Mark Jennings thought he had it made. He was very successful in Business. He was never had problems securing a date from some of the most attractive women in the city.

The only thing missing was the trophy wife.

Sure, when he needed an escort to a formal business function there was no shortage of women who were willing to accompany him to such functions. The problem was what happened when they opened their mouth.

Most times it was merely embarrassing. Sometimes, the utter garbage that came out of his escort's mouths was downright obscene.

Many of the businessmen who attended these functions had solved the problem by purchasing one of the many different types gags available from the ChastiLock Corporation. The problem with a lot of them was that not only were they permanent, they were also downright ugly. If you take a beautiful woman and shove a dammed ugly gag into her mouth you no longer have a beautiful woman, you have an ugly one.

One day, Mark found the solution to his problems.

He was at a dinner and happened to be sat next to a design engineer from the ChastiLock Company. During the evening, Mark explained his problem to the engineer. The engineer listened patiently and after asking a few questions, he calmly said "Mr Jennings, I think we can come up with something that will meet your requirements. Give me a few weeks and I'll let you know how we get on"

Mark drove home that night a much happier man.

It was nearly a month later when Mark got the phone call he was hoping for. "Mr Jennings. We have completed development of the device. Perhaps you could come to out offices for a demonstration"

"Thank you. I'll be along on Wednesday"

As promised, he turned up at the offices of the ChastiLock Corporation the following Wednesday afternoon. Same engineer he'd had dinner with those weeks earlier greeted him.

"Welcome Mr Jennings. This is the device. I think it will meet your requirements"

He handed Mark the device. It looked a lot smaller that the normal devices that many women & indeed men were seen wearing nowadays.

"It looks very nice," said Mark as he handed it back to the engineer.

"Good. I've arranged a demonstration for you." He turned and motioned to a tall slim fairly good-looking woman who was standing on the far side of the room to come forward. "This is Dianne. She is going to demonstrate the device for you today"

"Are you ready Dianne?"

She gave a slight nod of her head.

"Open wide please?"

She opened her mouth as wide as it would go.

"Hold still. Try to keep your tongue still" Slowly, he inserted the device into her open mouth. It went right inside. He fitted the top bit over her top teeth. "Please close your mouth" Dianne let her mouth close over the device. "Wiggle your jaw a little to get it comfortable"

She did so. "Ok?" he asked.

She nodded her head.

"Right I'm going to enable the device"

He picked up a small remote control and keyed in a 6-digit number.

A small light on the remote changed from green to red.

"Its active now." Said the engineer.

"We just have to wait a couple of minutes. The device will extend itself around her tongue and down her throat.

A couple of minutes passed and the light on the control changed back to green.

"Right. It is ready for use. I'll set it to what you requested is the normal mode."

He keyed in another number.

The light briefly flashed red and returned to green.

"Now Dianne, please try to say something"

The words "It feels funny" came out of her mouth in a very different voice to her normal one.

"Good. That is working. Now I'm going to enable the Normal but Clean mode"

He keyed in another series of numbers. Once again, the light briefly flashed red.

"Now Dianne, please try to say something that has some rude words in it"

She tried to say something.

"What the . . . . are you doing"

The engineer said, "As you can see, she can't say any profanities"

"Exactly as I required. What about the punishment modes?"

"Ah yes."

The engineer keyed in yet another number.

"Right Dianne, please try again. Don't worry, I've set the level to a minimum"

She tried again "What the . . . are you doing"

As she tried to utter the profanity, she winced visibly as the device gave her a slight electric shock. "If she tries it again, the punishment level will increase. You can naturally programme in the rate of increase"

"Excellent. What about the other modes?"

"They are all working. For example, there is the silence mode with its optional punishments. Finally, there is the closed mode."

"Can I see that please?"

"Yes. Certainly"

After keying another set of numbers he said.

"Dianne, would you like to say something?"

She tried hard but her mouth wouldn't open.

"Does the device meet with your requirements?"

"Perfectly. Looks a lot better than the standard ChastiLock device"

"Indeed. We aim to please our customers"

"How is it removed?"

"Oh Mr Jennings, I can't be removed for 24 hours. This is one of the things that we are still working on. After the time period, the device will automatically de-activate itself unless the device has issued punishment more that three times. In that case, it stays active for another 24 hours. There are some more refinements to the Nanites required. We should have them sorted out in a few weeks"

Mark thought for a few moments.

"No. That is fine. I'll just have to purchase a few more than I'd imagined." He said laughing.

He turned to Dianne.

"Thank you for demonstrating the device."

She smiled.

"In return, I'd like to invite you out to dinner tonight. I'll even let you speak & eat if you are nice to me. What do you say?"

He laughed.

"Sorry you can't speak." He turned to the engineer."Can you let her answer?"

"Ok" He keyed in the code.

"Dianne?"

"Yes. Thank you. I would like to come out to dinner with you" she said in her new voice.

The engineer interrupted them by saying "Please don't code in '999999'. This will make the device permanent"

Both of them looked shocked.

"This is one of our standard features. There is something like this in all our removable devices. Naturally, if you do accidentally make it permanent, then the ChastiLock Corporation will not be held liable for the consequences"

He paused.

"Do you understand this?"

The both answered 'yes'.

Mark picked up Dianne and took her to dinner that night.

At one point Dianne asked,

"Forgive me for asking but why would a successful man as yourself need to have a woman wear such a device as this? I know all about the normal ChastiLock gags. Christ knows, far too many of my co-workers are permanently gagged with them. That is not for me thank you very much"

Mark smiled.

"Yes you allowed yourself to demonstrate the device for me?"

She smiled.

"It took some convincing let me tell you. I eventually agree when I understood that it is not permanent in any way"

Mark looked at Dianne "Is there anything else?"

She smiled. "I have to admit it did give me a bit of a turn on when it was switched on"

"Do you notice that you are wearing it?"

"Apart from not being able to taste anything, no I don't"

"Oh. I didn't know that was a problem"

She smiled. "All this wonderful food is wasted on me. It could be a BigMac & Fries"

They both laughed.

At the end of the meal, Mark looked at Dianne.

"Would you consider coming to work for me?"

"Eh?"

"Do you know the reason I wanted this device created?"

She shook her head.

"I wanted to be able to take a woman to Business Events and not have them show me up. I thought that if they couldn't speak crap without getting punished then I wouldn't get embarrassed by their foolishness or just plain bad language I came up with the idea for the device you are wearing"

"So what would I do? You know working for you?"

"Oh this & That. I don't know what your skills are"

"Would I be your trophy wife?"

He chuckled. "Yes"

"Would I have to wear this device?"

He thought for a moment. Then he smiled. "Do you want to wear it?"

She smiled. "It depends who has the control unit" she replied smiling.

He laughed.

"I can see you are quite a smart person"

She grinned back at him.

"I think that is enough conversation for one day"

He punched in a code into the remote.

She tried to complain but got punished for her efforts.

Mark took her home without a further word being said.

Over the following months Dianne & Mark worked on improving the device. They dated regularly and she became 'his trophy wife' for business events.

The first thing to get 'fixed' was the matter of taste. Modifications were made to allow the wearer to eat anything. Foods they would not normally eat were detected by the nannies and they fooled the wearer's taste buds into thinking that they were eating something nice.

This was very advantageous when dining with international clients.

Other modifications included being able to designate places where whatever mode the unit was in, it would enter another pre-designated mode without the use of the remote control.

Unbeknown to Mark, Dianne was wearing the device all day, every day. The only time it was removed was for modifications to be made. She had one modification made without his knowledge. This was the detachable faceplate. This made her appear to be wearing a normal ChastiLock device in her mouth. She wore this every day to work. This made life with her colleagues more pleasant.

Eventually, Mark proclaimed that the device was ready. To celebrate, he took Dianne out to dinner. As usual, they talked throughout the meal. She did get punished once for trying to utter a profanity when the waiter stood on her foot but they both laughed it off.

Towards the end of the meal, Mark repeated the offer of a job.

Dianne said that she would think about it.

At the end of the meal, Mark took Dianne home.

When he stopped outside her apartment, he reached over and kissed her.

She tried to speak but couldn't.

"Sorry" he said as he fumbled for the remote and enabled her voice again.

"Was that in the job description?"

"Only if you want it to be"

She reached over and grabbed the remote control.

"I'll think about it and let you know", said Dianne as she got out of the car.

He sighed.

"How will you let me know?"

She smiled at Mark and said,

"Oh, you will know. You will know"

The next day, a courier delivered the remote control to his office. The attached note simply said, "Yes. When do I start?"

Three weeks later.

"Do you Dianne take this man Mark to be your lawful wedded husband? To love and obey him and be silent whenever he commands?"

"I do", signed Dianne with a big smile on her face and an equally big ring on her finger.

Postscript.

Mark had a similar device fitted before they left for their Honeymoon. Their home was designated as a 'silent' place for both of them.

On the last night of their honeymoon, they both keyed in '999999' into their remotes. Then they made love like it would have been in a silent movie.

He truly did have everything he wanted from life.