The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The weekend was a blur, and suddenly it was Monday again. ‘Back to business as usual’, I thought as I headed in to my office to work. It was an uneventful morning,

until I was surprised by a knock on my office door surprised me. That was a little odd, considering that now was my official ‘office hours’. But, the thing about required courses is that no one wants to take them, so none of the students have any genuine investment. Which means that, if you’re an instructor, they don’t come to talk to you unless it’s the week before a test. Which means that my official designated time to be available to my students had turned into my beloved free time. So, finding one of my students actually there was quite an occurrence.

Especially for this particular student. I looked up from my desk, and saw Lauren Meyers, the top student in my classes. No, the best student I’d ever had. She was acing the course, so she clearly didn’t need any help; and yet, here she was, in need of some extra help with the course for reasons that I really couldn’t imagine.

I didn’t mind having to meet with Lauren, though—she was quite a piece of eye candy,

and so I certainly had no objection to spending the rest of the hour sitting across from her. ‘I guess I should try not to think like that,’ I mused to myself, ‘it’s inappropriate behaviour for a student-teacher interaction’. She clearly didn’t mind, though. Sometimes, she even seemed to invite the attention.

“Hi Lauren, what’s up?”

“Oh, nothing much,” she said, closing my office door behind her. “I just wanted to ask you something about the last homework assignment you handed back today in class. I was wondering if you could clarify some of the comments you wrote. Also, you told me to see you.”

“Yes, I need to talk to you about part of your assignment. Do you have it with you?”

I watched her rifle through her bag to find the paper she was looking for. She looked good today, as always. Her tight jeans showed off her firm ass. As she bent over to look in her backpack, her shirt rode up, offering me a glimpse of her lovely skin underneath. I scooted forward, and tried to subtly peek over the desk and sneak a better glance at her legs, but she stood up before I had the chance. I pulled back awkwardly, somehow intimidated by this first-year student’s allure. But there was just something about her I couldn’t dismiss...

She sat down across from me, and slid her assignment in front of me on the desk. I pointed to where she had written her name as “Mistress Lauren Meyers”.

“What’s the deal with this?”

She looked down at the page, then back up at me. “Oh, I dunno, I guess that must be a typo”

I looked at her quizzically. “Strange typo.” She shrugged. “Lauren, you need to be very careful about this kind of thing in the future. You’re an exceptional student, and I can already tell you’re really going to go places. But, an error like this, someone could very seriously misinterpret, and it could cost you big time. You understand?”

She nodded. “Anything else, professor Belton?”

“Yes, in fact.” I paged through her assignment until I found where she had written the phrase ‘tell me you need to obey me’. I pointed to it. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“Oh, I guess I just put that in there as a joke.”

“A joke?” I asked incredulously

She replied: “To make sure you were awake, y’know? Some professors, you can tell they don’t even read the homework. But not you, you’re different professor Belton.”

“Yes, I do read what you write, on every homework. And I’m not the only professor who does, pretty much all of us do. Which means it’s completely inappropriate for you to pull stunts like this, Lauren. It’s going to come across wrong.”

“I see, professor Belton,” she said apologetically, “I’m sorry”

“It’s okay, I’ll let it slide. But just this once, and only because your work so far has been excellent.” I tried to muster a stern tone, but it just wasn’t me. Hell, she was right, and she probly knew it. But I had to do something, at least to keep up appearances.

“Thank you, professor”, she said, her eyes still downcast.

I slid Lauren’s paper back to her, and sat back & sighed, my rebuke finished. “So, what did you want to ask me about, Lauren?”

She flipped back through the pages, and stopped at the last one. “Right here, this thing, I couldn’t read your handwriting there”

I looked where she was pointing. Right there, in my own handwriting, it said “Excellent point, Mistress Lauren!". Something fishy was going on, I couldn’t remember writing that. That would’ve been completely impermissible. Or would it?

“Um...I don’t remember exactly what I meant when I was writing that one, sorry”

“No, no, it’s okay,” she said, “but can we try to figure out what you meant now?”

“uhh...sure, I suppose so.” I felt very strange.

“So, here it says ‘Mistress’ – that must mean I’m you’re mistress, right?”

I felt a chill of excitement creep up my spine, and tried not to let it show. “Oh, no, I was just making a joke, since you had written your name as ‘Mistress Lauren’", I said.

“Oh, haha, okay” she replied. “There was one more thing, too.”

She paged through her work again, stopping in the middle.

“Okay, here it is.” She put the page down on the desk again, facing me. “So, that’s does it say here in the margin next to what you circled?”

I looked where she was pointing. It was the same page where I had circled the wayward line “tell me you need to obey me”. And right below that there, a little farther down on the page, it said: “I need to obey you, Mistress Lauren”. In MY handwriting. Something was definitely wrong, I couldn’t have written that.

“What does it say?", she asked tauntingly.

I looked at it, then up at her, and found her deep blue eyes piercing into my mind. “I need to obey you, Mistress Lauren”, I repeated.

“Good boy” she said. Mmm...I liked the way she said that.

“You DO need to obey me, don’t you?”

I shivered. “Yes, Mistress Lauren”, I blurted in response, before I could even think about it. I jumped, startled, realizing what I had just done. That was pushing the bounds of what the university could fire me for.

She just giggled. I was safe, she hadn’t taken it as sexual harassment.

I shook the cobwebs out of my head and looked at the clock on my desk. 9:15? That couldn’t be right. “Shit”, I muttered under my breath.

“What is it?” Lauren asked earnestly.

“Oh, nothing, it’s just that my clock is wrong again. Do you happen to have the time?”

Lauren reached in her pocket, and produced a gleaming silver pocketwatch.

“Quarter to 2” she said, looking at it.

“Thanks.” My mind jumped to visions of her swinging it before my eyes, longing for that to happen. I was almost crestfallen as she started to put it away after checking the time.

“Cool watch,” I said, crossing my fingers that she’d hold it up again and let me have a closer look—close enough that I’d have the image of her swinging it back and forth in front of me to think about later that night.

“Oh, thanks!” she responded. “Do you like it?” My wish paid off as she reached in her pocket and took out the end of the long silver chain, holding the watch up by the end of it.

“I just got it, I think it’s really cool, and looks so classy”

She lifted it higher, holding it over my desk for me to see better. I leaned in. It was a beautiful-looking watch, indeed. It gave me ideas as it dangled from her lovely fingers.

“Very nice” I said, looking at it more closely.

“And see, it has this cool spiral on the back,” she said, twisting the chain so the watch slowly spun around.

“Oh, huh.” I replied, watching it spin.

“I like that, it’s fun. See, so many people, when they think of pocketwatches, they immediately think of hypnotism. So it’s like a little inside joke.”

I chuckled reservedly. “I suppose so.”

Lauren started to swing the watch back and forth. I almost couldn’t believe it was happening. I tried as hard as I could not to watch it, afraid I’d start to slip under just from the sheer presence of this exceptionally captivating young woman.

“Yooouuu are getting veeeeeeerrrry sleeeeeeeepyy” she said in a contrived european accent. “You will fall into a trance when I snap my fingers...wooooOoOoOoOoh”

She giggled infectiously, and I laughed too as she put the watch away.

“Hmmmmm...” she started, looking up at me again. “Actually, professor? In all seriousness, I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor – would you be willing to let me actually hypnotize you for real? I’m supposed to practice on someone outside of class for my advanced psych seminar. I’ve done it with my roommate tons of times and I think I’ve gotten pretty good. But unfortunately, she’s also gotten to be great as a subject, I guess, because now she goes under so quickly that I don’t really get a chance to practice the inductions anymore. Could I maybe try it with you? I promise it won’t take long, and you’ll feel really great and relaxed afterwards.”

My heart was practically in my throat. How on earth could this possibly be happening? Was this really real? I pinched myself. Yep, not dreaming.

“Um...” I said, trying not to let any of my excitement show, “Sure, I guess so. My office hours are pretty much over anyway, so I suppose I have time...”

“Okay, great, thank you SOOO much, professor Belton. Is it okay if I close your door, just so there’s no extra distractions?” She asked.

“Go right ahead.”

“Thanks,” Lauren said as she stood up and shut the door quietly. She turned back to me. “Now, I just need to ask you a few questions before we start, and then a few more later.”

I watched as she pulled a notebook and folder out of her bag. She opened both, and took some kind of sheet out of her folder.

“First, Have you ever been hypnotized before?”

“Uh...” I paused. I really wasn’t sure how to answer that one.

Yes, I had been. A thousand times, maybe. I had downloaded dozens of audio and video files of female hypnotists, and played them all dozens of times. I thought I’d gone under, using them, but I really had no way to be certain – I had never had the opportunity to meet a real hypnotist before. I’d tried to go under with my last girlfriend a few times, but I’d always had to do the work myself. She’d let me stare into her eyes as I put myself under, but it was always me giving the suggestions to my unconscious mind as I drifted off. She would just let me stare into her eyes until I was hard enough to fuck. Of course, there was no way I could tell Lauren any of this, ever – she was a student of mine! I decided to be vague.

“...well...I tried watching this video on youtube once. But I dunno if it worked or not.”

“Oh, cool. So, you’re not, like, completely unfamiliar with hypnosis, that’s great!” she said enthusiastically and cheerfully. “But you’ve never tried it with a professional hypnotist, or been to a stage hypnosis show, or anything like that?”

“No. Just the youtube thing.”

“And, you said you weren’t sure it worked?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know if I was really hypnotized.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Lauren said. “Well, this time, I can pretty well promise you you’ll go into a trance, and you’ll enjoy it, and know that it worked. Sound good?”

“Sure!”

“Great. Now, there’s just one more technicality thing.” Lauren produced another piece of paper, a blank form. “The professor makes us get any subject we work with to sign a waiver; it basically just says that you agree to let me attempt to induce a hypnotic trance, and that you know that you’ll be in full control of your mind during the whole experience. All hypnosis is really self-hypnosis – I can’t make you do anything that your mind refuses to do. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said, signing the form and handing it back to her.

“Great!” Lauren said. “Now, let’s get started. Are you ready?”

I nodded.

“To begin, I just want to to find a comfortable position to sit in, with your feet flat on the floor, and your hands resting comfortably in your lap.”

I shifted a bit to comply.

“Excellent,” she continued, “now I’d like to begin by having you close your eyes for me as you take a nice deep breath and just let yourself relax.”

I breathed in, tried to relax, and let my eyes droop shut.

“Good, you’re doing so well. Just let that relaxing feeling grow inside you and fill you completely. And as you listen to my words and take another deep breath now, I want you to imagine that you’re breathing in pure relaxation, and breathing out all of your tension. Each breath you take in fills your lungs with clean, cold, relaxing air....and now as you let that breath out, feel all the tension in your body go with it, leaving you filled with nothing but calm relaxation.”

I was floored. Lauren was GOOD. Not just like a professional, but somehow better than any hypnotic file I had ever listened to.

“That’s it, you’re doing so well. In a moment, I’m going to count down from 10 to 1. With each number I count, you’re going to take another nice, slow, deep breath, and feel yourself fill up with even more of that great relaxing feeling. Each number I count, as I go down towards 1, will make you twice as relaxed as the number before it. If you lose track of the numbers, that’s perfectly fine, the only thing you need to do is just relax and focus on my words and the amazing sleepy heavy calm feeling that is filling your body now. When I get to the number 1, I will snap my fingers and say ‘sleep’, and that will be your signal, your trigger, to just let yourself go and let your mind completely drift in the flow of my words.”

“10”

“9”

“8...feeling so much sleepier now, so much more relaxed...”

“7”

“6”

“5”

“4...so close now....”

“3”

“2...almost there...”

“1”

snap

“SLEEP!”

Wow. I thought I had gone pretty deep a few times, but this trumped all of those. Wait, now she was saying something else. But I couldn’t keep track of what it was, it was just getting so hard to think, everything getting so fuzzy...

“1.....coming up more now to 2....and 3, wide awake! Wide awake!”

Lauren was smiling at me, looking very pleased with herself.

“Wow, Lauren, that was great. Thanks! I feel so rested”

“You’re very welcome, professor Belton, there’s just one or two things I need to check to see how deep I was able to take you. Is that alright with you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Put your hands right here on the desk for me”

I put my hands in front of me, face down. She scooted her chair closer. “Just for the next few minutes, when I put my finger on the back of your hand, you’ll find that I can give you suggestions very, very easily, and you’ll just let them slip through into your subconscious mind.”

Lauren leaned forward and put her lovely index finger on the back of my left hand. “The number 7 is leaving your mind now, totally vanishing from your mind until I ask you to remember it. Just for now, you completely forget about the number 7.”

She sat back and took out a notepad. “Can you count from 1 to 10 for me on your fingers, professor Belton?”

“One, two, three, four, five, six, eight, nine, ten...eleven?” I laughed. “What have you done to me?”

Lauren smiled back. “Oh, nothing yet.” She touched my hand again. “Now you find the number 7 is back in your mind again, but now your hand, this hand that I’m touching, is glued to the desk. It’s stuck their so tightly that you just can’t move it, no matter how hard you try.”

She sat back again. “Try to lift your hand, professor Belton”

I tried. And failed. “I can’t,” I said sheepishly. She wrote something down.

“Great! As I touch your hand again now, you find that it’s no longer stuck and it moves normally.”

She touched my hand again. If felt electric. I slowly lifted my hand up, feeling no resistance anymore.

“Wow, that’s really something,” I said, smiling at Lauren again. She put her notebook away, and looked back up at me.

“Thank you so much, professor Belton, you are officially done being the subject I needed to use for my psych homework. However, there’s a couple more things I’d like to try with you, if you can spare a few extra minutes for me.” She batted her eyelashes.

“Of course, no problem.”

“Great!” Lauren said, taking out a pen and a blank piece of paper. She placed both in front of me.

“Could you please write my name, professor?”

“Sure” I picked up the pen, and wrote her name.

And then I looked down at what I had written. It said “Mistress Lauren Meyers”

“Um...” I mumbled. Lauren leaned forward, a pouting expression on her pretty face.

“Did it not come out right? Try again 3 more times”

I picked up the pen again, and wrote Lauren’s name again. And again. And again. “Mistress Lauren Meyers” it said, three times.

“Whoa...” I said. “What DID you do to me?”

“Oh, just one or two small things here and there,” Lauren replied casually, taking the paper and pen back. She wrote something on the page and slid it across to me. “Can you read this to yourself for me, please?”

I looked down at the note. It said ‘Tell me you need to obey me’.

I looked up at her. “I need to obey you, Mistress Lauren”. I heard the words before I even realized I had started to say them.

Lauren smiled triumphantly.

“Whoa...um...” I stammered.

“Hypnosis is amazing, isn’t it? It’s really incredible what you can get someone to do. Especially someone who has always secretly longed to be hypnotized and controlled. Someone like you.” she said, her eyes drilling into me.

“Try reading the note again,” she said.

I looked down. “I need to obey you, Mistress Lauren”. Holy shit. She wasn’t just good at hypnosis, she was off the charts. She had me in the palm of her hand, and we both knew it.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” she teased. “If I told you to do something for me, would you do it?”

She was right. Oh god, she was right. I wanted so badly to obey this commanding young goddess who had me thoroughly in her spell. “Yes.”

“Good boy. Now get down on your knees to show me just how willingly you obey me”

I slid out of my chair, and sank onto my knees on the floor.

Lauren stood up, and slowly walked around the large desk to another chair on my side. She sat down and crossed one leg over the other enticingly.

“Take your cock out,” she instructed.

I found myself unzipping my pants, letting my already-stiffening cock spring out through my fly. Lauren pulled a small notepad from her pocket and wrote something in it, then reached down and caressed me gently. I tried to suppress a gasp at the electric sensation of her fingers touching me.

She withdrew her hand from my cock, raising her fingers up under my chin, and pulled my face up toward hers.

“Is this making you hard?”

I nodded.

“Good. I want to see just how HARD I can make you without even touching you.” she said, snapping her fingers on the word ‘hard’. My cock straightened suddenly, pointing up at her like a flagpole.

I just stared up at her too.

“Good boy,” she said, her eyes still locked on my cock, an almost hungry look on her face. “It looks like you’re responding very well to that trigger too.” She made another note on her pad. “Now stroke it for me.”

Yes. I wanted to more than anything. Suddenly, I realized that this was all I had wanted from the instant she walked in. My fingers locked around my cock and started jerking furiously, trying to express the lust for Lauren that suddenly consumed me entirely. I stared up at her desperately.

“Stop.” Just one word, one syllable, that was all it took her to quell the animalistic surge in me that she had just as easily started. “You’re not going to be able to come until I tell you. You understand that, right professor Belton?”

“Yes”

“Good boy. Y’know, I think you might be my favorite subject, of everyone I’ve put under. You’re so well-behaved, it’s like you really just want to do whatever I say. Don’t you?”

“Yes”

“So no matter how badly you want to explode, you’re not going to be able to come until I command you to. You wouldn’t want to come without my permission, would you?”

“No”

“No, what, professor Belton?”

“No, Mistress Lauren”

“Good boy.”

She held her foot out, her sneaker inches from my face. “Take my shoe off.” I did as she ordered, reverently unlacing her black sneaker and removing it from her lovely socked foot. “And now the other one,” she added. I complied again.

Mistress Lauren made another note on her pad.

“I wore these socks just for you, y’know. Do you like my cute little white socks, professor?”

“Yes, Mistress” She wrote something down.

“I bet you’d love nothing more than to have them pressed up right against your face. Is that right, professor Belton?”

“Yes, Mistress” She added something more on her pad.

“Too bad, then,” she said, peeling her socks off herself, “maybe some other time I’ll do that to you, if you beg me enough.” She stood up. “Now take off my jeans, professor Belton.”

I raced to undo the button and zipper, striving to impress Lauren by showing how fast I could follow her suggestions. (Or were they commands?)

“Good boy.” she said as I pulled them down, exposing her luscious, tight thighs. She sat back down and lifted her feet up, watching as I pulled her tight jeans off her feet. “Now my panties too”

I stared raptly at the vision before me – my mistress’ lovely legs stretched out to either side of me, the space between them covered only by a tiny pair of sky-blue panties. Panties that were now being peeled off, allowing me to stare at her wet and inviting pussy instead. ‘Wait,’ I thought, ‘are those my hands doing that?’

Lauren was writing something else now. ‘What are all these notes?’ I wondered dimly. And then she spoke, her voice shattering my other thoughts.

“Look at me, Professor Belton.” I stared up at her, unable to resist an opportunity to fall into her captivating eyes. “Wrap your hand around your cock for me”

I obeyed instantly, accidentally squeezing myself white-knuckle tight.

“Good boy. And now, just like before, you find that your hand is stuck“ she said, snapping her fingers. “You cannot remove it until I touch it. Try that for me, just to see that you can’t”

I pulled, curled with my arm. Gently at first, then harder. My hand slid along the length of my cock, and then pulled it over to the side, but no matter how hard I seemed to pull, I just couldn’t get myself to let go.

“Good boy. Now, you’re going to stroke yourself for me, as hard and as fast as you can. You love stroking your cock for me, don’t you professor Belton? Show me how much you love it.”

“Yes,” I responded immediately, my hand already in motion and getting faster. I could feel my balls tightening.

Mistress Lauren made another note before she spoke again. “I’m going to ask you some questions now, professor. And you’re just going to answer them clearly and honestly like you always do for your students. Okay?”

I nodded.

“Question 1: Do you like to do things for your mistress when she tells you to?”

“Yes.”

“Question 2: Do you think it’s normal for a professor to masturbate in front of students?”

“Uhm...” No. No it was not. I hesitated, trying to stop my hand’s motion so I could think clearly. Trying, and failing; my arm wasn’t something I controlled, it just stroked faster and harder. “...No?” I answered reluctantly. ‘This is wrong,’ I thought, ‘I’m jacking off in my office, right in front of my student!’ I started to tighten up, trying to force my arm back into normalcy.

“Shhhh,” Lauren cooed, “Now, now, don’t worry, just RELAX and answer the next question for me. Question 3: am I a) your student, or b) your mistress?”

“Mistress,” I blurted out immediately, happy to be switching to a question I knew the answer to. My arm pumped happily faster.

“Good boy!” she said purred, writing again. I saw the corners of her pretty red lips dance slightly as she suppressed a smile.

‘Whew’, I thought, ‘that was a close one! I’m so lucky that Mistress Lauren is my mistress, because I’d get in so much trouble for this.’

Mistress Lauren closed her pad and tossed it next to her bag.

“I want to feel your lips and tongue on my clit, professor Belton.”

I moved closer to her, still on my knees. But as I raised my hands up to spread her lips, I was stuck – my hand wouldn’t come off my cock!

Mistress Lauren giggled. “No, silly, I am the one in charge of your hand right now. And you’re going to keep stroking your cock as hard as you can while you go down on me.” Her face turned into a devious, almost wicked, grin. “And once you make me come, you’ll find that you can too.”

I was on her in an instant, licking, kissing, slurping and sucking. A few moments later, I felt my mistress clench up, her legs squeezing around my head as her orgasm neared. I felt her hands on my head, pulling me closer. My own hand pumped harder in response, and I quickened my pace of teasing her clit with my lips and tongue.

“Oh god...” she whispered breathily, struggling to remain quiet as the orgasm washed over her body. I felt her body relax, and my cock tensing up.

Mistress Lauren leaned forward, grabbing my head by my hair and forcing me to look up at her. Into those eyes, which were now mere inches from my face. I could smell her seductive fragrance, and see nothing but her captivating eyes as I kept stroking myself furiously for her.

“Explode for me NOW“

My eyes closed involuntarily as I felt the cum welling up. And then squirting out all over the floor of my office.

And then my whole body sighed with overwhelming relief and satisfaction.

Then I heard Lauren’s giggle. “You’re so obedient, such a great subject. I find it incredibly hot that I can control you so easily. Don’t you think so too?”

“Yes”, I panted, out of breath. Then realization struck – ‘Next time??? What did she mean by that?’

“Good boy. Now, get dressed and go sit down at your desk again.” Lauren said, her voice instantly ending my previous thought.

I complied, watching her pull her panties and jeans back on as I dressed. But she didn’t put her shoes or socks back on, she just picked them up and set them on my desk. I sat back in my chair and watched as she walked back around to sit across from me.

“So, let me tell you what we’re going to do next,” Lauren said, putting her feet up on my desk in front of me like she owned the place – like it was her office instead of mine. “I have about half an hour until my next class, and my feet are killing me. You’re gonna rub them for me while I write some notes.”

I leaned forward and started massaging her soft, lovely feet. Mistress Lauren giggled slightly, and took out her notebook again. A moment later, she was totally engrossed in it, like I might as well not have existed. I just stared at her feet, intent on worshipping them reverently until she told me otherwise.

Her voice broke my light waking trance. “I have just a few more questions to ask you, professor Belton,” she said, without looking up. “Have you ever had sexual intercourse with a student?”

“No.” I replied.

“Okay, thanks. Next: Do you think it’s appropriate in general for a university faculty or staff member to engage in sexual activity in his or her office?”

“Ummmm, no”

Lauren wrote my response down, not missing a beat. “Have you ever given any of your other students a footrub?”

“No.”

She continued on in the same mundane tone of voice: “And are you going to think about me when you masturbate tonight?”

“Yes.” I blurted out, before realizing what I had just said.

Lauren giggled and blew me a kiss. I turned beet red, but she just went back to writing in her notebook.

“Don’t get so tense, professor, or you’ll throw off the results of my research project!” she said in mock exclamation. “Now, why don’t you just get back to rubbing my feet for me. You DO like to rub my feet, don’t you?”

I nodded, and resumed my task.

A moment later, I thought I heard her mumble something under her breath: “and don’t worry, it’s not like you’re gonna remember this anyway...”

Had I heard that right? My mind started spinning in circles. ‘No, don’t worry about it, you’re in good hands’ a voice in the back of my mind soothed.

“Mmmmm...” Lauren eventually said, taking her soft feet gently out of my hands. “That felt so good. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied. I watched her put her pen away and close her notebook.

“Do you have the time, professor Belton?”

“Yeah, it’s....” I fumbled for my desk clock, amid the papers and other things littering my desk. But before I could say a word, my eyes were closing.

“SLEEP!” was the next thing I heard, and out I went, like a light being turned off.

The next thing I knew I was sitting in my desk chair. Across from Lauren Meyers, watching her put her socks and shoes back on. Wait, back on? Why had she even had them off in the first place? What had I missed? I couldn’t remember at all...the whole meeting with her seemed like a total blur. What had she needed help with?

“Thanks again for your help, professor Belton” she said with a smile, and sauntered out.

“See you in class!” I called back as she left, watching her amazing ass as she walked away down the hall. What had I helped her with? Everything was so fuzzy...