24 hour YouTube Challenge Pt. 03

Authors note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

24-hour Challenge

Two PM to Three PM

Elli ran flat out until her lungs hurt from sucking in the cold air to fuel her pumping legs. The trees had swallowed her up, hiding her from any would be pursuers. Not that she considered it likely that Deke or Jay would come after her. Aside from the fact that both Americans seemed unnerved by the freezing conditions they found themselves in, Elli thought it more likely that they were still sat in the van complaining about her dramatic if somewhat hysterical reaction to being dumped by Ahti.

Ahti.

Elli couldn't believe that he had overreacted so badly to the harmless video's she'd uploaded on her channel. So, what if the other soldiers he was serving with had now seen Elli in her underwear? Why couldn't he be happy that she looked so good? Wasn't it better for those soldiers to be jealous of Ahti's good fortune having her as a girlfriend? He should have been thanking her, congratulating her, not levelling ultimatums at her.

She wished she had thought to say all that when he had called. It wasn't too late though to have her say. Elli searched in her pocket for her cell phone, pulling it out and calling Ahti's number.

The phone rang five times before going to voice mail. Elli tried again, a single ring before she was switched to the recorded voice of Ahti requesting her to leave a message. Dodging her calls was one thing but he was simply refusing to answer them, rejecting the calls as soon as they came in.

Elli had been upset and tearful as she had run blindly through the woods to this spot, her sensitive nature a surprising inheritance from her father. Her dear Papa was often to be seem cuffing away tears as he watched a romantic comedy on the TV, completely at odds with his normal tough guy exterior. The feeling of righteous anger that bubbled now in the cauldron of her heart was from her mother's side of the family. Soft eyes, gorgeous smiles and a capacity for a short temper and a long memory, that was what Elli had inherited from her mother and her grandmother before her. The short temper was off its leash as Elli began typing into her phone.

'I could live with you not supporting me 100%. I could live with you having doubts about my choices in life. I could never live with you treating me as inferior, stupid or naïve. Fuck you Ahti, fuck you for taking so long to show me the real you.'

She wanted to hit send before she would have a chance to second guess herself, to reconsider her words. However, she didn't. Elli didn't regret her choice of words. She had spoken the truth as she saw it, but while not regretting them she didn't actually want to cause Ahti pain. Short temper aside, Elli was soft hearted, good natured and while his behaviour had hurt her, she was a staunch proponent that 'two wrongs didn't make a right'. Even as she considered this, Elli realised that she'd wronged Ahti a lot worse than he had her... the only difference was that he was unaware of it.

As she often did when looking to clear her mind, Elli went onto her social media sites. Not that she expected to find an answer there, more to give her a moment to weigh her decision. She went to her channel to see how things were going. Another jump in subscriber number made her smile wanly, some good news at least. Elli scanned around, seeing a fallen tree nearby. She brushed snow off the trunk and sat down on it, for the first time since the videos were uploaded, she took the time to review the comments.

Lots of positive ones, even more expressing encouragement in her trying new things for her channel from both original subscribers who were regular commentators and new ones as well. Of course, there were a few commenting on her looks rather than the video content but that wasn't a surprise nowadays. There were two comments that drew her eye though, almost the latest ones.

The first;

@Blackjohnson12 - 'Dat girl be DTF bro, FR'

The second, a reply to that comment;

@FinnSol - 'She is acting like a slut'

Elli felt the tears well up once more, FinnSol was Ahti's username. He was publicly calling her a slut. She tabbed back to her unsent message, firing it off without a moment's hesitation. Yes, she had acted the slut, cheating on him with two men but he didn't know about that, Ahti's venom had been towards her video, towards Elli growing online, no longer content with vanilla uploads. Elli might have deserved the label of 'slut' but he had no right disparaging her online creativity.

Feeling no better despite sending the message, Elli turned to her personal cheerleader, her mother, for support. Thankfully her mother could always be relied upon to answer the phone.

"Hallo," her mother answered the call almost on the first ring.

"Hey Momma," Elli said, a world of misery in those two words.

"What happened? Don't tell me your father was right? Did those two boys do something to you? Jesus, if he was right, he will never let me hear the end of it. So, talk... tell me... what's wrong?"

"No, no, it's okay. The two... they've been fine. They aren't the problem," Elli replied as soon as her mother paused long enough to allow her.

"Say you didn't hurt the van. Please... say the van is alright. Your father will disappear into that god damned garage for another three months working on it if you damaged it."

"Momma, momma please. The van's okay. It's Ahti. He broke up with me," Elli sobbed into the phone.

"Oh. Oh okay. Well, that's fine. You were too good for him anyway; he didn't smile enough. I never trust a boy who isn't willing to show his teeth enough. Good indication of a poor character. Wait... is this why you're upset? Over Ahti?"

"Yes of course," Elli said, pulling a face as she answered.

"Don't you roll your eyes down the phone at me," her mother snapped, somehow always possessed of a sixth sense when it came to her daughter showing any disrespect.

"Sorry Momma," Elli somehow already feeling better through the normality of her interaction with her mother.

"This is about those videos you posted right? No, don't answer that I am sure it is. Your Ahti is like your father, a shadow of him but still alike. As much as they might want the world to stop turning, for peoples tastes to remain unchanged, it still happens. You can't let their values dictate your own. Set your own course in life and if you mess up, just be sure to learn from it, that's what being young is all about. Making your own decisions, your own mistakes, your own memories. Not following Ahti's decisions, nor your fathers."

"Just yours," Elli quipped.

"Of course, mine, you should be thankful you've got a mother as wise and beautiful as you do."

"I thank God for it every day Momma," Elli said only half joking.

"Well, if you're feeling well enough to give me lip, then my job is done. Ok my dove, just a few more hours. See you soon and be safe."

"I will Momma, thanks, I love you!" Elli said.

"Love you too," her mother replied before ringing off.

Elli pushed the phone back in her pocket. Her hands were cold as she'd left her gloves in the van and the daylight was fading fast, the days brutally short this far north. Not wanting to be caught out in the woods in the dark, she began trudging back to the camper van.

Three PM to Four PM

Darkness had all but settled around her as Elli emerged from the wooded area to the sight of the camper van in the snow shrouded car park which gave her a sense of relief. The sight of Deke and Jay, resplendent in their outlandishly bright winter clothing, trudging through the snow towards her was unexpected. Elli didn't think either man, Jay in particular, could have been coaxed from the warmth and shelter of the van.

"Thank fuck for that!" Jay exclaimed when they saw Elli returning.

"You, okay? You had us worried," Deke then said, giving Jay a half push in reproof for his outburst.

"Yes, I am fine now. Where are you going?"

"Looking for you. Minute it started getting' dark, figured you needed savin' from polar bears or whatever the fuck else is livin' round here," Jay answered. This actually coaxed a smile from her, the idea of two city living American's thinking they were better able to navigate through a Finnish forest in the grip of winter than a local girl, familiar with both the area and the dangers... well it wasn't quite laughable but it was certainly worth a smile.

"Thank you for that but as you can see, no Bears, no wolves, no lynx's troubling me," Elli said, internally laughing at Jay's ignorance to assume a Polar bear was traipsing around central Finland. "Let's get back to the warmth, yes?"

"Hell yes!" Jay said, stomping his feet on the ground even though he'd only left the van a couple of minutes earlier.

Back inside, the three of them soon divested of their outerwear, Jay and Deke huddling in front of the heater while Elli pawed through the supplies, claiming a bar of chocolate and the half-drunk bottle of Jaloviina for herself. Neither man pressed her for details and Elli certainly wasn't in the mood to open up about her private life to these two, so for a few minutes a silence, not uncomfortable but with a tinge of awkwardness, settled on the trio.

Elli could feel Deke's eyes on her as she drank freely from the bottle. For the first few minutes it was annoying, feeling his gaze, unwavering, on her. After five minutes or so, annoying shifted into bloody irritating. She took another swig before closing the bottle and turning her face to meet his stare.

"What? You are staring. So, what do you want to say?"

"Nothing'... just maybe drinking like that on just a few bites of chocolate, good way to make yourself sick, drunk an' sick" Deke answered her, still not looking away.

"Fine, I wont drink anymore of your precious bottle," Elli huffed, tossing it to him, Deke snatching it from the air smoothly. "Stop judging me! I've had enough of that for today."

"It aint judgement, just concern, a'ight?" Deke opened the bottle to take a drink himself, passing it over to Jay afterwards. "Look, I get you're upset about Ahti, just running off into the woods, drinking like that... mebbe you'd feel better if you talked. Eh?"

Elli thought he sounded genuine in his offer but a part of her, a small spiteful part, held Deke and Jay to blame for her fight with Ahti, after all it had been their challenges that had enraged her boyfriend. So right now, she didn't feel like talking to them about her life. Instead of answering, she just gave him a curt shake of her head.

"Well offers there anyhow," he said, finally settling back and taking his gaze off of her.

The heat had built up in the van again, uncomfortable to Elli but apparently bang on target for the two men. Elli undid her jeans and pulled them off, not oblivious but currently uncaring about Jay and Deke ogling her bare legs as she pulled the jeans off.

That gave her a little relief, so Elli didn't request that the heater be switched off... yet. Again, a silence stretched out for a while, the two black men sitting quietly, eyes closed as if dozing, Elli staring fixedly at the bottle of alcohol now sat beside Jay. She knew getting drunk wasn't the answer but it wasn't like there was a large tub of ice-cream handy for her to consume in a fit of misery. The quiet of the van made a random thought pop into her head.

"Did you record many women?"

Jay's eyelids flickered open as Elli spoke, his eyes darting towards Deke as he sat up a little straighter before replying.

"Yeah, some. Like I said before, souvenirs of our European tour is all. Why?"

"I guess I am curious how many women you slept with before me," Elli replied honestly. Jay again looked to Deke who gave the merest shake of his head. Jay in fairness didn't need the prompt, he knew a loaded question when he heard it.

"Not many, I won't say an exact number cos that reflects bad on the women involved, not jes me an' him. Lemme say, we kinda particular an' there aint that many girls that look as fine as you. That good enough?"

"Good enough? Yes I suppose," Elli answered. In truth she liked his answer, the implication that she was among a special group giving her the same feeling of importance that her social media status did. On the subject of social media...

"Jay, is the livestream still turned off?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Can you please turn it back on for the next hourly update?" Jay checked his laptop, there was just under ten minutes to go before four PM. He opened up the tab for the wireless web cam in the front of the van and turned the timed program setting back on before inclining his head towards Elli.

"Thanks," she said, leaning forward to retrieve the bottle, drinking a generous slug before Deke could comment again.

"You want company for the update?" Deke tiptoed around asking her if she was sober enough to go live.

"No, but thank you for asking." Elli left the bottle where it was and climbed over the seats to the front of the cab, the sound of Jay sucking his front teeth as he watched her pert ass manoeuvre itself over the back of the seat lost on her. There was a swishing sound as Elli pulled the curtain closed, isolating herself from the others. She then sat cross legged on the passenger side of the seat, uncaring that her bare legs were visible, waiting for the red LED to blink to life.

Four PM to Five PM

"Hi everyone," even to her own ears, Elli could hear the subdued timbre of her voice.

"Listen I know we, myself and the guys, promised you hourly updates to show we were one hundred percent truthful about spending the twenty-four hours in the camper van. Technical issues impacted that and to be honest something else came up as well." Elli paused at that point, taking a moment to smear at some of the tears already leaking down her face.

"The other thing... Oh, this is so hard and I don't know why I am doing this except it seems right to do it. Okay... okay... right, my boyfriend and I never argue, like never. But I know that he doesn't... didn't... like that I had a presence online. A couple of hours ago we had a fight about the fact that I was posting challenges on my channel and..." Elli sobbed for a moment, turning her face away from the camera, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed uncontrollably for a good thirty seconds. When she looked back, her complexion was blotchy from her crying.

"Sorry... ummm, yes so, he broke up with me. I think. He never said it but the way he left it... he broke up with me. I am saying this to you now because one," Elli ticked off a finger on her hand. "One... the fight started over me being too exposed online, so I guess I wanted to expose my heart as well. Two..." Elli raised a second finger for the benefit of her online audience, "Two... I needed to share, I needed to tell someone and to be honest some of you have known me for years now, I kind of feel you are friends I just haven't met yet and it's good to share with friends. Finally, three." Elli raised a third finger, waggling them at the camera before cuffing at fresh tears threatening to spill forth.

"Three... since my boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend, won't answer my calls or texts and I can see though that he has had the time to comment on my posted videos, I thought I might reach out to him this way. So, if you are watching... happy now? I am miserable and the world knows. Maybe this makes us even for me embarrassing you?" Elli began crying again, she turned away, hands on her face.

"Jay," she sobbed. "Turn it off." Immediately the light on the camera blinked off.

Elli stayed in the front of the van for a while. Her tears stopped flowing after a few minutes, only an occasional racking sob, hiccupping randomly from her throat, continued to flag her misery. After ten minutes, Elli heard the curtain being drawn, an arm reaching over blinding, the bottle in hand.

"Thank you," Elli said hoarsely, taking the bottle from the black hand, watching as the arm withdrew, the curtains twitching closed once more.

She allowed herself to wallow in self-pity for the remainder of the hour, sipping occasionally at the bottle, feeling the sharp edge of her sorrow become dulled by the alcohol. As her misery retreated for now at least, Elli felt a pang of loneliness, disconnection as she sat alone up front.

"Jay?"

"Still alive then, are ya?" Elli felt a grin twist her lips slightly. She had found Deke the more charismatic of the two but there was something about Jay's irreverent, blunt nature that lifted her spirits at this moment.

"Fuck you," she called back, hearing his snort of amusement at her reply.

"What do you want now? You done stole all the good drink already," Jay said accusingly.

"Hand me over the small blue bag, it should be near my coat," Elli said. She waited and listened as Jay, or Deke, scrambled through the items in the back, finally passing the bag through the curtain. Inside was wipes, tissues, make up.

Elli spent a few minutes restoring her face. She couldn't do much about the reddened eyes but the rest she could fix. Done, she tossed the bag through the curtains, climbing after it, bottle in hand.

Five PM to Six PM

She landed over the other side of the seat in an undignified sprawl, the constant sampling of the Jaloviina taking its toll finally. Elli answered the grins of Jay and Deke with her own lopsided effort. There was a sliver of guilt within her for being so judgemental towards the two men at the start of the challenge, being creeped out somewhat by Jay and his porn for example. The two American's had been patient, helpful and actually quite understanding of the drama with Ahti, neither of them getting annoyed or impatient with Elli.

Additionally, she couldn't deny in her heart of hearts that she found both of them attractive. Physically attractive at least. Jay wasn't handsome by any stretch of the imagination but Deke certainly was. Not that she really needed reminding, but both men had shed their tops, lolling about in the heat of the van in just their pants now.

Elli's slightly blurred vision, crying and copious amounts of alcohol will cloud even the keenest pair of eyes, was filled with sweaty black skin, corded layers of muscle beneath that seemed to ripple even as they sat relaxed. The mix of heat, alcohol and her rollercoasting emotions had left her inappropriately horny it seemed. Elli looked to distract herself by talking.

"Guys, am so sorry. I'm totally ruining your trip to Finland. So, so sorry," she gushed, her words running into one another, another indication of how tipsy the alcohol had made her.

"Don't sweat it, it's been memorable," Deke replied charitably.

"No, no, I messed up I know," Elli protested, "But hey, lets do another challenge, yeah?"

"I don't think you are up for one," Deke said.

"No, I am, I really am," Elli made a concentrated effort to appear focused, Deke still didn't look very convinced. "I am, come on Jay, your turn, isn't it? Pick a challenge."

Jay set his laptop aside. He'd turned off the heater finally, the black man reaching even his limit as regards the sweat box he'd turned the van into. He grabbed at the bulge of his cock, revealed once he'd set the lap top aside, pawing at it demonstrably.

"I got your challenge right here babe," he said.

"I already met this challenge. Twice." Elli grinned at Jay's suggestion, wondering if he had made some intuitive leap... picked up on her vulnerability, her horniness.

"Not both. Not at the same time," the black man clarified.