You Broke Like Glass

"What... is that supposed to be hypnotizing me or something?" Wayne said, his voice incredulous. In front of him, Jerry's monitor filled up with a looping, spiral scrawl that extended from the center of the screen all the way around to the very edge before another line in a different color traced a similar path next to it. The result was a precession of swirling lines, each one offering the illusion of movement as the space next to it filled in.

Jerry chuckled. Wayne couldn't help noticing that his subordinate had positioned himself on the other side of the monitor. Away from the screen. "Well," he said, "you'd know if it was, wouldn't you?" Wayne looked up at Jerry in confusion, but the constant motion of the spiral in the corner of his eye kept him from giving the other man his full attention. "From last time, I mean," Jerry added nonchalantly. He smirked, a smug little grin that hinted at secrets that he enjoyed hiding too much to truly keep.

"I, last time?" Wayne furrowed his brow in confusion, trying to keep his eyes aimed at Jerry and not at the looping, spinning spiral on the screen. "Jerry, I haven't even been down to your office in..." He trailed off into silence, trying to remember the last time he'd dropped in on the boys in IT. That was the thing about managing a tech department-half the time he didn't even understand what the heck they were doing, and they knew it. An old hand like Jerry could spout off a billion plausible excuses for hanging out in his office and doing whatever he felt like, and get away with it so long as nothing broke. Wayne usually let them get on with it.

But looking at the spiral, it was starting to become obvious that maybe Wayne had given Jerry perhaps a little too much slack. If all he did was sit around on company time writing 'computer hypnosis programs' that were really just repetitive images, maybe Wayne needed to make a change in the department. Sure, Jerry was team lead, but Wayne could find someone younger and cheaper to do a better job. He'd just need to-

"I'm sorry, in what?" Jerry asked, breaking into Wayne's train of thought. Wayne realized suddenly that he had gotten distracted again by the annoyingly eye-catching image on the screen, and jerked his gaze back up to Jerry's face again. "You were saying something, right? Something about not remembering the spiral?"

Wayne frowned in irritation. "Well, no, I don't remember the spiral," he said, glancing back down momentarily at the twisting ribbons of light spooling out from the center of the screen. "Because I've never seen it before." It didn't look familiar to him at all; he didn't get any kind of a sense of deja vu as it looped around and around through the rainbow of colors. It just looked like some third-party screensaver that had been left going on Jerry's computer.

Jerry just laughed. "I... wow, that was exactly what you said last time," he chuckled, rubbing his bearded chin in amusement as Wayne looked back up at him in frustration. "You stared into the spiral, just like that, and you said you'd never seen it before. Just like all the other times. But I suppose you don't remember those either, do you?"

Wayne's jaw clenched slightly in irritation. "No, I do not remember those 'other times', because they didn't happen. Look, Jerry, I'm not sure what you're trying to pull here, but I don't have time for these childish games. I've got important work to get back to." The important work was little more than a third-quarter spreadsheet that wasn't due for a week and a performance review on the new intern, but Wayne was starting to think that he might be able to squeeze in a disciplinary action on his team lead later on in the day.

"That's what you always say," Jerry said, his voice suddenly pitched slightly lower. It was a strange tone, firm and soothing all at the same time. The kind of voice you used when quieting a class of rowdy children, or getting a strange dog to understand 'sit'. "That's how I know you're starting to fall under the spiral's spell, Wayne. You always tell me that you need to stop looking at the spiral and get away. You make up an excuse every time, but deep down, that's when I know your will is beginning to break. Soon, you'll surrender to the program on the screen and become my obedient slave."

Wayne let out a huffy snort of annoyance. "I am not 'surrendering' to the spiral, Jerry! Look!" He made a theatrical point of leaning in, putting his hands on the desk and sticking his head forward so that it was almost touching the screen. "See? I'm staring right at your 'hypnotic spiral', and it's not doing anything to me at all. I'm not 'falling under its spell', I'm not 'making an excuse to get away', and I remember perfectly everything that's happened to me. Now will you knock this shit off and tell me what you called me down here for before I really lose my temper?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Wayne saw Jerry smile like a poker player who's just had his bluff called while holding four aces. "What I called you down here for is this, Wayne. Just like all the other times. You don't even remember how easily your will broke, how effortlessly you gave in and submitted to my control, but it's happening all over again. You're responding perfectly to your post-hypnotic suggestions, Wayne, looking directly into the spiral and letting it captivate your gaze as it spins around and around and around. The closer you look, the more you feel that familiar sensation of your body tumbling forward into the deep colors at the center. You can feel that right now, can't you, Wayne?"

"No, I-" Wayne suddenly broke off, gripping the desk tighter as a wave of dizziness washed over him. This close to the screen, the optical illusion of movement in each individual band of color was stronger than before, making him feel like he was being pitched forward even though his body wasn't moving. He shook his head to clear it, not caring that it would no doubt reinforce Jerry's delusional belief that he was 'falling into the spiral', and waited for the room to stop spinning before he tried to stand up.

"That's it, Jerry said, his voice calm and unshakeable. "You're starting to remember, aren't you? That feeling of your body drifting forward into the spiral, the way the rest of the room starts to fade out until all you can see is the center of the screen. Think closely about that feeling, Wayne. Focus all your attention on that spinning, dizzy sensation, and try to remember when you've felt it before. It's like the spiral is perfectly still now, and you're the one going around... and around... and around, isn't it?"

Wayne felt his knuckles go white as he held the edge of the desk as tightly as possible, his body feeling constantly like it was lurching to the side as he gazed into the spiral. Every blink felt sickeningly disorientating, the illusory motion ceasing as his eyes closed only to resume its dizzying whirl when he opened them again. Wayne forced himself to keep looking, shutting out his surroundings in an effort to ease the spinning sensation.

But Jerry wouldn't leave it at that. "The spiral is still," he said, the repetition almost a demand in Wayne's ears. "And you're spinning around. And around. And around. Isn't that right, Wayne?"

Wayne nodded slightly, the motion of his head nearly making his knees buckle with vertigo. "Yes," he said, the echo of stubbornness still in his voice, "but..." He trailed off into silence, trying to find the right words to counter Jerry's bizarre arguments. The room was spinning, yes, and Wayne did feel like he was floating deeper and deeper into the colors as his awareness of his surroundings slowly faded away, but... but that didn't mean that he was being hypnotized. It didn't mean that he'd been hypnotized before, and had forgotten it. It didn't mean that Jerry had some kind of power over his mind. It just meant...

Jerry didn't give him a chance to figure out what it meant. He broke into Wayne's train of thought, neatly inserting his own interpretation of Wayne's words before Wayne could come up with one. "But you still don't remember being hypnotized. No matter how hard you try, no matter how deep you look into the spiral and focus on the swirling colors until nothing exists but my words and the looping patterns on the screen, you don't remember being hypnotized to forget. You're so certain that you've never been hypnotized before, aren't you?"

Wayne almost nodded again, but remembered just in time what it did. He kept himself perfectly still, not even moving his eyes from the center of the screen, and said, "That's right. I'm certain that I've... never been hypnotized before." It felt strangely effortful to speak, like his mind was so occupied with keeping the sensation of vertigo at bay that he didn't have any energy to spare for anything else. But all he was doing was agreeing with Jerry anyway. He didn't need to think too hard about that.

And Jerry agreed with him, too. "That's it exactly," he said, his voice a low purr as he came around the desk to stand just behind Wayne, speaking right into Wayne's ears while Wayne stared into the spiral. Wayne caught himself wondering for a moment how Jerry would resist the swirling colors, but then he reminded himself that the program couldn't really hypnotize anyone. Wayne wasn't really hypnotized. He was just focused on the screen, that was all.

"You're absolutely certain that you've never been hypnotized before," Jerry continued, his hand resting on Wayne's shoulder reassuringly. "Just like I commanded. You're following my suggestions easily and effortlessly, forgetting exactly what you've been told to forget and believing exactly what you've been told to believe. You know you can't be hypnotized because deep down, you know you've been hypnotized over and over. Every time you insist that you're not hypnotized, you're following my instructions."

Wayne let out a tiny sigh, feeling somehow paralyzed by the floating sensation the spiral induced. Instead of shaking his head, he just let out a tiny grunt of, "no," but even he could hear that his voice had no real force to it. It just felt so hard to do anything but stare at the screen and watch the bands of color loop around and around, always outward until he felt like his body didn't even exist anymore. Until it was just his mind, floating and drifting away from his physical self into the heart of the spiral.

Jerry just chuckled, his hands petting Wayne's back and chest with lazy, comfortable familiarity. "Every time you deny it, Wayne, you're just admitting that you're so deeply brainwashed that you don't even remember being brainwashed to begin with. Every time you tell me you can't be hypnotized, you're following all my instructions. Every time you tell me that you've never been hypnotized, you're just telling me that you were hypnotized too deeply to remember. The more you struggle against it, the more true it becomes."

"...no, I..." Wayne tried to pick apart the insidious logic of Jerry's argument, but the spiral made it so hard to concentrate on anything but the dizzy, drifting feeling in his head. Even when Jerry unbuckled Wayne's belt and slid Wayne's trousers down, his fingers circling around Wayne's cock and beginning to slowly tug it to full erection, it felt like it was happening to someone else. Wayne felt like a passenger inside his own body, like he was so deep in the spiral that the feeling of Jerry's hand on his balls came to him down a long cable that only loosely tethered him to the real world.

And Jerry's words slipped into the part of his mind that was still back with his body, the silent, accepting subconscious self that felt every bit of Jerry's handjob. "It's true, Wayne," Jerry whispered, his voice like poisoned honey in Wayne's ear. "Every time you try to resist me, you only condition yourself more deeply into obedience. There's only one way to show me that you still have free will. You have to refuse my suggestions, and admit that you've been hypnotized."

Jerry's hand pumped up and down on Wayne's cock, tiny drips and gushes of precum lubricating his fingers as they slid easily against the sensitive skin. Wayne's body swayed back and forth with every stroke, the sensation amplifying the vertigo until his eyelids fluttered and danced with the impossible effort to keep them open. But Wayne could see the path to freedom now. The twisted spiral of Jerry's logic had an egress, and Wayne knew he had to take it if he ever wanted to escape the other man's power. "I... I have been hypnotized by the spiral," he murmured, his whole body relaxing as the weight of his mental struggle finally eased.

"That's it," Jerry said, the pace of his stroking increasing as he guided Wayne's mind to its logical conclusion. "That's right. Listen to yourself as you say each word, hear the drowsy, blank sound of your voice. You have been hypnotized before, and every time, you've forgotten."

Wayne was panting now, his hips swiveling as he rode Jerry's hand deeper into drowsy bliss. "I have been hypnotized before," he said, his voice a vacant, empty monotone colored only by arousal. "And every time, I've forgotten." He couldn't imagine why he'd ever believed that he hadn't been hypnotized. It was so obvious now. Jerry had hypnotized him over and over and over again, and he'd simply forgotten each time. It all made so much sense.

"Your will has been broken by my hypnosis," Jerry husked out. Wayne could feel the other man's penis rubbing through Jerry's trousers, thick and hard and obviously aroused. "You forgot being brainwashed into my obedient slave, but now you remember."

"M-my will has been broken by your hypnosis," Wayne repeated, the memories scrawling themselves onto the blank canvas of his mind with every word. "I f-forgot being... being brainwashed into your obedient slave. But now I remember." The memories were still fuzzy, lacking clarity and detail, but Wayne understood now. That only meant that he'd been hypnotized to forget them. The deeper he went into the spiral, the better he would remember. The more he accepted Jerry's control, the more he would remember being controlled by Jerry. It was so easy, now that he knew the truth.

"Y-your resistance was... was erased," Jerry moaned, openly humping Wayne's leg as his fist became a blur on Wayne's cock. "Any time you, you think you can resist me... you remember now that you're obeying a suggestion. To believe you can resist." He let out a tiny, strangled yelp that almost made Wayne spurt right then and there, but the words had a pull every bit as powerful as the spiral, and Wayne couldn't help following them deeper.

"My resistance was erased," he whimpered, his voice thick with pleasure as he felt his balls tighten with hot, tingling arousal. "Any time I think I can resist you, I..." He struggled to say the words, to keep them from dissolving into moans of pure ecstasy as the force of his climax washed over him. "I rrremember now. I'm obeying a suggestion to..."

Wayne's existence narrowed down to the tip of his penis as his orgasm crested. "tobelieveicanresistofuckohfuckohhhFUCK!" he squealed, as his cum jetted out all over Jerry's hand and the office floor. He slowly sagged to his knees, exhausted, his mind blank as the afterglow sapped him of all his energy until his eyes slipped shut of their own accord.

When they opened again, Jerry's cock was right there in front of him, achingly hard and flushed almost purple with arousal. "Suck it, slave," Jerry growled. If there was even a moment when Wayne tried to resist, it was a moment that disappeared into the depths of the spiral logic that enslaved him deeper every time he tried to struggle. It certainly didn't show on his face as he eagerly leaned forward and took Jerry's cock into his mouth.

THE END