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Luxury does not ensure comfort. Riches are not a solution to loneliness. Caitlyn Kiramman is well-acquainted with this reality, lying atop her pristinely made bed in a room bordering on sterile. The sleek, modern look her interior designer chose for the penthouse is partially to blame.
It's only when night falls that Caitlyn gets the opportunity to reclaim her time. No work to complete. No meetings to lead. Just an exhausted woman, curled up on her side with her phone held a few inches from her face.
The soft glow of the screen illuminates Caitlyn in hues of blue and pink as GETJINXED’s latest Patreon-exclusive video plays aloud:
“ASMR for When You Can’t Fall Asleep (TY 4 the Support, Jinxers !! Mwah <3)”
All that’s visible are long, painted nails tapping the foam windscreen of the microphone, electric blue hair spilling down narrow shoulders, and cherry-stained lips mouthing each whispered word. Sometimes, Caitlyn can make out the girl’s smiley piercing that clinks against her two front teeth.
Caitlyn has been a subscriber of Jinx's for the past six months and the highest-tier patron for the past two. Jinx is by no means a massive creator, but considering her recent viral success, Caitlyn finds the paid membership perks to be more than worth the price: early access to videos as well as the ability to make requests and participate in polls.
There’s something special about Jinx compared to the other ASMR YouTubers. Perhaps it’s her alternative style, or her barely restrained enthusiasm, unique for this brand of content.
Or, perhaps it’s that Caitlyn is mesmerized by Jinx’s voice. The subtle rasp. The breathiness. The way she lets each word sit on her tongue for longer than necessary. The chuckles that punctuate her sentences. The hums made as an afterthought.
It’s far more intimate than anything Caitlyn has experienced in her twenty-eight years of life. Caitlyn surprises herself with how much she even enjoys the nonverbal sounds Jinx makes.
If she closes her eyes, Caitlyn can pretend Jinx’s light scratching of the mic is the sound of Jinx's fingernails grazing her scalp, playing with her hair in order to lull her to sleep. The fantasy is sedative and nearly as effective as Jinx’s chatting.
Which is another aspect that draws Caitlyn to Jinx—she speaks to the viewer as if she’s engaging in a real conversation. It's convincingly personal. Like Jinx is laid up in Caitlyn's bed alongside her, filling Caitlyn in on her day.
It’s also the perfect breeding ground for parasocial attachment, which is precisely why Caitlyn won’t permit herself to message Jinx.
She's tempted to, naturally, but the rule is set for her own good. Jinx is the one thing in Caitlyn's life that isn't dull or irritating or taxing. The one thing Caitlyn considers to be a constant, net-positive. She'd be a fool to jeopardize it.
Thus, she exercises self-control.
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
Caitlyn is walking down the hall of the Kiramman law firm when a sharp, familiar cackle pierces the air and stops her dead in her tracks. It's a laugh Caitlyn has heard come through her phone often, typically paired with a snort and an apology.
What on earth is Jinx doing here?
Surely enough, Caitlyn spots a flash of blue disappear through one door and pop out another directly in front of her. Suspicions confirmed.
Jinx grins knowingly, revealing a telltale, silver, u-shaped ring. “You a fan?”
Caitlyn is aware Jinx is teasing, logically, but that doesn’t stop her throat from bobbing in discomfort or her fingers from flexing around the manila folder. “I thought I recognized your voice.” Jinx is much shorter than Caitlyn had expected. “Though, I'm likely mistaken.” Pretty, too. “Is there anything I can assist you with? Or have you already met with one of our attorneys?”
“Just finished talkin’ to my guy, actually, yeah.”
Caitlyn manages a polite smile and nod. She hasn’t been this nervous since taking the bar. “Excellent.” Don’t blow this. “If you’ll excuse me—“
“I don’t mind if you’re a fan,” Jinx chirps, hands clasped behind her back and head tilted appraisingly. “I appreciate every like.”
Caitlyn's lips press into a thin line as she takes a measured breath and considers her next course of action. The corridor is silent save for the ticking of the clock until— “I happen to be familiar with your work.” A confession so readily supplied.
Delighted, Jinx beams, gives Caitlyn a once over, then scrunches her freckled nose in amusement. “You don’t have to say it like it’s some dirty thing, toots. I talk into a mic. I'm not ashamed of it.”
Jinx might not be, but Caitlyn is. Deeply.
She's ashamed of the degree to which she relies on Jinx's voice to sleep at night. Of her patronage and her desire for companionship.
The shift in Jinx’s expression suggests she may have picked up on Caitlyn's uncertainty. “It’s chill,” Jinx brushes off, shoving her hands in her pockets. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Jinx's tone softening from playful to reassuring, the same honeyed tone that ushers Caitlyn into dreamless slumber, is exactly what Caitlyn needs to regulate her nervous system.
With a quiet exhale, Caitlyn loosens her grip on the folder and lowers it to her side. “There is no secret to be kept.” She extends her unoccupied hand for a handshake. She's a professional, godsdamnit. “Allow me to properly introduce myself.”
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
Jinx becomes a frequent visitor of the firm. As it turns out, her earnings are being withheld from her by a third party, which is why she’s seeking legal counsel.
Caitlyn did her due diligence in reviewing Jinx's case after their initial meeting, and it didn’t take long for her to conclude that this wouldn’t be making it to trial. It'll be a tedious process yet one that will be settled by the end of the month.
In the meantime, Jinx and Caitlyn have started talking. To her credit, Caitlyn does well to conceal how off-kilter Jinx makes her feel. She struggles to reconcile Jinx's voice and face in her mind. Fears interacting with Jinx will tarnish her idealized perception of the YouTuber whose content she’s dependent on.
Whenever Jinx speaks to Caitlyn at length, however, something inexplicable happens. Caitlyn's mind fills with cotton. Her eyes narrow in a squint. Her brow furrows. Even her muscles go lax unbidden.
The realization hits her mid-conversation.
Because she subconsciously associates Jinx with relaxation, Caitlyn has developed a Pavlovian response to Jinx's voice, and it’s causing her nod-off at 2pm on the chaise in her office.
“Am I boring you?” Jinx cuts through Caitlyn's light doze.
The attorney’s head lifts at speed. “Gods. My apologies, Miss Lanes.” Flustered not for the first time in Jinx’s presence. She hates that it’s become commonplace.
“Drinking on the job?” Jinx continues to tease with a flash of teeth and metal. Smile lines form as a result of her amusement. “A little too much wine during lunch never hurt anyone.”
Appalled by the accusation, Caitlyn straightens in her seat and scoffs, any hint of remorse having vanished. “I do not drink on the job—I'm perfectly sober. I refuse to take the blame for your dulcet tones.”
That's all it takes for Jinx's face to light up in recognition, and Caitlyn just knows Jinx is about to be insufferable now that she’s opened the door to a new line of questioning.
“So it is me?” Spoken like a true provocateur. As Jinx's confidence grows, she sinks into the couch and slings an arm over the back of the cushions. Her smugness is horrifying. “I didn't realize you listened that much. Y’kinda downplayed it.”
Caitlyn has absolutely no reason to be honest. Not a single one. “I’m… a ‘Jinxer.’” She might as well have had a gun to her head with the way she forces the term out.
To Caitlyn's surprise, Jinx doesn’t use the provided information as ammunition. Her smirk remains, though newfound interest flickers in ocean blue irises. “I should be thanking you, then. I was able to buy a new, fancy mic thanks to my loyal patrons.” Jinx holds Caitlyn's gaze, intense and magnetic, daring Caitlyn to look away. “You should hit me up on there if you haven’t already. About requests ‘n other stuff. Whatever your heart desires.”
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
And Caitlyn does.
Following a volley of messages over Patreon, Caitlyn is granted access to Jinx’s personal Instagram (the one she uses for friends and family, notably devoid of content clips and setup pics). Rather than explaining to Jinx that she doesn’t own any form of social media whatsoever—because why on earth would she do that—Caitlyn downloads the app and makes an account.
Transactional, parasocial attachment soon graduates to ill-defined friendship.
Jinx makes it a point to pop into Caitlyn's office every Tuesday and messages Caitlyn in between recording sessions the rest of the week. Caitlyn tentatively sends “funny” cat reels to Jinx whenever she craves interaction but fears rejection and, without fail, gets an emoji reaction in return.
It's Jinx who offers her phone number first, her explanation being: “I’m better at talking than texting.” Thus marks the beginning of their nightly video calls.
Caitlyn prefers to nestle under the covers before clicking “answer,” whereas Jinx waits for Caitlyn to be ready in order to go through her bedtime routine. Jinx likes having an audience, which is evidenced by her phone suction-cupped to the bathroom mirror for the best angle (some gadget Jinx bought on TikTok Shop when she considered getting into vlogging).
Caitlyn finds that the mundanity of Jinx brushing her teeth, removing her makeup, and washing her face is equally as soothing as Jinx's prerecorded ASMR videos, if not more so. Since the barrier of separation between creator and consumer has been eliminated, Jinx is no longer a simple form of entertainment or an untouchable internet celebrity. Caitlyn is uniquely privileged in that she gets to talk back at the screen and receive a personalized response from GETJINXED herself.
“Ya look tired, toots,” Jinx observes over the sound of running water.
That's because Caitlyn is. Her eyelids have been threatening to slip shut for the past twenty minutes of the call, and it’s entirely Jinx's fault. Jinx has been nonstop rambling about online drama, dropping names like Caitlyn would have any clue who these people are. But the issue isn’t that Caitlyn is uninterested in the topic at hand.
It's that Jinx is speaking uninterrupted while Caitlyn is lying on her side in the same position she used to watch Jinx's videos in, cocooned in her thick duvet and blanketed by darkness. Of course Caitlyn is drowsy.
“I'm okay,” comes Caitlyn’s unconvincing mumble. She forces open her eyes right as Jinx turns off the faucet. Smiles at Jinx's fuzzy, kitten-eared headband pinning back her curtain of bangs.
“Uh-huh, totally,” Jinx drawls sarcastically after wiping her hands haphazardly on her purple, striped pajama pants, and she snatches her phone off of the mirror with a pop. The blue LED strips lining her bedroom walls come into view seconds later, adding an air of familiarity to the scene.
Caitlyn's grip on her own phone starts to slacken little by little until a flash of light jolts her awake. “Wha—“ Thoroughly disoriented, Caitlyn does her best read the notification covering Jinx’s self-satisfied expression before it disappears:
Jinx took a FaceTime photo.
“Delete it,” Caitlyn demands of Jinx in a nonthreatening huff as she lazily taps at her screen in hopes the photo can somehow be erased from her end. Caitlyn never was good with technology.
“That's a big ol’ nope from me.”
Figures. “Fine. I'll work out how to disable the feature tomorrow.” Caitlyn only surrenders because of the late hour and her significantly depleted willpower.
“You can try, but this is going into my ‘Victim Number One: Super Duper Sleepy Lawyer-Lady’ photo album.”
Despite her exhaustion, the quip gets a snort from Caitlyn whose face is currently smushed against the corner of her pillow. “‘Victim Number One’?”
“Of my dastardly spell, duh.” Caitlyn can hear the grin in Jinx's voice. The dorkiness of her explanation is too endearing to feign disapproval.
“And when your subscribers learn you’ve been utilizing dark magic all this time?”
A soft rustling of sheets comes through the speaker, which prompts Caitlyn to crack open an eye. Jinx has gotten closer to the camera. Close enough for Caitlyn to count the thirteen freckles dotting her left cheek.
“They'll forgive me.” Jinx takes another screenshot of Caitlyn, causing the notification to reappear. “You already have.”
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
“You can sit in the chair if you want. You practically paid for it.”
At the unwelcome reminder of her poor financial decisions, Caitlyn rolls the black and neon pink gamer chair away from Jinx's cluttered desk and takes a seat. It's a surreal peek behind the scenes of Jinx's content creation: the iridescent microphone, the three large monitors, the web camera... She doesn’t dare touch the setup. “You haven’t uploaded since Sunday.”
The chair tips backward with the added weight of Jinx’s folded arms. “I’ve been occupied by more important things.”
Caitlyn frowns in confusion and glances over her shoulder. “Like?”
Jinx goes silent, as though waiting for Caitlyn to fit the puzzle pieces together on her own. When Caitlyn fails, remarkably dense for an educated woman, Jinx retreats towards the bed. “Like—“ she begins, flopping onto the mattress and sending a few hapless plushies to the floor. “—being an awesome host.” Once settled, she beckons Caitlyn with a pat.
Caitlyn hesitates. Sitting at Jinx's desk was intimidating enough—how would Caitlyn fare lying in such close proximity to her? “A lazy host, I'd say.” She rises to her feet and does well to ignore Jinx’s keen gaze as she situates herself across from the other girl.
Although plenty of pillows and cotton-stuffed creatures surround the pair, Caitlyn opts to cushion her head using her hand. Reliable and unobtrusive. The last thing she wants to do is accidentally overstep a boundary.
Jinx smiles while Caitlyn mitigates her silent panic. Always smiles. If Jinx's voice is a drug, then the upturn of her lips is a truth serum, and Caitlyn can’t help but feel compelled to fill the silence.
“You’ve gotten me through many sleepless nights.”
Jinx’s pupils dilate a fraction. She appears pleased. Perhaps Caitlyn is doing something right, after all. “When did you find my channel?”
“February, by happenstance.”
“M’kay…” A beat. “What's your favorite sound?” This earns an incredulous look, so Jinx clarifies. “Do you like the tapping? Clicking? Scratching? What does it for ya?”
Caitlyn resents the phrasing of Jinx’s last question. She answers regardless. “The scratching, maybe. Unless your voice counts.”
“It counts,” Jinx is quick to accept, fingertips drumming the small stretch of mattress between their bodies. Caitlyn can tell the exact moment an idea forms in that clever mind. “Want me to do the whole shtick right now? I can knock you out cold in seconds.” Eager. Overzealous, even.
A traitorous flush creeps up Caitlyn's neck. The insinuation that Caitlyn came here for Jinx’s services is offensive at best and humiliating at worst. “I won’t ask you to perform for me like a circus monkey.”
“You didn’t ask. I offered,” Jinx corrects matter-of-factly. She's a cheeky thing, Caitlyn will give her that.
Caitlyn swats at Jinx’s hand skittering over the sheets in jest. “No,” she insists more firmly. Readjusts her position and adds, “But I wouldn't mind if you kept talking.”
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
To request that Jinx monologue is to willingly subject oneself to a stream of incessant jabber. The gift of the gab, some say.
Caitlyn's responses lessen in length and frequency as the evening wears on. She has a hunch that Jinx is intentionally speaking in a quieter volume and a warmer timbre to put Caitlyn's subconscious at ease. Whatever the goal, Caitlyn's defenses have lowered as a result, and a sense of security has replaced her previous trepidation.
Jinx’s efforts to comfort Caitlyn ultimately go unappreciated—Caitlyn is too busy actively resisting the pull of sleep. “I know what you’re doing,” she interrupts with a grumble. Inspired by the half-formed thought that movement might keep her alert, Caitlyn wriggles into Jinx's personal space.
She doesn’t flinch when Jinx's artificially sweetened breath tickles her skin, nor does she recoil from Jinx's fingers suddenly sifting through her hair. Instead, Caitlyn leans into the touch and makes a contented noise at the languid scratch of her scalp.
“You're being unfair.”
It's true. Jinx has clearly sided with the enemy in Caitlyn's valiant attempt to stay awake. “By ‘unfair,’ do you mean extra nice? ‘Cause in that case, yeah, I'm being extremely unfair.”
Caitlyn groans, then blinks hard—once, twice. She has difficulty recalling whether her eyes have been open or shut this entire time, and Jinx's ministrations aren’t making it easier. “Jinx,” Caitlyn protests, her field of vision narrowed to a sliver. She hates losing.
“Caitlyn,” Jinx counters like she knows she’s already won.
When their noses brush with the barest tilt of Jinx’s head, faces mere inches apart, Caitlyn's priorities shift. She decides she’s done denying herself. Caitlyn deserves to be treated with care for once in her life—she should get to have this.
And so, Caitlyn gathers the courage necessary and surrenders to the moment rather than to sleep.
Her hand lifts from the bed, the pads of her fingers ghosting over Jinx's cheek as she tests the bounds. Jinx makes no move to pull away from the exploratory touch. Caitlyn continues.
Fingertips trace the sharp line of Jinx’s jaw to her chin and linger there to feel the subtle quiver. Caitlyn’s lidded gaze flits up to meet Jinx's expectant one, and she immediately finds what she’s searching for—confirmation that Jinx wants this as much as she does.
At long last, Caitlyn closes the remaining distance to capture Jinx's soft, bow-shaped lips in a slow kiss, drawing a sigh of approval from the girl in question. Jinx's hand not tangled in Caitlyn's hair moves to her waist, warm and heavy. It's a welcome weight to keep Caitlyn anchored while the minutes bleed together.
Jinx is the first to break the lip-lock, retreating just enough to let out an airy chuckle, and nuzzles Caitlyn's nose affectionately. “Wanna make out ‘til you fall asleep?”
Caitlyn nods almost too quickly. Grasps the nape of Jinx’s neck in desperation. Pouts when Jinx laughs harder.
“Alright, alright,” Jinx concedes and pecks the corner of Caitlyn's mouth to silence the needy whine forming in her throat. “Hitting play on Episode Two...”
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
“Calling it an ‘episode’ wasn’t as clever as you thought. ‘The next video’ would have sufficed.”
“I didn't hear you complaining earlier. In fact, I mostly heard ‘Mmf… Uhn… Jinx’—Hey! Watch it, I could sue you. I've got a lawyer on speed-dial.”