I was running late, so I didn't have time for much more than a peck on the cheek as she handed me my lunch bag. It was the same one she'd bought me when I took the job, ten years ago, and it had more or less the same lunch in it; some things don’t change much, and it doesn't matter. Not when you get them right in the first place.

“Have a good day, babe. I love you.”

We both said it, it doesn't need attribution. Same as every day.

If it sounds boring, don't worry.

I was in between meetings all morning and it was already creeping past one when I finally grabbed my lunch bag from the office fridge and settled down in my office to eat. Usually I ate at the tables in the kitchen with the rest of my team, but today I wanted some peace and alone time after team-wide strategy planning all morning.

I turned on a relaxing ambient playlist, opened my lunch bag, and found a little note on top: a piece of yellow paper folded in half. A funny tingle ran down my spine, and I unfolded the paper. It was pen—blue ink, a big capital letter D and a spiral written over top of it, just one line starting from a point at the centre of the D and expanding outward, circling around and around and...

With a sort of click the knowledge popped into my head that the D stood for “drone”. My body stiffened... in multiple ways. I stood, eyes wide and not really focused on anything, my cock already stiff in my trousers, and walked with carefully controlled steps to the door of my office. I turned the lock, pivoted, and returned to the desk, but didn't step behind it to return it my seat.

Instead, I untucked my shirt, undoing the buttons. I folded it without thinking and set it down on the desk. I bent on one knee and unlaced my shoe, slipped it off, balled the sock up inside it, switched knees and did the other. The shoes I carefully lined up beside the desk. Now I undid my belt and put it down, coiled, next to my shirt. Off came my trousers, folded carefully, then my underwear, the same. I carried out the ritual without even thinking about it. Was stripping in my office at lunch hour unusual? I didn’t think about it.

I didn’t think. I knelt.

Naked in my office, facing my desk, back to the office door, I knelt and found my phone in my hand. I was sending my wife a text.

It said, “Drone is active and awaits your command.”

I didn't know why I said that or what it meant, but it didn't matter. My cock was hard, throbbing, and all I knew was I couldn't touch it. Couldn’t move. Could only await.

My mind was so pleasantly empty. It was peaceful. My purpose was clear: to do exactly as I was told.

Drones must obey.

Drones have no will.

The text might have taken a few minutes to come, I didn’t have much awareness of time passing.

“Is drone ready to obey?”

I didn’t think about the question, I just answered it.

“Yes, Mistress. Drone must obey.”

“Does drone want to stroke?”

“Drone has no will. Drone is programmed to obey.”

“Good drone. Start stroking now.”

“Yes, Mistress.” My free hand closed around my cock, at exactly the right pressure to keep me aroused indefinitely without going overboard. The pleasure uncurled from the tip and slid down the shaft as I ran my hand up and down, and it became a pleasant pulse in the base of my spine. If I was uncomfortable from kneeling, I didn’t notice. There was only pleasure.

And pleasure is obedience.

And obedience is pleasure.

I received another text. I hadn’t looked away from the screen… I hadn’t been told to.

“Why is drone programmed to stroke?”

I knew the answer, of course, without needing to think. It took a long time to type, one-handed, but I had unlimited patience.

“Stroking deepens drone’s brainwashing.

“Stroking is pleasure.

“And pleasure is obedience.

“And stroking and sinking is better than thinking.”

“Good drone. Repeat the last line out loud.”

I began. My voice sounded drowsy and robotic, lacking inflection. I sounded like… like what I was. A brainwashed drone, repeating my programming because I’d been told to, without understanding that I was only taking myself deeper and deeper under my wife’s control with every word, and every stroke.

Time disappeared. I might have spent the rest of the day like that, or the rest of the week, until the text appeared.

“Stop stroking now, drone. And stop speaking.”

I knew to acknowledge this. “Yes, Mistress. Drone awaits your command.”

“Good drone. You’ve done very well. When I tell you to begin awakening sequence, you will remember only that you enjoyed your lunch hour.”

“Yes, Mistress. Drone obeys and forgets.”

“Begin awakening sequence.”

I slowly, slowly stood. My legs were stiff and I put my phone on the desk and stretched them. I was still hard, but my cock was returning to normal now that I wasn’t stimulating it and I’d forgotten why I had any reason to be aroused. I put my clothes back on in a pleasant daze, and it was only when I sat back down at my desk and started eating my lunch—forgotten for the better part of an hour—that I returned to full waking consciousness. I crumpled up my wife’s note and tossed it in the bin, and our little game was forgotten until she triggered my memory of it.

After all, that’s how she’d programmed me.

I’d worked about an hour later than usual, and sent my wife a text to let her know. She had said she’d be out running some errands when I got home, but dinner was in the fridge. I took out one of the glass containers. There was a little envelope sitting on top, on which she’d written “Open for dessert xoxo”.

I dutifully saved the envelope for when I was through eating, and a funny shiver ran down my spine when I saw the yellow slip of paper inside. I unfolded the paper and saw the letter B encircled by a spiral.

I stood from the table and the fork I’d been holding slipped onto the floor. I didn’t hear the sound it made.

I knew the B stood for “Brainwashing”.

I walked into the living room like a sleepwalker and began taking off my clothes for the second time that day. There was already a blanket on the couch, and a little bottle of lube sat on top next to the TV remote—I knew all I was required to do was sit down and turn the TV on. First, I took a bit of the lube and slicked it around the head and down the shaft of my cock; I hadn’t noticed myself get stiff in the short time since I’d read my wife’s note, but it was thickening quickly, and I began stroking it in the same slow, programmed rhythm I’d forgotten all about during my lunch hour.

I clicked the TV on, and the spiral was already playing. She must have set it up before she left.

The spiral was riveting. Even if I hadn’t been so deeply conditioned to fall instantly into trance upon seeing it, I would have found it hard to look away. It flowed endlessly inward in waves of soothing colour, and following the complex pattern became the most natural thing in the world after just a few moments. It might even have been the thing my wife used to hypnotize me for the very first time, though everything about that wonderful evening has always been a bit hazy.

It took a few seconds of watching the spiral to see the words that flashed over top of it. They were the same set of words, over and over, and my mouth was chanting them out loud before my brain even started seeing them. I knew the words well, since they were deeply imprinted in my subconscious mind. All it took was a little trigger like the note she’d left in the envelope and they rose up effortlessly and took firm control of my thoughts.

The words appeared in random order, over and over, and my brain dutifully assembled them into commands it would obey. Pleasure pulsed steadily through my cock and throughout my whole body, but there was no question of release—I wasn’t stroking for my own pleasure, after all, but to better reinforce my programming. My wife controlled my orgasm just like everything else about her drone, and that was exactly as it should be. My body relaxed as my mind surrendered more and more completely to hypnosis, and I had no idea how long I sat there before I felt her hand stroking the side of my face.

She was kneeling on the couch next to me, looking down, and whispering to me about what a good boy I was, what a good drone, how well-programmed I was, and how good I felt, and truer words were never spoken. I was unable to look away from the spiral dominating my vision and my mind, but I knew her by smell and by touch and I imagined her beautiful face as she spoke. I could hear the smile in her voice, and a deep, deep part of me was thrilled to know that she was living out a wonderful fantasy just as I was.

She turned the TV off, and the spiral vanished. I sat, stroked, and stared, because she had not told me to do anything else.

“Stand up, drone, and follow me to bed.”

I did as she commanded, of course. I didn’t even need to think about it.

“Yes, Mistress. Drone must obey.”

She smiled at me and took my hand, leading me to the bedroom. She leaned in close, kissed me, and said, “Undress me.”

She raised her arms overhead and I gently pulled her shirt up and over, then undid her bra. Normally I would have run my hands all over her body, but all my impulses were restrained by her control—and that was more arousing than anything. I unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down, and she slid back onto the bed as I took her panties off. I knelt between her legs and drank in the sight of her, and she told me, “Lick.”

I felt her thighs close and warm on either side of my face, smelled her arousal, and then my lips and tongue were pleasing her, with not another thought in my head. My cock throbbed with every squirm and moan she made, every time she put her hands in my hair and pulled, and of course the deep part of me wanted to take her, wanted it with every fibre of my being, just like it had wanted to explode in orgasm for practically the entire day, but I was too well-programmed for that.

When she did command her drone to take her, her voice was so ragged and husky with pleasure I could hardly understand the words. But I understood the command nonetheless, and obeyed eagerly.

Even when we both lay exhausted on the bed, though, she never did let me cum.

Perhaps some other night.

Nestled in my arms, she leaned in and whispered, “Begin awakening sequence”, and we kissed each other as I drifted back to reality. I squeezed her and laughed when she asked if I had a good day, which brought the memories of my time as her drone flooding back.

“I guess you know the answer better than I do,” I said, nibbling on her earlobe. “Did you?”

“I was going nuts imagining you under my control at work, and then at home… when I came in the house and saw you sitting there watching the spiral, babe, fuck.”

“Mmm. Knowing you were watching me get brainwashed and there’s nothing I could do or even think about it, is…”

“Yeah. Yeah it is.” We kissed again. We were both getting turned back on, just remembering our shenanigans.

A long while later, she was fast asleep and I was starting to drift off myself. I slid out of the bed first, to take care of one last thing.

In the kitchen, I opened a drawer and took out a few blue slips of paper and a pen. On each one, I carefully drew a simple spiral shape. And then I thought for a moment, turned the possibilities over in my head, my erection starting to return as I dreamed up scenarios, and I drew letters atop the spirals on each piece of paper. Then I hid them in various places around the house.

I crept back into the bedroom and slid under the covers. I listened carefully to my wife’s breathing; she was still fast asleep. I lay one last kiss on the back of her neck.

Tomorrow it was her turn.