The Cam Girl

Mackenzie also went to her bathroom to change her tampon before joining him in bed. They turned to each other, lying on their sides.

'Just in case you hadn't noticed, I'm not very good at this whole relationship thing.' She confessed.

'Well, this one is a little different than usual.' He smiled.

'I don't really know what usual is, I, uh..., I've never really been in one before.'

'That's nothing to be ashamed about. I've only had one, so it's not like I have a lot more experience than you...'

'One? The high school sweetheart?'

'Something like that.'

'Was it nice? Being in a relationship?'

'Most of the time.'

'And at the... least of the time?'

'That's when we broke it off.'

Jarno started to play with a lock of her hair absent-mindedly.

'I just brought this up, because... I like you. And that never really happened to me before, okay?' Mackenzie said, noticing the corners of his mouth quirk up. 'And don't say "I like you too"! You could be saying it just because I said it. Say it some other time!'

His smile widened. 'Okay.'

'And because I like you, it kind of freaks me out. I don't want this to go too fast. Last time... it just felt really, really fast! I want to shamelessly fuck you without worrying about anything for quite some time, okay?'

'Sounds like gruelling work, but I'll try to endure.' He replied, dryly. 'Mackenzie, why didn't you just tell me this then?'

She shrugged, a little embarrassed. 'You were really at ease with how fast it was going, and I figured that meant you would get hurt if I said I didn't like it.'

'We go as fast as the slowest of us wants to go. That's how relationships work. Otherwise, it'll just fail. And that works both ways. How's that? Sound good, going forward?'

It sounded perfect to her ears. She nodded with a soft smile.

Her tiredness, both physically from the run with Hailey and psychologically from her encounter with Jarno, was getting the better of her. Mackenzie leaned into him, resting her head on his chest. Relenting to an inner impulse, she buried her nose in his neck and inhaled deeply.

'God, I missed your smell. I said that out loud, didn't I?'

He laughed and they were silent for a long time. There was something Mackenzie needed to get off her chest, though.

'Jarno?' She whispered to check if he was sleeping.

'What is it?'

She took a deep breath. 'There hasn't been anyone. Other than Hailey. Other than Hailey I haven't been with anyone since... you know.'

He didn't reply instantly.

'I'd be lying if I said it didn't like to hear that, but you know it wouldn't matter if you did, right?'

'I know. That's exactly why I wanted to tell you. What about you?'

Jarno scoffed. 'It's cute that you think I'm actually good at finding a date...'

'You got one with me...'

'Still trying to figure out how I did that.'

'By being yourself.'

There was a pause.

'There hasn't been anyone else either.' He confessed to her.

Mackenzie felt herself smile childishly and they didn't speak again until the sun was up.

///////////////

There was a heavy form above her. For a little while, in her sleepy state, she couldn't quite understand what it was. Then the memories of the last twenty-four hours came rushing in. Mackenzie looked down at Jarno, smiling softly.

Almost his entire body was on top of her. He was on his side, his legs tangled in hers, his chest pressed to her right side, an arm circling her waist and, most endearing of all, his head was resting on her breast. It was like watching a small kid sleep with his favourite snuggle toy.

Reaching out, Mackenzie used the tip of her fingers to caress his temples and his bearded cheeks. She twitched her nose: she preferred him clean shaven. Why did he have this mellowing effect on her? The thought came a few minutes after, when she was still running her fingers through his face. Stupid deep and meaningful guy.

The stupid deep and meaningful guy twitched and held her tighter, which had seemed impossible.

'You awake?' Mackenzie whispered.

'No.' Jarno whispered back.

'Who's talking to me, then?'

'Your conscience.'

'My conscience has a deeper voice than I expected.'

'Your conscience was assigned the wrong gender at birth and is undergoing a transitional period and would like you to stop shaming her.'

'I was not shaming my transgendered conscience.'

'Your conscience prefers to identify as gender queer.'

Mackenzie bit her lip to stifle the laugh that threatened to come out.

'I'm sorry, gender queer conscience. Would it make you feel better if I fucked this guy's brains out, conscience?'

'I guess it couldn't hurt...' Jarno replied, getting his head off her breast so quickly she wanted to laugh. She leaned in and when he closed his eyes she hoped off the bed with a giggle.

He looked more amused then annoyed. 'Your conscience thinks you're evil.' He told her, letting his head fall back onto the pillow and his eyes wander hungrily over her body.

'My conscience is a bit of a pervert as well.' Mackenzie scolded him, though she really liked his look.

Jarno closed his eyes and covered his whole body with the sheets. 'Can't argue with that...'

Heading to the kitchen, Mackenzie thought about returning the favour from months before and serve him breakfast in bed. Contrary to him, though, she was pretty shit at cooking anything, so rather than attempt to serve him some burnt pancakes, she opened the fridge door instead and fetched out the chocolate cake bought the day before and the milk bottle.

She took out two mugs from the top cabinet to her left and filled them up before putting them in the microwave. She'd just grabbed a knife from the top drawer and was beginning to prepare the slices of cake when a hand tapped her on the shoulder.

'Rise and shine, conscience.' Mackenzie said, closing her eyes and leaning her head on the shoulder behind her. With her free hand she pushed his lips to hers and kissed him. Were his lips always that soft? And where did his beard go? There was no way he'd had enough time to shave... She realized who she was kissing and stopped.

'If I'm your conscience you are well and truly fucked.' Hailey told her.

'Not you. I thought... Never mind.'

'What do you mean, not me? Who else-' Her expression began to slowly change from non-comprehension to an understanding grin. Without warning she bolted to the bedroom doors.

'Hailey!' Mackenzie hissed, making a move to go after her, but having to turn back for a second and drop the object in her hand, since chasing her roommate around the house with a knife in hand seemed a little over the top.

She reached the door to her bedroom just in time to hear Hailey saying: 'Hey, lover boy!'

'Yeah?' Came Jarno's muffled reply from under the sheets.

'I'll be back in a sec.' Mackenzie said and closed the door again before taking a smiling blonde girl by the hand away from it.

'You know, when I told you about not being with a guy I wasn't expecting you to go and fish one for the next morning. Damn good hook up game, girl! High-five!'

'I did not fish...'

'I said high-five, Mac.' Hailey interrupted. Mackenzie didn't move. 'Mackenzie I will feast on your corpse if you leave me hanging.'

With a sigh, the purple haired girl slowly returned the high-five.

'Fuck yeah!' The blonde cheered, looking annoyingly pleased with herself.

'Are you done?'

'Coming to think of it, you didn't really pick him up, you already knew him.'

'Seems not...' Mackenzie muttered.

'I mean do you have like a bat signal that just says "Lover Boy" that he responds to on notice?'

The memory of the Harley Quinn conversation crossed Mackenzie's mind. 'He just happened to still be in town.'

'For you.'

A vehement denial was on Mackenzie's lips but she hesitated. Which was a mistake.

'Oh, my God... He was. I call shotgun on presiding the ceremony.' Hailey clapped her hands in fake excitement.

'No, you're not.'

'Yes, I am. You can get a certification on the internet, like, no problem.'

Bringing her hands to her face in annoyance, Mackenzie tried again.

'It's not a big deal, I just saw him at Mike's and invited him to stay the night. That's it! We didn't even have sex!'

'You brought a guy home and it wasn't to have sex with him... Now, I know you're in love.' Hailey grinned, pinching her friend's cheek.

It was no use. So she took the short silence to tell her something.

'Look, I... I'm sorry about how I treated you last night. You were joking around like we always do and I took it too seriously. You didn't deserve that reaction, I'm sorry.'

Hailey's expression was devoid of mischief when she smiled at her friend.

'Don't worry about it, Mac. And for the record I felt like a bit of a dick after saying what I did.'

'It's just that subconsciously I've been thinking that I may be imposing myself on you since Jarno and I broke it off. I really like having fun with you, but before anything else you're my friend. And maybe I was forgetting that.'

Hailey placed her hands on Mackenzie's shoulders. 'Having sex with you isn't a chore, Mac!' They both laughed. 'And for the record, if I didn't want to fuck you I would tell it to your face not by making a bitchy joke. Okay?'

'Okay.' Mackenzie agreed and they shared a rare tender hug.

'Make sure you're not too busy with lover boy, though would you?'

Feeling her smile widening further, Mackenzie hugged her friend a little tighter. 'You bet.'

'Oh, and Mac?'

'Yeah?'

'Bet you're wishing you weren't on your period right about now...' Hailey teased before she slipped away with a smug grin and jumped to the front door to leave, chanting "No hot stud for Mackenzie!". It had been too hopeful to believe they would remain serious with each other for more than a few seconds.

With a sigh, Mackenzie grabbed the knife and continued what she was doing. Setting up a tray for the both of them, she re-entered her room where Jarno was sitting down on the bed, lazily rubbing his eyes.

'Gee, milk and cake. Thanks, mom.'

'I can get you some burnt toast if you keep complaining.'

'Just sayin'...' Jarno said, his voice muffled as he started to eat alongside Mackenzie. 'I took to searching your kitchen for a juice squeezer and you can't be bothered to cook? How do you survive?'

'On a diet of takeout, Mike's food and Hailey's cooking.' Mackenzie replied, taking a gulp from her glass.

'And you've survived this long?'

'Thanks to junk food and no exercise.'

Jarno smirked.

'I wish I could do that and not turn into Snorlax...' He said. 'That's a fat Pokemon.' He clarified after seeing Mackenzie frown.

'I know it's a Pokemon.' Mackenzie replied half-amused, half-irritated. 'It's just that, ah...' She looked suggestively up and down his naked muscled torso.

He swallowed the last bit of his cake before speaking. 'Yeah, but this,' He pointed his chest. 'this is just because I have to workout every day. It's what I have to do for my job, not because I'm addicted to fitness.'

'Is it that important that you're bulky to drive?'

Her mind was filled with a few overweight Nascar drivers she'd seen over the years on television.

'Not to drive, per say.' Jarno said, slightly surprised at her interest. 'But it's important to be fit enough to reach the end of the race without being exhausted. If I can keep my body's pain from effort to a minimum it makes my job of focusing on the racing easier. And F1 presents other physical challenges, too...'

'Like what?' Mackenzie asked, drinking the rest of her mug and setting aside the tray, as the both of them were finished.

'For instance, I'm tall for an F1 driver, which means more weight. More weight means less speed and we have a minimum weight that the car and driver have to be over at all times.'

'But doesn't the minimum weight help you?'

'It's actually quite a low weight.' He answered, excited in his explanation now. 'The other guys can be under it without much effort. I don't. And I can't exercise more than a certain amount. Otherwise I start gaining weight again: from muscle instead of fat. My PT and I have actually started to calm down on the sessions because of that.'

'Look at me, I'm so fit I need to stop exercising...' Mackenzie mocked him, and he made a face at her. 'Anything else?'

'Yeah, I don't know if you've noticed but my neck is a bit bulky.'

Now, that he mentioned it she did notice it.

He continued: 'I have special exercises to strengthen my neck muscles.'

'What for?'

Looking at her for a moment, Jarno told her it was easier to demonstrate and instructed her to lie down with her head off the mattress. She did so. Then he told her to straighten out her neck. She fought gravity and did so feeling a slightly unpleasant sensation of strain.

'That's gravity pulling you down. 1G. In the high speed corners, an F1 driver has to fight back 5G, so we need to make sure we can handle that for two hours without twisting something important.'

The strain was becoming pain and so Mackenzie pushed herself back onto the bed with a groan. Jarno lay alongside her.

'Somehow I don't think you'll be tackling high speed corners anytime soon...' He muttered.

'Very funny. For your information I was running yesterday afternoon with Hailey so I'm tired!'

'If you ran more often you wouldn't be tired.'

'Shut up.'

'I'm saying you're lazy!' He hissed in her ear.

'Shut up.'

'Lazy.'

'Shut up.' Mackenzie silenced him this time by kissing him. She twitched her nose and pulled away softly.

'Sorry, breath?' Jarno asked her.

'No, no.' Her hand felt around his beard. 'Why did you decide to grow it?'

'Not so much as decided... just... couldn't be bothered to do it for a few days and then I've just trimmed it every few weeks.' He replied. 'Huh...'

'What?'

'Nothing. Just found amusing that both you and Daniela didn't like me with a beard...'

It took her a moment to register what he was telling her.

'Your high school sweetheart ex?' She inquired.

'Yeah...' He looked down, before adding apologetically: 'Sorry.'

'What for?' Mackenzie looked at him puzzled.

'Talking about an ex.'

'I don't mind. Besides, she took care of training you really well and I get to reap the benefits. Maybe I should send her a thank you letter.'

'I'll be sure to provide the address.' Jarno said before bringing her face to his.

Mackenzie pulled him away after a heartbeat. 'Shave it off, buddy.'

'I'm not your buddy, pal...' He muttered into the sheets, looking like he was about to get comfortable on the bed again.

'Shave.' She pushed him until there was no more bed under him, though he softened the "fall" with his hands.

He grunted and got up. 'Fine.' He stopped on the way to the bathroom. 'Do you have new razors left?'

'Under the-'

Getting up into a sitting position on her knees, Mackenzie felt like entertaining a sudden whim of her imagination.

'Can I shave you?'

He raised an eye brow. 'It's not that the thought of you holding a sharp object to my throat doesn't fill me with confidence, but have you done this before?'

'For your information, my grandad was a barber and when I was eleven I got curious and asked him to teach me. And I spent three summers working at his barber shop!'

'Alright, alright! You didn't have to give me your resume... You can do it.'

'Yeah!' She jumped off the bed happily. 'Take that chair and sit in the bathroom, I'm just gonna fetch something.'

When she walked into the bathroom, Jarno's focused on the small straw box she was carrying.

'What is that?' He asked.

'This,' Mackenzie took off the lid and started removing the objects inside one by one. 'is my barber tool kit that I got from Hailey as a joke for Christmas a few years ago. I never got to use it, obviously. And don't worry, they're all within their expiration dates.' She added, before he could find any objections on the creams and gels she finished taking out of her box.

'I didn't say anything...'

'But you were thinking it. Now,' Coughing, Mackenzie started to point out each individual product. 'we have here: pre-shave oil, traditional shaving cream, after-shave balm and a traditional foaming cleanser.' She turned to Jarno. 'I'm going to start off with the foaming cleanser and wet your face with some warm water and use the cleanser. Then, I'll use the oil. It's gonna lubricate your face and allow for a more comfortable and closer shave.

'The I'll lather your face with the traditional shaving cream, shave off the beard with a straight razor, and finally pop the after-shave balm on your skin. And if you're lucky and find me in a good mood I may even give you a little scalp massage...'

Jarno said nothing, just looking up at her looking thoroughly amused.

'What?'

'Nothing.'

'It was something.'

'It was nothing. Sounds good, go ahead.'

She was about to when she remembered something. 'I actually can't, 'cause I forgot...' Leaving the room, she checked the inside of the dryer. The clothes inside were still quite warm because it had just finished a cycle, which suited her nicely. She went into her room and took out two small towels from her wardrobe, placing one of them in the freezer and bringing the other back into the bathroom, and around Jarno's neck.

It had been so long since the last time Mackenzie had done this, she almost forgot how much she had liked doing it during her teenage years' summer holidays. She started by dabbing the brush into the hot water she'd just filled from the tap and applied it to her bearded "client".

'Warm the face up before we put on the foaming cleanser.' She whispered.

Squeezing some foaming cleanser into her hands, Mackenzie stood behind Jarno as she started applying it with rotary movements until his face had no more foam, but merely looked shiny. She moved on to the oil and used just a few drops of it, starting to dab his face with a few rough movements of her fingers.

'My grandad used some rough techniques on this part of the shave.' She told him in an apologetic tone. 'They work well but some I thought some were a bit too rough, so the worst ones I left out...'

'That's actually kind of nice.' He told her, and she coupled the rough strokes with some soothing circular motions again.

Mackenzie exited the room for just a few moments to fetch a hot towel from the dryer. She held it in both hands open and pressed the middle of it to Jarno's beard, before bringing the right end of it across his face and repeating the motion backwards with the left end. Jarno's face was now fully covered with the exception of his nose.

'Hold on to the face for a few moments to keep the heat on the beard area.' She told him and did just that.

Leaving it on, she moved over to the box of her shaving kit and took out her straight razor, placing a new disposable blade on it. When she finished preparing it, she moved back behind Jarno and removed the towel. His eyes were still closed and he looked very much relaxed.

'This is already a soft cream,' Mackenzie said as Jarno opened his eyes to see what she was doing now. She did the tasks as she spoke them. 'so I'm not going to lather it up in the pot. So what I'm actually going to do is put some hot water on the brush, make sure there's no excess, dab it in, then add a little more hot water on the tips, on the cream... And I'm going to use your face as the shaving dish.' He gave a half-laugh before closing his eyes again and she set to work.

'Luckily your beard isn't too big, otherwise I'd have to take really extra care to make sure it was getting to the skin underneath and not just the facial hair.' She whispered again.

Grabbing the razor, she set to work, using her left hand to pull the skin when she needed to and using her right hand to do the shaving, periodically wiping the straight razor on the towel around Jarno.