubber Mac and held on to her teenage niece as she played in the wet autumn leaves on the ground. Annika was wearing a bright red PVC coverall with integrated rubber boots and gloves. On top of that there was the sturdy nylon webbing body harness. Her aunt held on hard to the leash attached to the back of the girl’s harness.

Libby came back into the room with coffee and cake and found her niece looking intensely in the photo album.

- It wasn’t easy to control you, you know.

Annika turned her head towards her aunt. She had an almost guilty and definitely flushed look on her face.

- No, I guess I was pretty feisty.

- You were. Do you remember when you managed to cut the leg straps?

- Yeah, I did. But I couldn’t escape anyway.

- Do you miss it?

- What?

- Do you miss being harnessed?

- Yeah I think I do actually. It might seem strange, but I felt free somehow.

- Free on the leash? The whole point was to control you.

- I was free to behave any way I wanted. I could mess around as much as I wanted to in those clothes and I could do nothing wrong with the harness on.

They had coffee and cake and more on the subject was not said until it was time for Annika to leave.

- You know I’m going to my house next week.

- Are you?

- If you want to you can come with me.

- Do you still have my coverall?

- I think I have some of your stuff in the basement, but don’t you think that you’re too old for that?

- Maybe.

- But it would feel great to hold your leash again!

- I’ll think about it, OK?

Two days later Annika had phoned and said she would be at her aunt’s house the following Saturday, ready once again to be locked into her old harness. Her auntie said that they actually had to meet before the weekend. She said she had looked at the old stuff in the basement and there wasn’t that much left of the old stuff. They needed some new equipment.

- And you know Honey, it’s all much more regulated now.

- Oh, you mean that new legislation...

- I can’t get your parents to sign you in because you are an adult, you know?

- So you need me to sign?

- Well, yes, you have to sign. If your mother would have been a bit faster she could have signed you off as a minor until you’re twenty-five. But she blew it by a week when you turned twenty-one last April.

While Annika had thought about how she ended up there, totally fixed to the car seat (well, she could actually move her legs), time flew by and before she knew it her aunt pulled into a truck stop along the way. Libby got out of the car and came around to the passenger side. She opened the door and pulled out the still somewhat drool-slimy bridle from its little storage bag. She held it with the bit just in front of the girl’s mouth. Annika had a look of disgust and clamped her jaws shut.

- Oh come on! Open wide!

When Annika slowly and reluctantly opened her mouth her aunt quickly pressed the bit between her lips. There were only a couple of straps to go around Annika’s head and neck and Libby connected those in just a couple of seconds. Then Annika heard the little click sound of the lock and she knew there was no escape from the contraption. The leash was fitted to the back of her head and Libby released first the wristbands and then unlocked the seat harness. Annika had been snugly attached to her seat for almost three hours by now, so she was a bit stiff and moved slowly. Libby jerked at the leash to get her niece to move. It wasn’t a very hard pull, but Annika felt the bit dig into the sides of her mouth and her head tilt backwards. It was very clear to Annika that she had to obey the leash commands. This was very different from being leashed in a harness. She remembered that when she had been tethered by her harness to trees, or railings, or to hooks attached to people’s house walls, the length or the cord was an absolute. One ran off in one direction, and when the cord was fully extended it just abruptly stopped you dead in one’s tracks. When someone had held her by a leash attached to the harness it was much softer. It was more of a tug-of-war between the harness-wearer and the leash-holder. With a bridle it was clearly not. She simply had to obey even soft commands from the leash.

Annika trotted in front of her aunt across the parking lot in direction to where she thought they were going. There was a McDonald's just across so she assumed they were going there. There was another jerk of the leash, but Annika thought that she had simply walked too fast and that the leash was fully extended. She walked on. SNAP! There was a sharp jerk of the leash that sent her head quickly backwards with drool flying all over.

- Wrong way, missy!

- Thorry! I though we weth goingth to McDonhaldth.

- You really need that leash training Annika. But you sound so cute with that thing in your mouth.

They headed in another direction to a small café. There was a row of small round tables along part of the wall facing the street. Annika was about to reach for the door when she was pulled sideward. Libby used the lock at the end of the leash to attach Annika to one of the hooks in the wall meant for securing dogs outside the café. She could just about reach one of the chairs and sit down with the leash in tension. Libby went inside to order while Annika tried to relax. It wasn’t easy because of slight pull of the leash in her mouth and people coming in and out all the time. Most people didn’t really take much notice of her; after all nowadays at least in this part of the county it wasn’t that uncommon to see teens on leashes. Bridles were perhaps less common then harnesses, but there had even been TV-ads for them lately. Perhaps people were curious and that was why some people stared at her. A couple that came out of the shop took notice of her.

- Look at that girl with the head harness!

- Wow, is that what they look like?

- Do you think it hurts?

- Maybe Sue and Tom should have them?

- Come on, they’re 15...

- Well, she looks older than that!

Libby came back out with a cup of coffee for her and a soda with a straw for Annika. She placed the soda in front of the leashed girl and sat down on the other side of the table. Annika looked beggingly at her aunt.

- I can’t take it off Honey, it would be illegal now when we are in this county.

- Please!

- It will get better when you have your certified harness. Then you can be tethered safely without the bridle. Now, drink your soda!

Annika grabbed the bottle and started to suck from the straw. It was difficult, as she couldn’t close her mouth completely with the bit going through it. A small stream of soda leaked from her mouth down onto the bib of her PVC dungarees. At least she was dressed for the part! It took only minutes for them to finish their drinks and then Annika was led back to the car and strapped in. Libby took off the bridle after having restrained Annika’s wrists. They started to drive again and Annika sank once more into thoughts about what had been going on.

A few days prior Annika’s aunt hade come to visit her in order to get the paperwork ready for the coming week. After a change in the national laws, there had been a referendum in the county where Libby’s house was. The bill had passed and this is what it meant in short:

1) Adolescents legally come of age at 21. Until that time the legal guardians (usually the parents) are legally responsible for their children.

2) Legal guardians can apply for a probationary adult status for their wards from 18 years of age.

3) Legal guardians can also apply to keep their wards as minors until age 25 (in certain cases even longer).

4) Any unauthorized physical restraining of minors is illegal.

5) Legal guardians can apply for a permit to use physical restraints on a minor.

6) Such a permit stipulates a certain minimum control that must be upheld for the minor.

7) Any person in the age span 18-25 can wave their adult status and become legal minors within the county.

After some hesitation and assurances from her aunt that the whole thing only applied when they were in the county, Annika signed the form. Now Libby only had to sign the form accepting to be the legal guardian. She also signed a form to get the permit to restrain Annika. The standard minimum control of Annika would be that she was kept restrained with certified equipment in public places. The problem was that none of the restraints she had used as a teenager were up to the modern standard of security and control. For this reason Libby had brought a large piece of plastic foam from an equipment shop. She told Annika to press her face into the soft foam with her mouth open. Annika did so and from that impression the shop was going to manufacture Annika’s first certified restraint: The bridle. Libby showed her niece a catalogue and pointed out the type of bridle she would order. There was a frame of cast aluminium made to fit the front of the head of the wearer. The frame went from below one ear, down the cheek and around under the chin, and back up to the other ear. In the middle there was a bow that went around and about an inch in front of the mouth. The bow held the bit that went through the wearers mouth. The whole frame was covered by soft rubber not to injure the wearer. The contraption was held in place around the head with rubber coated nylon straps inlayed with thin steel wires for security. The catalogue text gave assurances both to the safety and security of the device provided a proper lock was used. It also said that although the bridle was comfortable to wear for long periods of time, the leash control was excellent. It was fully compatible with electronic control systems and came in several bright colours. The bridle was delivered with a standard bit, leash and lock. Libby said he would order a blue one for Annika the next day. It was rather late and Libby left Annika’s place.

Annika went to bed but she had a difficult time falling asleep. She was strangely excited and more than a little scared of what she had got herself into. Although she had worn locked harnesses many times, she had never had anything locked around her head. And the bit, how would that feel? How would it feel to be walked on a leash attached to a bit through her mouth? After a long while she finally fell asleep.

Two days passed and it was time for her to assume her role as a restrained minor. Libby had instructed her to bring nothing so she just took the bus to her aunt’s with a tingling sensation in her stomach. What would it be like?

She rang the doorbell and Libby opened after just a few seconds.

- Good, you’re here! I’m just about ready for you.

Annika saw her old PVC bib pants laid out over a chair and she stretched out to feel the shiny slightly sticky yellow surface.

- Don’t just stand there! Take off your jeans and pull on those bib pants!

Annika did so and when she had tightened the shoulder straps of the pants she felt the plastic against her thighs. It felt so good!

- Now, here’s your new bridle!

Libby gave her a small plastic bag containing something blue and rubbery. Annika’s hands were trembling as she pulled out the brand new device from the bag.

- Try it on!

Annika fumbled with it for about a minute to get to grips with what was up and down and what part should go in her mouth. Then she put the frame in front of her face, opened her mouth, and pushed the bit in. Libby helped her with the straps. She then took Annika’s hand into hers and led the way to the lock at the back.

- Here is the lock! I will expect you to put the bridle on your self and lock it. Of course to unlock it you need a key.

Annika felt strange with the bridle on. She looked at herself in the hall mirror in disbelief as Libby snapped on the leash.

- Let’s go!

Libby dragged the young woman by the leash out to the car. She placed Annika into the front seat, which was fitted with the 5-point harness.

- Whenever we take a ride I will only take off your bridle if your wrists are fastened.

While they were driving the last hour or so to the house Libby explained how things would be arranged when they arrived. It was going to be a bit difficult until they had had a chance to go to the equipment shop tomorrow. Until then there were actually only three options for Annika. She could of course be restrained in the car seat or leashed in the bridle. But for sleeping and eating she would have to be safely inside her old PVC sleep sack that she had used in her teens. When they arrived at the house Libby unpacked most of the stuff from the car, while Annika was still locked to her seat. When Libby was almost done she opened the car door and released Annika’s wrists.

- Be a good girl and put on the bridle while I carry your playpen inside!

Annika did as she was instructed. When she had put the bit in her mouth and snapped the lock shut at the back of her head she again felt this tingling sensation. She remembered it well from her teens, that special feeling of excitement that followed upon locking herself up not knowing when she would be released again. Then she sat impatiently waiting for her aunt to come back for her. It took a while because Libby had met one of the neighbours in the street. When Annika turned her head as much as she could she saw the two women and a third figure kneeling on the ground. It was a boy who looked like he was in his late teens. He wore almost the same attire as Annika herself: Blue PVC –bib pants and a bridle. But he also had a full body harness and his bridle had an attached blindfold in front of his eyes. The woman holding the leash was standing with one foot firmly on the leash keeping the boy in a kneeling position. Was it his mom? Babysitter? The woman looked very young. Annika turned her head back into its normal position and thought of what she had seen. Why the blindfold? The body harness she could understand. She expected to get a body harness herself, but a blindfold…

Finally Libby was done talking and she came over to Annika. She attached the leash and released the girl from the seat.

- That is Maria. She’s allowed to walk her brother on the leash, but only if he wears his blindfold.

Libby explained that the boy Erick was 17 and his half-sister Maria was 16. Erick had had harness and leash when he was younger while Maria, who grew up with her birth mom, had never been restrained. Last year Erick’s parents had applied for a permit to restrain him again and he was to be kept fully as a controlled minor until he turned 25. So it was to be another eight years in restraints for Erick while his younger half-sister was totally free

[NEW January 16^th, 2009]

Libby led Annika inside and directly into the bathroom. She locked the leash to one of the water pipes. She then instructed Annika to remove her PVC bib pants and put on a big disposable diaper followed by the rubber pants that Annika remembered from her teens. Libby went away and into the kitchen to fix some sandwiches while her niece was putting the diaper on. It only took Annika a couple of minutes to get her diaper and rubber pants on and then she just sat on the edge of toilet seat and waited for Libby to come and get her. The leash was rather short so she couldn’t sit down properly and she couldn’t reach outside the bathroom door either. It took Libby some 15 minutes to get the food ready, but then she returned and unlocked Annika’s leash. She led the girl over to the room in which Annika had slept when she was younger. It looked much the same as it did five years before. The floor, the walls and the ceiling were all covered in bathroom-style PVC, meaning that it was possible to hose it all clean. There was a drain in the middle of the floor and a totally plastic clad bed to the side. Annika remembered many messy and slimy games she and her playmate Suzy had had in that room. It still looked the same and she longed for the slippery feeling of slime on that PVC bed. Maybe another day she thought because now it was clear that she was expected to get inside the ventilated rubber sleep sack that was laid out for her on the bed. There were straps holding the sack around the bed so she wouldn’t be able to rise from the bed once she was inside the closed bag. Without much more thought she crawled into the bag and Libby pulled up the zipper. Finally the clasp around Annika’s neck was shut. Libby unlocked the bridle and removed it carefully. There were slits with zippers for her arms, so she could stick them out and eat a sandwich. Libby helped her niece to slurp down a coke as well, but then she ordered Annika to withdraw her arms and the zippers were shut again. Annika was now safely tucked in for the night. Libby turned off the light and left the room.

Annika must have dozed off almost at once because next thing she knew it was morning and the sun shone in through the window on the bag. Although there were ventilation holes it started to get very hot inside the rubber tube she was trapped in. That, in combination with her wet diaper, made her seriously wonder how much longer she could stand this confinement without panicking. Luckily her aunt came into the room with yet another sandwich after just a few minutes. After the small breakfast the bridle came on again and the bag was opened. She was led to the bathroom, her leash again locked to the pipe. She was allowed to take off the diaper and take a nice long shower. It was a bit tricky to wash her hair because of the bridle, but she did her best. Good thing she had short hair nowadays. Annika dried herself, put on her panties, a t-shirt and the PVC bib pants from the day before. She was now ready to go to the equipment store. While she waited for Libby she thought of what equipment she would get. She knew there had been quite a development for these kinds of things lately, so she didn’t really know what to expect. She was still thinking about this as she was led out to the car and strapped to the seat. In fact she felt strangely excited. It was only a short drive so Libby didn’t bother to remove the bridle. After only 25 minutes they parked outside the store Rest-Rein’Em. Annika was led inside.

It was not a huge place, but she could see several isles with signs above them. They read: Indoor clothes, Outdoor clothes, Harnesses, Head harnesses, Other restraints and Furniture. They had come to the right place! Annika got a bit excited and turned around towards Libby. As she did Libby only gave her a sharp jerk on the leash to lead her niece to the counter. There were a few customers in line before them.

Behind the counter with the till there were two ladies tending to customers. There was a teenage boy with a young woman on a leash. She was wearing a sleek shiny pink plastic coverall with integrated gloves and boots and a very sturdy black rubber harness with crotch straps. On her head there was something that looked somewhat like a soft PVC helmet with a see-through part in front of her face. When the girl turned around a bit Annika saw that she had something round and soft in her mouth behind the plastic visor. The girl, who looked like she would be in her twenties, struggled with her mouth against the gag and the visor was slimy with drool on the inside. Her keeper, maybe her younger brother, pulled hard on her leash to get the girl moving towards the door. Next in line there was a couple, a boy and a girl in their mid teens. The girl explained that they both needed PVC bib pants for indoor use. Their new nanny wanted to be able to clean her kids off after meals with a hose. The girl also said they needed harnesses so they could be locked to each other. One of the ladies tended to this, while the other was ready for Annika and Libby.

- How can I help you?

- My niece here is registered for restraining but she hasn’t got the equipment anymore.

- So she’s been harnessed before?

- In her teens a bit, but it was five years ago I held her leash last.

- Common these days. We get many older minors in here now after the new law. How old is this one?

- Annika is 22, aren’t you Sweetie?

- Yeths I am thentyth twow.

[NEW Feb 11^th, 2009]

As Annika tried to speak for the first time in about half an hour slimy drool oozed out of her mouth. The day before she had complained that the bridle bit made her mouth dry, so Libby had given her a pill to increase her saliva production.

- Obviously she needs a drool visor and a jaw restrainer. Lets start with that.

The sales lady explained that with a device known as a jaw restrainer mounted on the bridle, the wearer could only move her lower jaw and speak when a button in the control handle for the leash was pushed. The lady said that it was an easy task to mount the device, but it couldn´t be done while Annika was strapped in it. The problem was that as Annika wasn't equipped with another anchoring point it couldn't be done at the moment. Since the store was a public place it was illegal to set a restrained minor free here even for a moment.

- So we start with the matter of an indoor harness then, the lady said and walked over to an isle with harnessed mannequins.

There were several different designs. They all had straps around shoulders, waist and crotch. Boys and girls could use the same design until they were around 10, then the male and female anatomy started to differ so much that different designs were needed. All harnesses were tailor made to the intended wearer by simple adaptation of the length of the straps and sizes of the padding around girls' breasts and boys' groins. When properly adapted one should be able to hang freely in the locked harness from the ceiling comfortably for a whole day. Many teenagers nowadays hung in rails for most of the day, both at home and in schools. The sales lady said that rails were most popular for boys since they were usually a bit harder to control effectively.

They agreed on a model of harness and the lady started to measure up the straps on Annika. As she got in close the some of the girl´s slobber got onto the lady´s blouse.

- Wow she drools like a fountain!

- Well, I gave her a pill this morning.

- That´s good for her! She´s protected, but I´m not.

The lady grabbed a clear round piece of semi-hard plastic with a hole in the middle from a counter. It fitted like a cone around Annika´s neck and protected the world around from her slimy mouth. Annika felt like a dog after an operation with the funnel around her head. She hoped Libby wouldn't want to keep it on her for walks. On the other hand the drool protection helmet she had seen that other older girl wear didn't seem like much fun either. For the final fitting of the harness Annika had to strip. There were no changing rooms because restrained kid were supposed to be fully leash controlled all the time in the store. She dropped her by now rather sweaty PVC bibs and was ordered to remove her panties. She was then helped to put on a tight bodysuit made silicone rubber. It had a fine mesh of holes for ventilation and bellows to make room for a diaper.

- The silicone bodies actually give much less skin rash and they´re more flexible when kids move around.

A few minutes later Annika stood there in her short sleeved-short legged meshed silicone body, with a sturdy but soft full body harness locked at her back, leashed with a bridle and with a see-through plastic cone around her head. They moved the leash from the bridle to the harness and took off the bridle. The sales lady took it away to another room to fit the jaw restrainer. She was gone only a few minutes. When she came back she held the bridle in one hand and a package in the other.

- I've fitted the restrainer and I also brought a better leash with electronic controls.

The control was a small plastic box-like thing with the leash wire and its hook sticking out one end. At the other end was a hand grip with the controls. The leash was and the length of the wire could be adapted between nothing and ten meters by a switch controlled by the index finger. There were also controls on the sides of the hand grip to steer the bridle wearer left or right. A flick button controlled the jaw restrainer. For a more relaxed and safe way to hold on to the leash there was a short strap which could be hooked to a belt the parent wears.

- This is the last one in store! They´re very popular for older kids.

- Is it hard to use?

- Not really, but I think that you both should take a class in leash control.