Chloe Masters arrived at Wilmington College on a bright Monday morning. She carried her reasons for change in her mind as she adjusted the strap of her leather bag, feeling the weight of new expectations pressing against her shoulders. Her reputation for innovative teaching preceded her, but the atmosphere of this institution felt different from the smaller community colleges she had worked at before. Here, the corridors seemed wider and the walls more imposing, but she had never been one to back down from a challenge, and sure wasn’t going to start now.

At five-foot-ten, Chloe always drew glances when she entered a room, her height commanding attention, even without the extra inches granted by the sleek black heels she’d chosen for her first day at work. 

Students, arms loaded with chemistry texts or coffee-stained portfolios, parted without thinking as she strode down the hall; her presence carved out a lane for itself in the steady stream of undergraduates. It didn’t hurt that she wore her confidence like a well-fitted glove.

She wore a tailored charcoal blazer nipping at the waist, matching slacks, and a silk blouse in a shade of deep sapphire that was almost as intense as the color of her eyes. Chloe exuded authority and a willingness to disrupt the comfortable rituals of academic life.

Her classroom was nestled on the third floor, tucked behind a series of heavy oak doors engraved with intricate patterns of leaves and mathematical symbols. As she entered, she laid out her materials: large whiteboards, multiple markers, colorful sticky notes, and her favorite set of mathematical puzzles. She loved to challenge her students, to make them see numbers not as cold symbols but as gateways to understanding the universe itself.

The students she had taught before loved her unconventional methods. Chloe often employed storytelling, visual metaphors, and even a touch of theatrics to bring abstract concepts alive. She also enjoyed playing with hypnosis in subtle ways to get everyone to focus and avoid unnecessary downtime during her classes. She believed in engaging the mind and the senses, dissolving the barriers of rote memorization, and her results spoke for themselves.

Chloe smiled and waited for her students to arrive. It was time to get the show started.

* * *

In the immediate aftermath of Chloe’s arrival, the ripples of her presence spread through Wilmington College, touching not only the classrooms but the faculty lounges, administrative offices, and even the student union courtyard in the afternoons. The campus, built on a century-old tradition of quiet order and slow but steady progress, was alive with murmurs, rumors, and a restlessness that hadn’t been felt in years.

Within days, Chloe’s first-year seminar became the talk of the mathematics and philosophy departments. The freshmen came away raving about her; some seniors, hearing the buzz, began sneaking into the back rows to glimpse the “numbers magician,” as one student called her. She had a knack for making even dry subjects pulse with urgency, speaking not from behind the customary beige desk, but pacing the aisles and addressing students by name, sometimes even involving them in impromptu dramatizations of famous mathematical paradoxes. 

Once, when a student protested that calculus was “too abstract,” she had everyone stand up and form a human wave, demonstrating derivatives and integrals with laughter and limbs akimbo. By the end of the second week, almost half the campus had heard stories about Chloe’s “mind tricks,” and a few even whispered she could talk you into seeing double if she wanted to.

Yet as her following grew among the undergraduates, so too did the consternation among the faculty. The more seasoned professors, many of whom had taught in these halls since long before Chloe was born, eyed her with suspicion. A few were quite critical, muttering in the faculty lounge about the “circus atmosphere” filtering into what they considered sacred intellectual territory. Others, more pragmatic but no less threatened, made sure not to cross paths with her.

It was therefore that Dean Hugh Fletcher would take notice. Fletcher, the son of a local judge, himself a product of Wilmington’s hallowed academic tradition, had served as dean for over a decade. His reputation rested on a delicate balance: he was a traditionalist at heart. Still, he prided himself on being receptive to new ideas, at least so long as they didn’t disrupt the foundations of the institution. He was, as some put it, a gatekeeper who, sometimes, left the gate ajar, just enough to let in the fresh air, but never enough to give up control.

The first reports about Chloe landed on his desk as a student newspaper article: “Chloe Masters and the Mathematics of Wonder.” The piece was glowing, the headline accompanied by a photograph in which Chloe, marker poised in midair, was laughing at something a student had said. Fletcher read the article twice before tearing the page from the paper and pinning it to the bulletin board in his private office. He left it there, a small anomaly among the more staid clippings about faculty achievements and alumni donations.

For several days, Fletcher monitored Chloe’s classes from a distance. He would pass her open classroom door on his way to committee meetings, attuned to the cadence of her voice, which ranged from hypnotic calm to sudden, electric bursts of urgency. More than once, he paused in the hallway to watch as students scribbled furiously, their faces intent, even joyful. He noted the way she moved among them, not as an overseer, but as a conductor guiding a complex piece of music. He admired her command, even as it unsettled him.

But Fletcher was not one to act on impulses alone, and so he gathered information. He asked the students for feedback, which ranged from enthusiastic to somewhat timid, but was always thorough and clear. He listened to his colleagues grumble in the lunchroom and weighed their grievances against the sudden spike in student engagement and attendance. He even considered inviting Chloe for coffee, but dismissed the notion as too informal for the discussion that needed to be had.

Still, the mounting sense of disruption gnawed at him. There were boundaries, after all, that ought not be crossed, even in the name of innovation. Fletcher had always believed that an institution was a living thing, delicate and easily upset; too much change, too quickly, could send it into shock. So, after another week of careful observation, he concluded that a direct conversation was inevitable. 

He composed his email to Chloe on a Saturday evening, after most of the campus had emptied for the weekend. He contemplated every word, revising the salutation twice and the closing three times before sending it. The message was formal but not unfriendly: an invitation to meet in his office the following Tuesday, to “discuss pedagogical approaches and departmental expectations.” He allowed himself a satisfied nod, convinced that he had struck the right tone.

Chloe’s reply came five minutes later. “Looking forward to it,” she wrote, and signed off with a smiley face.

The morning of the meeting, Fletcher arrived at his office an hour earlier than usual. He reviewed Chloe’s CV, enumerated her published papers, and even skimmed a few of the more provocative abstracts. He rehearsed his points in front of the mirror, determined to be both welcoming and firm, and waited.

The corridor leading to his door was lined with portraits of past deans, their stern faces gazing down with silent approval. Chloe knocked once and stepped inside. The room was spacious and decorated with shelves of books, mathematical models, and abstract sculptures. The sunlight streamed through large windows and illuminated the dean’s chair, creating an almost angelic halo over his head.

“Dean Fletcher,” she said, her penetrating eyes locking onto his.

He gestured for a seat, and they both stared at one another long enough for the silence to register as a mutual test of patience.

“Ms. Masters,” he began, “thank you for coming. I trust you’re settling in well?”

She smiled. “The campus is lovely. The students are quick studies. And the faculty… well, they keep me on my toes.”

He gave a polite laugh. “Yes, I suspect they do. Let’s talk about your teaching methods. I’ll be candid. I find them remarkable, but also, perhaps, a bit…” He searched for a word that would not offend. “Unorthodox.”

Chloe crossed her legs, leaning forward with interest. “I suppose that makes me guilty as charged.”

Fletcher permitted himself a small chuckle. “Innovation is vital, Ms. Masters. But so are boundaries. I wish to understand your philosophy, and to discuss how, together, we might ensure that your methods serve not only your students but the broader mission of the college.”

She nodded. “I appreciate your candor, Dean Fletcher, and I’m more than happy to talk about my methods.”

“In that case, I’ve been hearing rumors about hypnosis being used… What can you tell me about that?”

“What I do in my classroom is about connecting with the subconscious, tapping into the innate curiosity and openness of the human mind. Mathematics, after all, is more than numbers. It is a language of patterns that runs through everything.”

She paused, and then continued softly, “Sometimes, I guide my students into a state of relaxed focus, where the boundaries between conscious thought and deeper understanding blur. It helps them see mathematics in a new light rather than trying to commit formulas to memory.”

Professor Fletcher raised an eyebrow. “So you’re admitting that you use hypnosis or some sort of hypnotic suggestion during your lessons?”

“Not in the traditional sense. I believe in guiding the mind into a receptive state and allowing ideas to sink in more deeply. It’s about creating a space where learning becomes natural, even joyful.”

The dean looked skeptical but intrigued. He wondered whether her methods might be too unorthodox to maintain the professional standards of the college. Still, he was curious enough to probe further.

“I’m not sure I follow,” he said. “Can you be more specific?”

“I can do better than that,” Chloe said, licking her lips. “Would you like to see what I do, rather than hearing about it?”

The invitation was unexpected, but not unwelcome. “Are you comfortable demonstrating this technique to me?” he asked.

Chloe nodded. “Of course. I can show you how I help my students relax and focus, if you wish.”

He hesitated for a moment, but only in his mind. “Very well. Convince me.”

Chloe regarded the dean with a level, unwavering gaze – a look that had reduced distracted undergraduates to utter silence and once, as legend had it, made a campus security guard forget his name.

“Very well,” she said, lowering her voice. “Let’s begin with something simple. A number exercise.”

Fletcher, not quite sure whether to feel patronized or intrigued, shook his head but relented. He folded his hands atop the desk, fingers interlaced, and tried to maintain a neutral expression throughout the experience.

“Numbers,” Chloe began, “have a way of leading the mind. If you let them, they can draw your thoughts into patterns so mesmerizing, you find yourself following along before you’ve realized it.” 

She leaned forward, her eyes fixed on the space just above the dean’s head. “Let’s start at one hundred. Every time I tap the desk, you’ll subtract three. And as we count down, I want you to notice how, with each number, your mind focuses a little more, like a lens adjusting and sharpening, until everything else blurs away.”

She waited for his nod. Then, with her index finger, she tapped the desktop: a crisp, metronome-like sound. “One hundred,” she said.”

“One hundred,” Fletcher repeated.

tap

“Ninety-seven.”

His voice followed. “Ninety-seven.”

tap

Chloe’s voice dropped to an almost inaudible whisper, forcing him to perk his ears to keep on listening.

“Ninety-four.”

“Ninety-four.”

tap

The dean played along, but with each number, he found his chest loosening and his focus narrowing. He watched her hand move, the shape of her fingernail, the way the tap always landed in the same place. Her precision was uncanny, and so was the rhythm being created between them. 

Suddenly, he realized that he was no longer calculating her motives, nor preparing any rebuttal. He was falling through increments of three.

“Ninety-one,” she said, and then, “Eighty-eight.” Each number landed with a tap, as inevitable as a second hand sweeping a clock.

The light from the window seemed less harsh now, dispersed by an invisible haze. The stack of manila folders on his desk faded, the shelves of books receded to the periphery, and all that remained was the cadence of her voice and the numbers, diminishing, drawing him downward.

He wondered whether he should resist. Then he thought, less forcefully, whether that was even necessary.

“Eighty-five. Eighty-two. Seventy-nine…” At seventy-six, his voice echoed, as if coming from the other side of a gymnasium. At seventy-three, he realized he couldn’t move. At seventy, there was only the tap, the numbers, the fragile shimmer of sun on the desk.

The process was mathematical in its regularity, but there was something more, a sleight of hand or mind, a quiet suggestion embedded in every syllable. Chloe never once told him to relax, but he noticed his shoulders slumping, his jaw loosening, his breathing softening to match the rhythm of the exercise.

He felt light, as if a complicated equation had just balanced itself out, all the extraneous variables dissolving into neat, manageable units. When they reached fifty-five, Chloe stopped. She let him linger in silence for a couple of seconds, then spoke in a tone that was at once gentle and commanding:

“Now, Dean Fletcher, let’s change the beat. We’ll be alternating between adding numbers and subtracting them. On the first tap, you’ll add five to the count, and on the second, you’ll subtract seven.”

He nodded, and somewhere outside, a janitor’s cart squeaked along the hallway tiles, then receded into silence.

Chloe continued, letting the words spool out slowly, as if she knew they were being written onto some receptive coil in his memory. “Five up, seven down, five up, seven down… but even as you’re going up, your consciousness will be sinking, falling, a natural and pleasurable sensation that will only grow stronger with each repetition. Listen to the numbers and follow the new pattern.”

Her hands left the desk, fingers steepled for a moment, then separated, index finger pointing at Fletcher as she tapped the wood.

“Fifty-five plus five is…”

He heard himself say, “Sixty,” before the tap even faded.

tap 

“Now subtract seven.”

He opened his mouth, but his mind, normally so quick and precise, felt slow and syrupy. “Fifty-three,” he mumbled.

And then the taps resumed, always regular, but never giving him enough time to react. Each number was less a destination than a rung on a ladder spiraling downward.

“Fifty-eight.”

tap

“Fifty-one.”

tap

“Fifty-six.”

tap

“Forty-nine.”

tap

“Fifty-four.”

tap

“Forty-seven.”

The rhythm was like a current, a pulse behind the base of his skull. The numbers became more than symbols; they became sensations, each sum or difference a slight tug somewhere behind his breastbone. Up, down, up, down, yet always dropping, descending, plummeting into a state of hyper-awareness, but where he wasn’t paying attention to anything at all.

The contradiction bore into his mind, just like her voice, now charged with a conviction so strong that it could bend metal to her will. The sequence continued: fifty-two, forty-five, fifty, forty-three, forty-eight, forty-one…

Fletcher ought to feel embarrassed about being led around by such a juvenile exercise. However, the thought passed as quickly as it arrived, replaced by the certainty that each new number was an accomplishment, a badge of compliance.

The office had shrunk to a tunnel, all its clutter and reputation pared away, and he drifted, each calculation a gentle push further from the shore. The world outside the room – his inbox, his responsibilities, the outer architecture of the college – all seemed to dissolve. Even his name started to feel like a title someone else had worn.

Chloe’s instructions kept coming, always the same, always a little different. He lost track of how many cycles they had completed. At one point, he thought perhaps he’d missed a number or repeated one, but Chloe didn’t correct him. Either she hadn’t noticed, or it didn’t matter.

The sense of movement became pronounced as if he were descending a glass staircase, each step a little lower than the last. Sometimes, Chloe would let the silence bloom between taps, forcing him to sit with the last number, to let it echo in the hollowed-out chamber of his mind. He began to anticipate a kind of reward in the silence, a peace that was more complete with every round.

“Tell me what number you’re on right now,” Chloe said after a lull.

“Eighteen,” he said, and was surprised at the relief that followed.

“Good,” Chloe purred. “You’re doing great. Now let’s drift a little further.”

The pattern changed once again, but this time she did not explain it. She let him infer it as they went: add three, subtract four, add three, subtract four. It was a new rhythm, a new logic, and he found himself smiling, just a little, at the ingenuity. The mathematics was not impressive, but the effect was profound; it made him feel as though the entire universe ran on secret patterns, and only Chloe understood how to reveal them. He wondered if this was what her students went through every single day.

He lost all sense of time, and the numbers began to melt into a pleasant continuum. Chloe’s voice moved from instructive to nurturing, encouraging him to “float,” to “let the numbers do the work,” and to “notice how easy it is to keep following, even as everything else falls away.”

At some point, she said, “If you need to speak, you can. But if you’d like to just listen, that’s perfectly fine, too.”

Fletcher heard himself murmur, “I’d like to listen.”

His voice was unrecognizable, but the words came out smooth, without hesitation, as if he had always wanted to say them.

He dropped, and dropped again, and again, the numbers continuing to drag him towards nothingness. Six, nine, five, eight, four, seven, three, six, two, five, one, four… and…

“Zero.” Chloe tapped the table one last time.

Fletcher’s mind emptied from the inside out, as if every wrinkled concavity and proud ridge of his brain had been scooped clean. His eyes glazed over, the flicker of animation receding from their surface, and his chin dropped, imperceptible at first, then bobbing with the gentle rhythm of Chloe’s voice.

“Deeper now,” Chloe whispered, and Fletcher’s sense of the room – its air, its light, the world beyond the glass – fell away in layers, as if she were peeling him like fresh fruit. There were no distractions, no echoes, only the persistent, narcotic drone of her instructions: “Hypnotized and receptive. Receptive and obedient. You hear nothing but my voice now, Dean Fletcher. Nothing but my voice, and you only think my thoughts.”

The words vibrated in his ear canal and then bloomed inside him, each syllable taking root in the hollows left by the numbers. They settled into place, the foundation of a new structure of thought.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, Professor,” she smiled. “My methods are unorthodox, yes, but you love them. You’re grateful for them. Don’t worry your pretty little head about what I do or don’t do. It’s all good. It’s all perfect.”

There was a shameful comfort in the assurance. He found himself nodding as if Chloe had just delivered him from a burden too great to bear. His vigilance and skepticism vanished like a debtor’s slate wiped clean.

“Wilmington College is a better place with me in it,” she said, and Fletcher could not for the life of him think of a reason to disagree. He had always thought this, always sensed her importance. Every past moment of doubt was but a kind of transitional blindness.

“You are empty,” Chloe said, and the words described, rather than commanded; he was hollowed out, and happy. “Drained. Obedient. You do as I say, think what I want you to think. This is your new pattern.”

He repeated the words, mumbling, but she shushed him with a faint shake of her head: “No need to speak unless I tell you. Just listen. Let the pattern settle in.”

Fletcher sank further into mindlessness. He became an observer of his erasure, a spectator at the melting of his inner citadel. The concept of self was reduced to a single, almost comforting point: to listen, to absorb, to obey. He had never known such peace.

Chloe’s voice, now silken and slow, guided him further: “Whenever you see me, you’ll remember how natural it is to trust me. You’ll remember that you’ve always respected me, always valued my ideas, and that nothing could be more important than helping me realize my vision for this college. If anyone asks, you’ll tell them I am a model instructor, a credit to the institution. If you ever doubt this, the idea will pass. It won’t even register as a thought.”

For a moment, there was the ghost of a question in Fletcher’s mind, a trace of unease – a memory of their earlier conversation, the cautious sparring, the sense that he was supposed to be in control. But it was like trying to remember a childhood dream: distant, colorless, absurd.

“Now,” Chloe finished, “when I snap my fingers, you’ll return to the surface, but all of this will stay with you. You’ll be refreshed, alert, and certain that every decision you make is the right one for Wilmington College and me. You won’t remember what happened, only what you must do. You will obey me.”

Chloe snapped her fingers, and he blinked. The room, the desk, the folders, all reappeared in sharp relief. He straightened in his chair, startled by the clarity of his thoughts. There was no trace of confusion, only a sense that he had just been led through a logical progression and reached, at last, the correct conclusion.

Chloe watched him in silence, her posture attentive yet unassuming, her hands folded in her lap.

He cleared his throat and said, “Thank you, Ms. Masters, for your demonstration. I see now why your students are so enthusiastic about your courses. Your methods are… innovative.” He hesitated, groping for the right word, but found only admiration and a faint, inexplicable warmth. “We need more faculty like you here at Wilmington. I’ll make sure you have whatever resources you request.”

Chloe nodded, the barest hint of triumph in her eyes, and the meeting continued as if nothing unusual had happened. However, from that moment onward, Dean Fletcher became her most loyal advocate, never once questioning her ideas or her ambitions, and never once recalling the strange, beautiful hush that had descended upon him when Chloe taught him the secret logic of numbers and obedience.

“I’m going to love it here,” Chloe thought as she left his office.

She was right.

THE END