Teething problems
Chapter 3
As she slumbered, still wrapped in Sarah’s soft embrace, Jill dreamt. Of Sarah. Of sex. Of hypnosis. She had an unusual degree of control of her dreams, a reflection of the intense nature of her experiences and the fact that she wasn’t that deeply unconscious. There was a central thought troubling her, which led to this disquiet despite her extreme physical, and emotional, exhaustion. A question. She had to know. Had Sarah been hypnotised by their teacher, Ms Amelia Luré?
Her lover had mentioned that it was the teacher who’d taught her about hypnosis. Now that they’d broken through the friend zone there was no need for Sarah to try that again, although Jill could imagine a whole boatload of erotic amusement that could be had from hypnotising Sarah or seeing her entrance herself. Watching her friend succumb to her own induction had been so hot! But if the teacher was responsible for this, what else was she responsible for? Had she been taking advantage of Sarah the way Sarah had tried to take advantage of Jill? The athlete had to know.
So, after finally falling into a deep, restful sleep and waking up the following morning to go through the most amazing mutual double take as she and Sarah both realised that it hadn’t been a dream, they really had spent half the night making love to one another, after acting more thrilled than horrified by this, and just about managing to extricate themselves from bed long enough to shower, individually, and have breakfast, it was time for school. And some answers.
“Where’s Amy, by the way?” asked Jill, referring to the Japanese-American college student who’d been the live in housekeeper for Sarah’s family for almost three years. She was only two years older than the girls and had become a great friend to both of them over that time, though always with this sense that she was an employee, part of the growing group of students who took on jobs as home helpers and nannies just to get them through the costs of their degrees, in her case computer sciences.
Amy Li couldn’t afford the rent for accommodation in the city and getting the job with Sarah’s family, which gave her room and board and a tiny bit of spare cash, had been vital to her. She’d always been friendly but slightly reserved, aware that if she antagonised Sarah the girl might get her fired. Not that Sarah would ever have done such a thing, and she, and Jill, had both become very friendly to the young women who’d effectively been Sarah’s nanny for three years.
“She’s in Japan at the moment,” said Sarah, “A family thing. She’ll be back next week.”
“Thank god!” giggled Jill, “I was terrified she might’ve heard us!” They both tittered at that.
“Sure,” said Sarah, after a short, amused moment, her voice turning sexual, “But that means there’ll be no one here all weekend. Whatever could we do in that time?” Jill couldn’t help but shudder at that, her thighs becoming warm almost instantly.
“Who knows?” she smiled back, raising an provocative eyebrow, “But there’s one thing I need to do at school first, in the afternoon. I might be a little late.”
“Oh yeah?” asked Sarah, “What is it?”
“A training thing,” lied Jill, “I need to see one of the teachers about an event I’ve got coming up.” The first part was true. She intended to see one of the teachers. The second was not. Sarah didn’t probe any further and, after a hasty breakfast, and a far more leisurely, distracting kiss at the front door, both girls were ready for school. They all but skipped down the street, hand in hand. They had often walked together like that in the past, but now it held a whole additional meaning for both of them. But they were suitably bashful that they let go and tried to pretend nothing was going on by the time they reached school.
The day passed in a bit of a blur for Jill. She was considering what she was going to do about hers and Sarah’s teacher, Ms Luré. The beautiful redhead, who was rumoured to be only 23 years old and whom many of the boys, and perhaps some of the girls, thought about almost hourly, and certainly nightly in the privacy of their own bedroom, did not appear like an hypnotic manipulator. She was just the same friendly, gifted teacher she always was.
Jill and Sarah were sat next to each other in Ms Luré’s French language class, an extracurricular French prose course they did at the end of the school day to get a language credit for their college applications. It was all Jill could do to concentrate. She was distracted by Sarah, who was sat just to her right, looking adorable in her school outfit. But more than that she was distracted by her thoughts on Ms Luré.
Was the teacher some sort of hypnotic fiend, capturing Jill’s friend and turning her into a hypnotised slave? It seemed unlikely. But there again if you’d asked Jill what she had expected to happen the night before it would have all felt pretty unlikely to her! She studied her teacher. Ms Luré was stunningly beautiful, tall, slim, intensely elegant, smart, friendly, with a body she artfully concealed in clothes that only hinted at the figure concealed within.
Today she was wearing an expensive looking white blouse over a bright red knee length skirt, with simple sandals and no stockings. Her lips were a glossy red which matched the skirt and her makeup was minimalist but exquisitely done, subtly highlighting her high cheekbones and vivid blue eyes, which were partially hidden behind her black rimmed glasses. The overall effect was something out of the movies, the ones where the students are all desperately enamoured of their beautiful teacher. Especially as she had this way of peering over the top of her glasses and smiling that made even the stoniest heart just melt.
“Ok class, that’ll just about do it,” she said, reverting to English as she finally brought the lesson to an end, “You all did great today, as ever. You’ve got those essays to do over the weekend and your mock orals next week. Now go off and have a fantastic time!” The half dozen students, all girls, grabbed their stuff and escaped, eager to leave the school that Thursday afternoon. Only Jill dawdled.
“I’ll catch you up,” she whispered to Sarah, “Back at your house. I have to sort out some things.”
“Ok,” whispered her lover, with a brief squeeze of Jill’s arm, “Just don’t be too long.” To a casual observer it would’ve been nothing, but the look on Sarah’s face left Jill a delicate shade of blush.
“I won’t,” she promised, “But I may be a little while. I’ll text you when I know how long I’ll be.” Sarah nodded and escaped, with a ‘See you later, Ms Luré!’ to the teacher as she all but ran from the door, as eager as any of the students to escape the confines of the school on what was a lovely early autumnal day, with the remnants of a warm, dry summer to make it extra special. For her part Jill made a show of slowly bringing her things together. How was she going to play this? Outright accusation? Attempted entrapment? In the end it was teacher who spoke first.
“Can I help you Jill?” asked the teacher, her tone friendly but professional. She wanted to escape the school as well. Even teachers like the end of the school day. Especially teachers.
“Err, what?” stammered Jill, caught out to be addressed.
“You seem to be dawdling,” Ms Luré observed, “I was wondering if you wanted to speak to me about something.” Jill considered this, and went for it.
“Err, yes, there is,” she made a visible effort to get a grip of herself, “It’s something about Sarah.”
“Oh really?” asked Ms Luré, “Well come here and sit down.” She grabbed one of the chairs from the front of the class and placed it in front of her desk. Hesitantly, her every instinct screaming at her that this was a bad idea, Jill joined the redhead, taking the seat. What was she going to do? Accuse her teacher of inappropriate hypnosis of her friend!? But she had to know. The question had been gnawing at her all night and all day.
“Now tell me what’s the matter,” said the teacher, pulling up a chair alongside Jill’s and giving the girl a reassuring squeeze on the arm. Ms Luré had always been quite a touchy feely person, something absolutely no one had objected to ever. She’d explained as much to her students at the start, when she’d arrived the summer before as a replacement for Ms Hoover, asking them to forgive her this aspect of her personality but, as a half French woman, she was essentially programmed to express herself with strong body language and physical contact.
No one had ever said it was inappropriate, though some of the other teachers made guarded comments that it could be misconstrued on occasion. To Jill the touch was almost electric, making her feel even more on edge. Was this what Ms Luré had done to Sarah? Kept her at the school late in the evening and surreptitiously hypnotised her? God, even as she said it that sounded so preposterous! And exciting...
“Please Jill, tell me what’s wrong.” Jill had been so caught up in the maelstrom within her head she hadn’t realised she’d sat there silently for almost ten seconds!
“Ok!” she announced, as much to herself as to the teacher, turning to Ms Luré, “There’s something I need to tell you. Something about Sarah.”
“Yes?” asked Ms Luré, apparently all ears, her legs folded over and pointed towards Jill, the gap in the teacher’s skirt revealing quite a lot to the now sexualised eye of the girl. Gosh, she could almost see up to the teacher’s hips! The honeyed skin looked smooth and soft and... What the hell? Focus Jill, focus!
“Well you see,” she began, really struggling to express herself, so she decided just to blurt it out and be done with it, “Sarah told me you hypnotised her. And yesterday she tried to hypnotise me. I wanted...” She tailed off, not sure what she wanted. Confirmation? Denial? She realised she just needed to know what had happened. The teacher’s expression was stony. She hadn’t visibly reacted. Finally, with some rapid blinks of her eyes, Ms Luré pushed herself into a more upright position.
“Wow!” she exclaimed, “That was... Wow!” She seemed flabbergasted, which was most unusual for her.
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” interjected Jill, aware that, in essence, she was, “I just...” Once again she struggled to express what she wanted.
“No, no, it’s quite all right,” stated Ms Luré, turning back to her student, her usual composure returned, “I just wasn’t quite expecting anything like that. Sarah really has quite the imagination, doesn’t she?” Jill felt defensive about her friend.
“She didn’t seem like she was making it up,” she grunted, “I mean...” Ah. Yes. How to explain this next bit.
“Yes?” encouraged the teacher, all ears again.
“Well,” Jill couldn’t help herself blushing beetroot, “She tried to hypnotise me but... hypnotised herself. It was while she was hypnotised she told me that you’d taught her how to hypnotise herself.” It wasn’t quite true. Sarah had volunteered the information beforehand, explaining where she’d learnt the technique. But Jill felt it gave her story greater weight. After all, you had to tell the truth when you were hypnotised, right?
“So let me get this straight,” stated Ms Luré, a hint of amusement to her tone, “Sarah says that I hypnotised her?”
“No, not like that,” whined Jill, very much on the defensive, “She like, kinda mentioned that you sort of told her how it’s done.”
“Really?” the amusement was stronger now, but suddenly died as Mr Luré’s eyes bulged, “Oh wait!”
“Yes?” Jill grasped for the hint of acceptance from the teacher.
“I remember now!” lied Ms Luré, “About a month ago, at the start of term, I gave Sarah some books. One of them contained scenes involving a hypnotist. That must be where she got the idea from.”
“No,” Jill was defensive, “She said you showed her how to do it.”
“Jill, please,” Ms Luré’s tone had become amused again, superior, like when one of her students was saying something silly, “Sarah is a lovely young woman but she’s quite a... repressed person. I’m not sure how much I should say to you but I know that she has quite a thing for me, a schoolgirl crush really. I’ve done my best to deflect that attention from her to more productive, or at least ethical, avenues, and I thought that I’d succeeded. But it seems all I’ve done is turned her into something of a fantasist.”
“A fantasist?” Jill wasn’t quite sure what her teacher was getting at. Ms Luré smiled and squeezed the girl’s forearm again.
“With someone like Sarah,” the teacher explained, “She’s not quite sure of who she is yet. She knows who she wants to be but the pressures of society I believe has made that person someone who I don’t think she can become, at least not yet.” She paused, her expression neutral. Jill realised what the teacher was getting at.
“You mean...?” she began, not quite sure how to say the phrase ‘Sarah is a closet lesbian’ in a way that didn’t sound too bigoted or blurt out her own secret.
“I mean,” interrupted Ms Luré smoothly, “That what Sarah is in herself is not what she perceives people expect of her. But like many young people in her position she is not emotionally mature enough to reconcile this, yet. Of course this is my own opinion and I cannot say for certain that I am correct, and indeed I shouldn’t really be saying this to you and I normally wouldn’t except for these extraordinary circumstances... but given what you’ve said I feel I have to explain myself.
“My belief is that Sarah sees me as an object of desire, one which she knows she cannot have, as the ethical, indeed legal, considerations, not to mention my own opinion, preclude any possible liaison. I believed that I had successfully pushed away from this desire, something I became aware of during the numerous extra classes Sarah has arranged with me, but I had to do so gently, cautiously, for fear of damaging Sarah’s fragile psyche if I was too abrupt.
“It would be crushing to her for me to have said that I believed she was attracted to me but that I was not attracted to her, especially as I do acknowledge that she is a very beautiful young woman and that there might have been circumstances when a woman such as myself would’ve potentially been interested in what she had to offer,” the tone implied that this did not apply to Ms Luré, she was just speaking in general, “But of course it could never happen between a teacher and her student.
“Unfortunately,” continued the teacher, her eloquent defence and reasoning sweeping over Jill and leaving her in no doubt that Ms Luré knew exactly what was going on with Sarah, “What I appear to have done is turned her crush into something else, something where she has endeavoured to imagine ways that she and I might achieve what she years for. Sadly I believe I am to blame. Some of the books I gave her do mention hypnosis.
“I suspect that Sarah saw the idea and, in her head, it represented a guilt free way to achieve what she wanted. I would be the all powerful hypnotist and she the young, if more than slightly willing victim. In her head, in her fantasies, this was what was happening. So when whatever happened between you happened, what she was expressing was her arch fantasy. Not reality.” She concluded her improvised speech. Jill was crestfallen. It seemed so obvious now. Of course Sarah hadn’t been taught hypnosis by her teacher. She’d got the idea of it from her, and indirectly at that. The athlete felt like such an idiot.
“Hey, it’s ok,” laughed Ms Luré, drawing her chair closer to her student as she saw Jill’s thought process reflected in the girl’s expression, “I’m just glad you came to me with this! I’d have a hard time explaining these accusations away otherwise. It’s so specific, and so weird, they’d have to suspend me and investigate fully and, when those investigations come up with nothing they tend to get rid of the teacher being investigated just to show they’re doing something about some pretty serious accusations.”
“I’m so sorry,” whined Jill, suddenly imagining the repercussions of what she had implied, “I didn’t mean to...”
“No, no, it’s ok,” comforted the teacher, wrapping her long arms around her student and pulling Jill into a hug, “I totally understand where you’re coming from. Your friend acts weird and says she’s been hypnotised by me, it’s totally understandable you want to get to the bottom of it, laudable even. I mean, I don’t even know how to hypnotise someone! I guess you just get them to look at something shiny, like that crystal hanging from that light on my desk. You’d just get the person, someone you were trying to hypnotise, to stare at it and just say to them that they should relax. It’s all ok. Everything’s going to be ok.”
Jill, her mind and her body relaxing in relief that her concerns had come to naught, was almost grateful for Ms Luré changing the subject like this. The beautiful, slim, lithe African American girl looked at the shiny crystal hanging by a chain from her desk light and, for a moment, imagined Sarah doing the same, staring at the gem and imagining herself succumbing to the lascivious, sensual spell of her hypnotic teacher. It was a curiously enticing sensation and she kept staring at the stone and listening to her teacher’s words, as the beautiful redhead continued holding the athlete in her arms.
“I mean, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind looking at it,” Ms Luré went on, “It is a lovely, beautiful crystal. I’m sure it’d make a very good focus of a hypnotic induction. If someone just kept looking at it and listening to me saying how relaxing it was to stare into it I’m sure they’d begin to feel nice and relaxed, maybe a little tired even, at the end of a long, difficult, exhausting day, especially one when someone was carrying a heavy burden they were so relieved to be free from. It would be so nice and easy just to stare at the crystal and relax, just keep listening to my voice, letting yourself just drift away on the words as you continue staring at the crystal.”
Gosh... Jill did feel tired, now that Ms Luré mentioned it! It had been a long day, particularly with all the stress of worrying how talking to the teacher would go, and it felt so nice and relaxing to be held by Ms Luré’s strong, comforting arms as she listened to the melodious tones of her teacher’s voice and stared intently into the relaxing, enticing shine of the dangling crystal. Jill felt so nice and restful and relaxed... and curiously warm between her legs.
“I bet that’s what Sarah imagined doing,” Ms Luré continued, “I think she’s always had a bit of a thing for me, for girls in general, but particularly tall, authoritative women. I can just imagine her walking in here and imagining me holding her in my arms and holding that crystal in front of her eyes and telling her that it’s hypnotic and that as she looks into it she’d begin to feel so relaxed and sleepy as she slipped into a deep hypnotic trance.”
Ms Luré reached out and took the crystal by its chain, dangling in front of Jill’s eyes. The beautiful, naive athlete continued to stare at the enticing gem, her mind slow and relaxed, filled with nothing but the seemingly inane ramblings of her teacher, who was still holding Jill in her arms, or just one arm right now... so strong and safe and comfortable and relaxing. But so exhausting after such a long, difficult day. And feeling so turned on to. The closeness of the beautiful teacher, her experiences just the night before with Sarah... it was all making Jill feel so aroused, if curiously fatigued.
“She’d pretend to resist at first,” continued the teacher, “Pretend that she doesn’t want to be hypnotised. But in her heart she’d know how hot being hypnotised is, how aroused it makes you. Just surrendering yourself to the crystal, allowing yourself to enter trance would make Sarah, or any girl, so hot and aroused. She’d tell herself ‘I can stop at any time,’ but she’d know, in her heart, that she didn’t want me to stop.”
Jill didn’t want Ms Luré to stop. Her mind was caught in a beguiling whirl of relaxation and arousal and hypnosis... The same hypnosis that had caught Sarah. It had been so arousing watching Sarah in trance, and Sarah had been so exquisitely turned on by being mesmerised. Jill couldn’t help but link the seductive act of surrendering to trance with the wonderful sensation of becoming intensely aroused.
“Sarah would’ve wanted me to keep going, to keep dangling my hypnotic pendent in front of her eyes and keep telling her that she can’t look away as her eyes began to blink, and blink, and blink. And with each blink they struggle to open as fully as before.” Jill’s eyes, staring unblinkingly at the gem for so long they’d started to water, flickered for a moment... and closed, slowly opening. But each subsequent blink was quicker, and each succeeding opening was slower. Each time she heard the word ‘blink’ her eyes closed, and each time they struggled a little more to open.
“Each time she blinked she’d be a little more tired, a little more hypnotised, a little closer to surrendering to trance. And, as she realised she was slipping into trance, that I was hypnotising her, she’d realise that she’d become so aroused, that surrendering to my trance was turning her on so much, that she wanted to surrender to trance. She would just be so desperate to submit to me, to imagine how aroused I could make her with my hypnotic spell, knowing that once she blinks her eyes shut and can’t open them again she’ll orgasm.” Jill’s eyes were quivering now, so nearly shut, her body burning with arousal even as her mind teetered on the edge of absolute hypnotic surrender.
“Of course anyone can be hypnotised,” continued the teacher, “But it takes a special kind of person to enjoy it so much. You can imagine Sarah really enjoying it. Staring at the pendant, allowing herself to become hypnotised by it. Blinking her eyes shut and feeling how aroused and hot and close to orgasm she is. All she’d have to do would be to submit to me, to my pendent, allow herself to surrender into my hypnotic trance. And all she’d have to do would be to let her eyes blink shut and stay closed.” Darkness settled in on Jill and, with it, came a wonderful sense of intense pleasure.
“Good girl,” whispered a voice, as she felt herself be leant gently back in the chair, “It feels so good to surrender. This is what a hypnotic trance feels like. You feel dark and warm and safe, happily being guided by my voice into the depths of hypnosis. You know that you’re hypnotised. It’s so nice being hypnotised, isn’t it? You can feel yourself become so hot, your nipples turning so hard and pointed, your pussy starting to gush. Yes! That’s it. You can moan slightly if you want.”
Jill did so. A part of her mind was having some sort of trouble with the situation. But a much bigger part was feeling so relaxed and comfortable and very turned on. She’s seen Sarah like this the night before and it had been so arousing, the way her beautiful friend, her lover, had slipped into trance. Experiencing it herself, her body was thrilled to discover, was every bit as intensely arousing.
“Good girl,” encouraged the hypnotist, “My good girl. Such a good girl. You’re now deeply hypnotised Jill. When you’re this hypnotised you have to tell the truth, don’t you?”
“Yee... essssss....” breathed the beautiful athlete, slumped in her chair.
“When Sarah tried to hypnotise you, it was last night, wasn’t it?” asked her teacher.
“Yeeesssss...” Jill confirmed.
“And that’s when you realised that she desired you, and wanted you to be her lover, didn’t she?”
“Yeeesssss...”
“And you realised that you desired her too, didn’t you Jill?”
“Yeeesssss...!” Jill moaned again at the memory, at how her 18 years of celibacy, of being a virgin, of not quite knowing why she wasn’t interested in all the games her peers were playing with each other, was suddenly thrown into sharp perspective. It was so hot remembering that! And so hot to find herself entranced by her beautiful, dominating teacher, unable to resist the interrogation.
“And you made love, didn’t you Jill. How was it?”
“Mmmm... soooooo goooooood!” Jill’s thighs were rubbing together as she recalled the intimate experience.
“Good!” there was more than a hint of smile to the hypnotist’s voice, “Good girl. Such a good girl. A good, sexy, aroused little girl. I’m so glad you and Sarah have found each other. But you know I can’t have you and her running around telling everyone that I’ve hypnotised you. But there’s a solution for that, isn’t there. You can just let yourself forget. You can feel the memories of being hypnotised just fade away, disappearing completely from your mind.
“Of course, there will still be residue of them there. You’ll remember how erotic you find hypnosis, how intensely turned on being hypnotised made you, how actually surrendering to trance makes you climax in orgasm. It’s so good, isn’t it Jill, surrendering to trance like this? Just being in trance, just allowing yourself to be so deeply hypnotised makes you so turned on and aroused. It’s so hot isn’t it?” Jill was now panting in agreement, the heat between her legs almost unbearable.
“You’ll want to be able to feel this again, won’t you?” continued the hypnotist, “You’ll want to be able to sink effortlessly into this wonderful erotic trance whenever you hear the words ‘Baby Jill wants to sleep.’ When you hear those words you’ll find yourself sink deep into trance, feeling the wonderfully orgasmic climax greet you when you’re there. You won’t remember this process, as you won’t remember anything about being hypnotised, but you will still enjoy it!
“And when you hear the words ‘Baby Jill wants to wake up,’ you’ll slowly count to ten, waking a little with each number,” Ms Luré concluded, “By ten you’ll be fully awake, with no memory of being hypnotised, no sense of time lost, no feeling of concern or confusion about where you are or how you got there, just the remnants of any instructions in your mind, which are just so fun and arousing to follow aren’t they? That’s right! They sure are.” Jill was gasping now. The domination of her mind was turning her on spectacularly.
“So soon I’m going to wake you up with my little code phrase Jill,” the teacher said, “And that will feel almost as good as surrendering to trance, won’t it? Yes! My good girl, such a good girl. ‘Baby Jill wants to wake up.’” Jill climaxed again as her mind slowly emerged from the deep trance she’d so easily submitted to, counting up from one to ten as she regained consciousness, completely oblivious to what had happened.
Though not nearly as lonely and desperate for praise as Sarah, whose near abandonment by her career parents for the past few years had left her easy prey for the likes of Ms Luré, the sporty, geeky Jill had proved as deliciously submissive, probably from her many years of following instructions from her sports coaches, and her innate neediness from being an outsider at the exclusive school.
She’d succumbed almost as easily as Sarah. Thank god, from the hypnotist’s perspective. It had been a terrible shock to Ms Luré to realise that Jill knew about what she’d done to Sarah. She realised her mistakes instantly. Amelia had been drip feeding the idea of hypnosis to Sarah for weeks in order to leave her subconscious able to recognise an induction. All her efforts afterwards had been to erase the effects of the actual hypnosis. She hadn’t thought to cover her tracks from beforehand.
For a long moment she’d thought she was in serious trouble. But Jill’s error in confronting the hypnotist herself, without any support, was Amelia’s opportunity. And boy had she taken it! Her rapid induction had been every bit as effective as she’d hoped and now her statuesque athletic thrall was slowly coming to, presumably with no knowledge whatsoever what had happened, and with a deliciously submissive intrinsic susceptibility to hypnosis now deeply embedded in her psyche.
“...So glad we could have this chat,” Ms Luré began, as she saw the drowsiness clear from Jill’s yes. The athlete girl blinked at that, clearly at a loss with her surroundings. She looked around, before turning to the teacher.
“Err, yes,” she replied, with no idea what she was responding to. Ms Luré grinned, her expression friendly.
“You just drifted off a little there, didn’t you?” she asked, which made Jill blush slightly in embarrassment, “It’s ok. I think Baby Jill wants to sleep, and you were just day dreaming a little and...” It had worked. On hearing the code phrase Jill shuddered, her eyes clouding over and fluttering shut in a matter of seconds, followed by a keen mewing noise as she climaxed.
“Good girl,” purred the hypnotist, “Baby Jill wants to wake up.” The athlete did so, with another orgasm, taking a little longer to regain her surroundings this time.
“Gosh, I must’ve drifted off!” she said.
“Baby Jill wants to sleep.” There was no preamble this time. Ms Luré just said the words. Jill succumbed. She was defenceless against the post hypnotic suggestion, her panties soaked through with arousal from her submission.
“Good girl,” Amelia said, as much to herself as to Jill, “Baby Jill wants to wake up.” Jill did so, taking almost thirty seconds to come round this time. The sequence of rapid surrender to her programming was making her struggle to regain normality.
“We should head to my office,” Ms Luré suggested, once Jill had belatedly regained consciousness, “Is that ok?”