The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

I hypnotised Kate for her own good—Honest! I only ever hypnotised people for their own good. When I hypnotised my sister to make her think chocolate tasted like broccoli, it was for her own good. When I hypnotised Cynthia ‘Ride Me Cowboy’ Lovelock to be aroused by learning, instead of cock, it was for her own good. When I hypnotised my maths teacher to flash me her bra… it was good for me, and it didn’t hurt her. Hypnotising Kate would be good for me and her!

It was for Kate’s good that I was now in her kitchen, dressed in a suit as I waited for her to change into the skirt and blouse which I bought for her. It was for her good that I’d treat the dark-skinned Amazon as if she were a delicate princess for the night. It was for her good that I’d rise above my shortness and shyness and become Kate’s prince in a dark suit.

I discovered Kate’s dark pink secret, entirely by accident, on year twelve camp, when we shared a tent. We did sit together in a lot of classes, but this was five nights of sleeping together—sleeping next to each other! My eyes could wander over her smooth black skin, her firm muscles, soft breasts, her sneer of boyish mischievousness, which, over the day, softened into kitten-like drowsiness. On the first night, Kate caught me staring.

‘What? D’y’ave a crush on me?’ she joked.

I squeaked, ‘Yes!’ and then realised you should never confess your love to someone you’d be sleeping with for the next five nights. The best case would have been if I’d never said it, and the second best case would have been if she’d never heard what I’d said. I jumped to the third best case: I hypnotised her, yanked her asleep before shock at my confession could fully burst onto her face. I made her forget the last ten minutes and was about to wake her, but then thought, ‘While I’m here, I may as well have a look around…’ Innocently and harmlessly, I asked her what she thought of me (‘Really smart… great tits…’) and of herself. Suffice it to say, her subconscious had some disagreements with her conscious mind.

Thuds came from the staircase, shaking me from my memories. I shot my eyes to the stairs to see Kate, hoping to see her heeled boots, then her legs, bare legs until the black skirt, up to her yellow blouse, and finally up to her made-up face, as she descended the stairs like a caterpillar pushing itself down through its chrysalis, to soar upwards.

‘Well, well, well, would you look at this,’ said Kate as she approached my seat at the kitchen counter. ‘How embarrassing that we picked the same outfit.’

Kate was wearing a suit.

‘Gotta say,’ she said, fingering my suit’s collar, ‘you got a nice suit, but you don’t got the body for it. You look like a thirteen-year-old boy going to his first funeral.’ She smirked. ‘Excepting your tits and arse.’

I didn’t speak, not because I was embarrassed, but because she… she… She was so handsome! The suit was a bit dusty, but it fit her so well. Imagining her in skirt seemed as silly as a square triangle. No! Silly Petra! I knew Kate looked good in a skirt. She looked good in masculine clothes because she practised, just like I once practised ‘being’ straight. Poor Kate. I knew what it was like, wearing a mask so tight on the face that it could trick even those who’d seen behind it. I would peal off that mask, let her face touch superior air, as she wore her skirt like a royal gown.

‘But the clothes—’ I began.

‘What? Those?’ Kate took two cans of fizzy drink from the fridge. ‘Yeah, there is an op shop bin nearby.’ She knocked a can on the counter and slid it to me. ‘Don’t know why you had to bring them here first, though.’ She sneered, just as she sneered during our very first arm wrestle.

She put her thumb to her can’s tab. I yelled, ‘Stop! Don’t move. There’s a… There’s a…’ Fear filled her face, only to pour away when I yanked the can from her and said, ‘Sleep!’

Her chin hit her chest. Her face relaxed. Her tomboy performance slipped. Even with her suit, even with her height, even with all her muscles, she had a sleeping face as delicate as Sleeping Beauty. I put my lips to her ear, blushing that I could feel her heat on my face, and that she could feel my heat on hers.

‘Always remember, Katy, follow my commands if—and only if—you really, really, really need to become a girly girl…’

Petra got me a fucking skirt! Did she think I’d wear it on our date? Did she think I’d go through mum’s makeup drawer and do myself up? Well, too bad, Sakimoto! The bet was I’d go out with you. I’d already cosplayed for your wank bank. Tonight, I would wear the pants, and the suit, and I’d pay the bill for both of us. (I mean, yeah, this restaurant would take a bit—a lot—out of my savings, but I had my dignity!) I stamped down the stairs, ready to say to her face exactly what I thought about her ‘gift’.

I saw her face. I saw her disappointed face. She was sat at the kitchen counter, stood, then deflated back into to the seat when she saw what I was wearing—what I wasn’t wearing. My neck felt prickly hot, like when a teacher catches you doing something. But I hadn’t done anything! I gripped the bannisters, realising that Petra hadn’t done anything to deserve being yelled at. But, like a puppy, she needed to learn limits.

I got us a can of cola each, as I told her, indirectly, that I had no intention of even sharing the same street with those clothes. As I chewed her out, her mind was somewhere else. Her eyes looked through me, or maybe they imagined me wearing a skirt.

‘Stop!’ she said, just as I gripped the can’s tab. ‘Don’t move. There’s a… There’s a…’

Shit, there was a spider on me, wasn’t there? That’s what I got, pulling a duty suit from the back of the closet. Petra reached out, ready to swat away whatever was crawling-

She grabbed my soda. ‘Sleep!’

SNAP!

‘Do you really, truly hate the clothes I bought for you,’ asked Petra, her eyes shifting to and from my face, like she was ashamed to ask the question.

‘I…’ I was going to say I did hate them, but I wasn’t a good liar. ‘I’d like them on someone else.’ Why did that also sound like a lie. ‘The right kind of girl.’ Better.

Petra smirked, still unable to keep her eyes from flicking to and from my face, like she was a puppy who thought you’d forgot it’d broken something. Did she think she’d found a crack in my persona? Did she think that if she kept asking if I liked skirts, makeup, YA romance, the crack would widen and the tomboy would break away?

‘Listen,’ I said, getting all up in her face. ‘Don’t waste money on skirts, boots, makeup, necklaces—don’t even bother with frilly panties—because that is not me. I do not wear, and will never wear, anything, at all, girly.’

Her eyes kept flicking from my face. Always in the same direction. That wasn’t shame, that was a smile in her eyes. Following where her eyeline led, my own eyes bugged out. My hand was shaking the soda can. I couldn’t stop it. I tried to grab my wrist, but the fingers shot to the top of the can, gripping the tab. The metal bent as the tab pushed through the lid, making the can hiss, as the cracks foamed. The soda hosed on my face. I tried aiming away, but I lowered it down my body, soaking my suit, then letting the dregs dribble on my crotch. When the last drop dripped, I smashed the can to the floor. I leapt to my feet. The soda dribbled, beneath my clothes, down my tits, my stomach, before soaking into or through my panties.

Petra stood just outside the puddle surrounding me. She fingered and sniffed my collar. ‘Do you have a spare suit?’

Two-faced bitch, trying not to smile.

I threw my suit to the ground, splashing droplets up onto Petra’s face. I stripped naked, cringing as fabric pealed from my skin. That wiped the smile from Petra’s face, if only because her jaw dropped. ‘It’s my house,’ I told her, as I splashed water from the sink onto my skin to rub off the cola stink. I turned back to Petra, drying my tits with a tea towel, leaving my pussy bare. ‘I take it this restaurant wouldn’t like a girl in T-shirt and junners?’

‘N-no.’ It was like Petra had never seen a naked black girl strip naked in a kitchen before. Didn’t she watch porn?

‘Well, ain’t we lucky you got me those spare clothes?’ I tried to sound sarcastic, but I sounded… glad? Relieved? No, those couldn’t be it.

I huffed off to my room. Petra’s eyes lasered into my arse. I gave my hips a little sway for her.

Kate wore the skirt. She looked handsome before, but now she looked pretty. The yellow of her blouse cozied with the restaurant’s orange candlelight, as the black of her boots and skirt blended with the shade. Shadows danced under the frills of her blouse…

‘Oi,’ Kate said. ‘This is my face.’ She smiled.

‘I,’ I said. ‘I just liked how your—’

‘Are the ladies ready to order?’ asked the waitress.

‘Yes!’ I said, stealing my eyes from Kate’s chest—blouse! ‘I will order the potato gnocchi, with sparkling water, and Kate will have—’

‘Woah, woah, woah,’ Kate laughed. ‘You don’t know what I’m fucking ordering.’ The waitress raised her eyebrows, and so Kate softened her voice into a posh accent, ‘I mean, my lover has no—’

‘I will give the ladies more time.’ The waitress left.

Kate whispered, loudly, but she whispered, ‘I know you want to slap your dick on the table, but ordering for me when you didn’t even ask what I wanted—’

‘You want the lamb rump.’

Kate pressed her lips together. Her eyes tried to laser into my brain. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I want the…’ Without moving her head, she cast her eyes down onto the menu. ‘I want the—’

I snapped my fingers. Kate froze. Her eyes glazed.

‘Katy,’ I asked, ‘what are you changing your order to?’

‘Rabbit…’

‘Do you really want rabbit?”

‘I… No…’

I snapped my finger. She blinked.

‘Kate,’ I said, laying my hands over hers. ‘I want this to be a special night for both of us. Don’t pick the rabbit just to make a point—if you want lamb, order lamb.’

She refused to blink. Her eyes sliced form my face to my hands, all over my body. ‘How the fuck are you doing that?’

I smirked as I took her menu and mine and laid them on the side of the table. I cooed, ‘Because I can read your mind.’

Before Kate could answer, the waitress returned. I made our order, glancing at Kate throughout, seeing her fidget as I told the waitress exactly how she wanted the lamb served.

As soon as the waitress left, Kate said, with an unsteady voice, ‘I posted I liked lamb online, didn’t I?’

‘As I said before,’ I said with unbearable smugness as I leaned towards her face, ‘I can read your every thought. Like any good girlfriend, I know your thoughts better you know yourself’

Kate shivered. ‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Then tell me what I did this morn…’ Her chest rose quicker and quicker with her breaths. ‘Actually, tell me…’ She wetted her lips. ‘Tell me what I’m thinking right now?’

I snapped my fingers.

‘What were you thinking about?’ I readied my fingers to snap again.

‘About how horny I got when you ordered for me.’

My face went red hot as I remembered her squirming in her seat. My fingers snapped all by themselves.

Kate saw my blush. She burst out in sweat. She tried to speak, but only squeaked from the back of her throat as her eyes darted everywhere but my face.

I grabbed her hand. ‘You’re right!’ I said. ‘I can’t read minds!’

I stared at her face even as she averted her eyes. Wait, wouldn’t starring just make this more awkward? But wouldn’t averting my eyes imply that I knew that she knew that I knew that she got horny from being ordered for. I was too paralyzed to avert my eyes.

Kate’s eyes lingered on our touching hands. She gulped. ‘R, reading minds wouldn’t be the worst skill in a relationship.’ She paused for so long I thought she’d escaped into catatonia. She looked me in the eyes, before turning them away again. ‘There are… some thoughts… that if you had to say them… some people would never say them out loud.’

The waitress brought our meals, forcing our hands apart. For the rest of the meal, Kate didn’t bring up her confession, but I knew that she knew that I knew what she meant. I knew without ever needing to snap her mind open.

So what that I got turned on when my girlfriend ordered for me? Ordered and paid for me. Getting horny when she paid was a win-win, because any guilt I felt from not chipping in for that forty-dollar lamb was drowned by my pussy moistening. Of course, then there was the shame I felt from my pussy moistening just because my girlfriend treated me like a…

Fucking hell, what was happening to me?

We got in Petra’s car, the type of car I’d expect from someone who’d shout the bull at a restaurant like that. She brushed her fingers up my thighs. It was like she watched a PSA from the 1950s about how to treat your girl on a date. I grabbed her head and stuck my tongue down her throat. I only stopped kissing when her hand, which brushed my leg, dug its nails into my skin.

‘You didn’t like it?’ I asked, panting.

‘What?’ Petra gasped. She saw her hand vulture-gripping my leg. ‘Oh, no! I’m so sorry!’

I took her chin in my hand and pecked her on the lips. She trembled. I kissed her ear and whispered, ‘Where we going now?’

‘Pardon? Oh!’ She tried to kiss my ear, but ended up pressing her nose in. ‘Sorry! Um…’ She pulled back her head and looked me in the eyes. ‘Do you want to come back to mine. I have thick walls.’

She said it like a robot at two-times speed. Had she been practising that line in front of a mirror? If she weren’t cute, she’d be cringe.

Grabbing her tie, I pulled her to me. ‘You wanna bone down?’ Her lips flapped and sound came out, but she had nothing to say. I put a finger to her lips. ‘See how it feels when someone reads your mind?’ With a smirk, I sat back in my chair. ‘Yeah, your place’ll do. S’long as your bedroom isn’t next to my brother’s, yours is better than mine.’

It took a minute before her brain started working again. ‘Yes!’ She started the car, pulled out of the parking space, before jolting to a stop. ‘Oh! Almost forgot.’ She handed me her phone, open to a map. ‘Can you read the directions?’

I squinted at the screen. ‘Doesn’t the app talk…’

The screen flickered, glitched, colours inverted, the streets swirled, and swirled and swirled and swirl-

The phone left my hand.

‘How do you like my room?’

We were in a bedroom, Petra’s. It was a big room, with pink walls. Through the slight opening of the closet door, I saw where Petra crammed all her stuffed animals. Did she think a pink bunny rabbit would ruin the mood? Or worse, did she think it would undermine her ‘masculine’ mystique? I’d take Petra, eighteen-year-old woman who still snuggled her stuffed toys, over those guys who think holding their girlfriend’s bag in public was one step short of getting their dicks lopped off. With a remote, Petra dimmed the lights. She stood face to face with me, or rather, chin to collar as she gazed up at my face.

‘We’re going to do something special, and it may feel a bit strange, and if it ever feels unpleasant, or wrong, then I want you to tell me, immediately, to stop.’

She was talking to me like I was a virgin from 19th century porn. I mean, I was a virgin—but I did know how two girls fucked. Probably. I’d watched some porn. Porn performed by straight girls directed by a straight guy. Oh, shit. Did Petra Sakimoto know more about lesbian sex than me?

‘If,’ Petra said, ‘anything I say or do, feels unpleasant, or wrong, will you tell me to stop immediately?’

‘Yes,’ I said, rolling my eyes. I laughed and gave her an eskimo kiss. ‘And you tell me if you don’t like being fucked hard.’

Her blush grew as her mouth gaped. She shook the panic from her face. ‘Alright, Kate, I’m going to start.’ She stepped back, stood straight, let the smile fade from her mouth, but kept the smile in her eyes. She whispered, firmly, ‘Kneel.’

Not what I was expecting, I admit. So, this was her fetish, strong women on their knees. Look at her face, trying not to crack, trying to beam command like a tiny empress, commanding me to get on my knees beneath her, to get on my knees, on the floor, where she could tower over me, to kneel, maybe even press my forehead to the ground, to make myself so low compared to my empress, my empress who commanded me to kneel, who would rule her meek, obedient subject.

OK, apparently, it was my fetish too.

‘Kneel. Be a good girl and kneel.’

The command filled me like warm air, pushing down my strength into a smaller and smaller pit in the middle of my stomach. I didn’t obey, not immediately. Petra’s command pushed down on my shoulders, turned my legs to jelly. I couldn’t resist her commands for long. Her commands were strong and they made me weak. I whimpered.

Petra’s face cracked. ‘Do you want to stop?’

I shook my head. ‘Say it again.’

She smiled. ‘Kneel, Katy, kneel before me.’

I lower to the ground, one knee at a time, each thud shuddering through me. I stared at my shoes, but she told me to look her in the eyes. I looked up her legs, her torso, her chest and my eyes reached up into hers, as her eyes bore down on mine. My eyes tingled as tears dripped down.

Petra’s face broke into concern. She was about to kneel at my side.

‘Don’t,’ I gulped. I hugged her legs, rubbing tears into her pants, smiling into her thighs. ‘I’ll yell “tomboy” if I don’t like it. Please, don’t stop!’

She stroked my hair. ‘Very docile, aren’t you, sweetie?’

I nodded as I snuggled deeper into her thighs.

‘Take off all your clothes.’

Without standing, I stripped. I almost tore my blouse off. I needed to be naked before her. When I pulled off my panties, I knelt, knees parted, so she could see everything.

‘Sit on the edge of the bed, sweetie.’

It wouldn’t feel right to stand, to be taller than my empress, I crawled to the bed. I shivered as soft sheets touched my bum. I gazed at Petra, who still stood, fully clothed, even wearing her tie.

‘Fuck me,’ I tell her. ‘I mean,,, Please, Ms Sakimoto, fuck me.’ I got wetter just saying that.

Petra smiled, her hands in her pockets, trying to seem cool. She stumbled to her desk, dragged her chair to about a metre in front of me and plopped herself down on it. Her whole body shook. Her hands jittered on her thighs. She closed her eyes as she balled her fists, drawing deep breaths, until her restless legs calmed.

‘Ms Sakimoto,’ I whined. ‘Please, fuck me.’

‘So polite, aren’t you, sweetie? But I don’t have to touch you, sweetie, because you’re so submissive that I can just remind you: You are mine’

My eyes fluttered back in my skull as.. something changed. What changed?

Petra closed her legs. I did too. She lifted her arms. My arms rose before I noticed it. She let her hands hover just over her ribs, and so did mine. I gasped. Even without touching, my ribs tingled. She slapped her hands onto her ribs, and when my hands followed, jets of warm, swirling bubbles shot through my ribs. I moaned. Slowly, Petra rubbed up and down her sides, down to her hips, where the warm whirl refused to reach my cunt. I wanted to finger my pussy, to rub my breasts, but my legs couldn’t spread, couldn’t disobey her legs, and my hands couldn’t disobey her hands. I was helpless, and that just made me want to cum more. Our hands traced around our breasts, ran over our nipples, but only I grunted from the pit of my stomach. We lingered over our waists, before our legs parted, and our hands slid down to our pussies. With only my palm pressing against my cunt, I nearly came. The jets of warmth from my hand running through my pussy, I trembled, moaned, my eyes shut.

‘I’m gonna cum!’ I had to say it. Don’t know why, but I had to.

‘Stop!’

My hands flew off my pussy. My arousal fell back down the hill. I whimpered at Petra. She wrapped her hand around the back of my neck, pressed her forehead to mine.

‘I wouldn’t let our first date end in a little orgasm.’ She pushed me back on the bed. On all fours she loomed over me. She placed her hand on my stomach.

At first, I felt nothing. Then I felt a pin prick deep inside me, a hot tingle, which grew larger and hotter. The heat went through my whole stomach and leaked out my cunt. I could only see Petra’s face staring down at mine, her horny face staring at my horny face. I groaned.

‘Cum,’ she commanded.

My groan drew out as the prickling heat in my stomach and cunt became a fire. I shook, swore. I wrapped my arms around Petra, yanking her to my chest. She yelped. My legs locked around hers, as the orgasm rumbled through me, rumbled and rumbled and wouldn’t stop rumbling, as Petra mumbled something into my neck, as I ground against Petra as the orgasm kept shooting up and down my body, even as Petra pulled her head from my flesh, gasping for breath, saying, ‘St… st… st….’ She gulped in air. ‘Stop!’

The orgasm flowed away, leaving only a glow. My arms and legs flopped down, releasing Petra. She leapt back, gasping, before collapsing in her chair. I wasn’t letting her get away that easily.

I heaved myself off the bed and fell to the floor on my hands and knees. I tried to make it seem sexy, rather than just me being dead tired. ‘I always play fair,’ I slur. ‘You’re gonna cum too.’ I fiddled with the button on her trousers, but my fingers kept slipping off.

She tore off her pants and spread her legs for me, bearing her pussy for my tongue. She was going to have the best orgasm… of… her…

Kate had fallen asleep with her face in my pussy. I gently lowered her head to the floor, calling her name and poking her to wake her up. It wasn’t because I wanted her to finish me off (not entirely), but because I couldn’t possibly carry her onto the bed. She snored. I sighed and kissed her drooling mouth. I got us a pillow and a blanket. I snuggled to sleep on the floor next to my sweet, submissive girlfriend.

Everyone at school looked at me. I mean, yeah, I’d never worn the girl’s uniform (even when it was compulsory, I never wore it), but did everyone have to do a double-take at me? Sarah Handal even pulled me aside and promised me she’d castrate whichever boy had blackmailed me into this. By the time I’d convinced her that this really was my decision, we were late for psychology class.

‘And now, Petra Sakimoto will present her project,’ said Ms Reilly.

I only noticed her say that because Petra pulled me by the arm to the front of the class. Even when my public image wasn’t doing a one-eighty, I never paid attention in Psych class, so I had no fucking clue why I was being led to the front for Petra’s project. All those eyes I couldn’t bear to meet now had an excuse to stare at me. I looked at my shoes and tugged the hem of my skirt as Petra started.

‘My project,’ Petra said, ‘is on the powerful therapeutic effects of hypnosis.’

My eyes snapped to Petra. ‘What!?’

The whole class tensed. I forgot the shame of wearing a skirt in front of the class, and was just ashamed I’d been such a fucking idiot.

‘Hypnosis!?’ Of course, it was fucking hypnosis! Of course, I didn’t like girly things. ‘You little—’

Petra touched two fingers to my throat and shushed me. ‘Kate, Kate, there’s a filter in your throat, a filter that only lets out truth, the truth that is held in your deepest heart.’ She removed her fingers. ‘How do you feel about me hypnotizing you.’

Look at the smile on this deluded bitch, so confident that I was entirely on board with her 1950s culty fantasy life. No, I was a tomboy, and she almost ruined it. ‘I,’ I said, ‘LOVE IT!’

Only a few awkward giggles from the class broke the silence. ‘I mean,’ I said, ‘I really, really, love it!’ I punched my temples. ‘Nnnnnnyyyynnnyyyesss, I love it.’ No, Kate, remember your hate, express your hate. ‘I hate, hate, HATE how I’ve felt for the past five years, pretending to be a tomboy.’

When I started the sentence, the words seemed to be forced from my mouth, and then I realized how true they were. I hugged Petra and scooped her a foot off the ground. ‘Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!’

I looked to the class. ‘I hated being a tomboy. I love sports. I have guy friends. But… but I just wanted to wear a skirt too! I wanted to be sweet and polite, not… boyish. I like my girlfriend opening doors for me, I like submitting in bed—’

Petra slapped her hand over my mouth. ‘The filter’s gone now! Gone!’ We both blushed. A lot of the class blushed too.

Petra continued her project, sometimes dropping me into trance to demonstrate something. Our classmates asked us questions, and Petra made sure I was comfortable with them. When she finished the whole class clapped. The whole class, except…

‘Bullshit!’ Sarah Handal marched to the front of the class. Her boyfriend trailed after her. He grabbed her shoulder, begging her not to make a scene. She shook his hand off.

‘“What she really wanted”?’ said Sarah. ‘It’s fucking mind control.’ She pointed at Petra. ‘Just ‘cause she’s a cute little Japanese girl, doesn’t make this any less patriarchal bullshit.’

Petra waved her hands in front of her face, trying to stay calm. ‘Hypnosis isn’t mind control. You can’t make someone do what they really don’t want to do. Kate only changed because she really wanted to change.’

I put my arm around Petra, so she could breathe easier.

‘Like,’ said Petra to Sarah, ‘if I tried to make you a submissive girlfriend, it wouldn’t work.’

Sarah blushed. ‘Of course, it wouldn’t.’ She stamped her foot. ‘Of course, it wouldn’t—but I have a strong will.’

Petra’s eyes widened as her smirk grew. ‘And if told you to sleep if you wanted to be a submissive girlfriend, it wouldn’t work, of course.’

Sarah’s eyes blinked. ‘No, of course, it wouldn’t.

‘If I told you sleep if you wanted your boyfriend to take charge, it wouldn’t work, wouldn’t it?’

Her legs buckled for a moment, but she stayed upright, her body swaying. ‘Right.’

‘And if I told you to sleep if you’ve always wanted to make your boyfriend a sandwich, why wouldn’t it work?’

Sarah’s eyes slammed shut and flew open. She stamped on the ground, slapped her face, but her stamps and slaps weakened and weakened. She swooned into her boyfriend’s arms, sleepily murmuring into his chest. Petra knelt by Sarah’s boyfriend, and told him how to nurture her newfound needs.

The whole class giggled, even the teacher. Some of the boys hissed to each other what they’d do to Sarah to ‘fix her’. They quickly shut up when I slammed my fist onto their desk. I may have been a girly girl, but that didn’t mean I’d let fuckheads be fuckheads. I just hoped Sarah realized that becoming a girly girlfriend wouldn’t make her less, that becoming less boyish and rude wouldn’t weaken or disprove her beliefs. I knelt by Petra’s side as she spoke to Sarah’s boyfriend. I kissed the nape of her neck, making her stiffen with shock, before melting into a smile. I hugged her from behind, whispering ‘Thank you’ into her ear, ‘Thank you for helping me be who I am.’