He could hear groaning and heaving breathing coming from the bathroom, sending his mind as well as his feet racing. It was too soon for anything like those noises. He careered through the door only to find her perched on the edge of the loo seat in her underwear. The cistern was set in a recess and she had pushed herself up against one of the walls with her legs propped up against the opposite side. It wasn't this position that particularly worried Richard, he'd seen her doing weirder things, it was the fact that she had a razor in her hand.
"Oh my God - what are you doing?"
"I'm trying to do my legs!" She was on the verge of tears as she flung the razor into the sink, "but I can't reach!"
Relief flooded through him. And as he looked closer he could see that if he'd been less flustered he would have noticed the soap lather all over her, well actually it was all over everything.
"Oh darling." He knelt down next to her and took her in his arms trying to avoid getting any soap on his suit.
"They're so hideous."
"They're not hideous." He was caressing her hair as he spoke. "I don't care about them, I think you're beautiful."
"If you think I'm beautiful then why haven't you touched my legs for ages?"
"Because I love touching other parts of you at the moment." He proved his point by caressing her stomach. "I still love your legs though."
"Touch them then." He hesitated, unsure if this was a trap or not. She sensed his indecisiveness. "Go on. Touch them."
He realised he had a get out clause and was profoundly grateful. "Why don't you have a bath, get this gel stuff off your legs first and then I promise I'll spend the entire evening feeling your legs up..."
She nodded her ascent and he got up to draw the bath, filling it with her favourite oil. She slid under the water, grateful that he at least knew how to take care of her. He knelt by the side, sleeves rolled up, hand on the bump that was already protruding above the water.
"Feeling better?"
She nodded. "I still want to do my legs though."
In retaliation, he stretched down his hand and stroked the leg nearest him. "You really don't need to."
"So you don't think they're too bad?"
"They're not bad at all."
She flicked water into his face. "You are such a liar. They're horrible."
"I don't mind, honestly, and if it really bothers you that much then I can do them for you. But you don't need to do them for me.
"I'm not doing them for you."
His hand stilled instantly. Don't panic. Don't panic, it's probably nothing. "So who are you doing them for then?"
"I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow.
He breathed an internal sigh of relief. See, not so bad. "So?"
"So I don't want to have hairy legs for Dr Wright"
"I'm sure Dr Wright won't mind Camille, she's probably seen it all before and worse."
"She's a he Richard."
He started to panic again. "I thought your doctor was a woman, you always said you really liked her."
"I did, until she moved. I've now got Dr Wright, it's the same guy as last time."
"Last time?"
"Yes, last time. I told you this."
He shook his head to refute her statement, not hugely surprised, there was a lot she was forgetting at the moment. "I still don't understand why you need to do your legs, he's not going to be touching them is he?"
"No, of course not! But I can't wear trousers any more so I'll have bare legs, and if I have bare legs he'll see them and think that I'm disgusting because I don't shave them. I have some pride left…"
Richard thought it was highly unlikely that Dr Wright would think anything of the sort being of the gynaecological variety, and moved to disagree with her, even if he thought it was a waste of his time, given how set her mind was. "Camille, he won't notice, I bet he won't even look at them."
"But you look at them."
"Of course I do, but that's different."
"How is that different?"
"Because I like looking at you"
"So you're saying that no other man likes looking at me anymore? That I've turned into some sort of hideous mess since becoming pregnant?"
"No of course I'm not saying that!" Oh dear, this had backfired spectacularly as usual.
"So why wouldn't he look at me?" Richard could feel tears coming on again. They were the last thing he was prepared for after the day he had just had. He felt a little wounded that Camille cared enough about a stranger to ensure that her legs were smooth, but not enough for him to warrant the same treatment.
He stroked her hair. "There is no reason he wouldn't look at you. And if it makes you feel better I'll do your legs for you.
The sniffing stopped. "You will?"
His face softened and he nodded as she smiled happily and sank lower in the water. They stayed like that for a few happy moments while he trailed back and forth across her belly and thought again about how lucky he was. His thoughts were interrupted when he realised that she was struggling to sit up.
"How do I know you won't cut me?"
He fixed her with a glare. "Camille, I've shaved my face every day since I was 18. Given that I'm older than you, I think I am considerably more experienced with a razor."
"But you've never shaved legs..."
He knew she had him there, not that he really thought it mattered, the principal was essentially the same. "No...but in the same way that you've never shaved your face, you'd probably be capable of doing it." He regretted the words as soon as he said them.
"So if I let you do my legs, you'll let me do your face?"
He was trapped. He knew he was. He wasn't quite sure how they had got to this. He didn't feel particularly comfortable about doing her legs, especially when it wasn't strictly for his benefit and he certainly had no need for her to come anywhere near his face with a razor, no matter how much he trusted her. His indecision was written clear across his face as his mouth fell open in defeat.
"Please?"
He could refuse her nothing. What the hell he thought, she'll probably have forgotten about it by the morning.
She hadn't forgotten about it by the morning and after his shower he was greeted by the sight of her sitting on the sink area in a pair of pants and t shirt pulled taut over her bump. The sudden arousal that he felt quickly dissipated when he saw that she was holding his razor.
"Camille, I'm late, can we do this some other time?"
"Oh no! You don't get out of it that easily Richard." She beckoned him over with a finger and held out the shaving cream to him. "Lather up then..."
With a groan, he took the pot from her and started to work it into his skin. As a precaution he felt the water in the sink in front of him where she would clean the blade. It was hot. He pulled the plug.
She was quick to jump to the wrong conclusion. "You promised."
He placated her with a stubbly kiss getting some of the cream on her in the process. "I shave with cold. Hot water deadens the blade." She looked suitably chastened but not enough to release him from his obligation as he refilled the bowl in front of her.
"But I use hot water..." She also thought that every other man on the planet used hot water. But this was Richard. Another quirk that belonged so completely to him.
He shrugged and took a step towards her nudging her legs apart so that he was now in between them. "Make it quick. And if the baby starts kicking, you stop. I need you to be steady..."
She nodded and smiled as she took his face in one hand and drew the blade over his skin with the other, watching to see if he winced. But he remained calm, in spite of his lack of control in this situation. He was so caught up in watching her utter look of concentration that he hadn't realised that she had finished his cheeks until she made a signal for him to stretch his upper lip.
He looked at himself in the mirror and ran a hand over the bare skin that she had left behind. "Not bad."
She shot him a look of triumphant defiance. "And I'm not even finished yet...top lip." He did as he was told and in a few worryingly professional strokes Camille had rendered it smooth and had moved on to his chin making short work of that too. Only his neck was left.
She held him gently as she prepared to start on the underside of his jaw and work up to his chin. His hand found her wrist before she could start.
His voice was low. "Go with the grain." She frowned so he moved his hand to hers to guide the blade. "Up to down." Her next few strokes were slow and deliberate. Richard found that having so much of her attention concentrated on such a small area of his face was incredibly arousing. Even with his head tilted back to accommodate the angle of the razor he could still see the way she was biting her lip to keep her mind on the job, the alertness in her eyes and the dishevelled halo of hair that she always had when she woke up.
She had finished and was now watching him study her, reading his thoughts. She used a finger to wipe some of the shaving cream from around his mouth. "I thought you said you needed to be quick because you were late?"
Hands on her thighs he pulled her closer to him so that her face was now inches away from his. "Oh, I think you and I both know that I can be very quick..."
