I've admired "Nothing Between Us," M-Y-Erotica's first-time story from 2006, ever since I encountered it. And so many other Literotica readers feel the same way that it ranks number 29 on the all-time, most-read list, with more than 1.8 million views. In fact, "Nothing Between Us" is the top first-time story on Lit and the only first time story with over 1 million views. But it seemed to me that there was some history about Thuy and Jake that was missing, so this and the next two chapters of "Sex Club for Nerds and Geeks" is my take on that backstory.
*
"GIMME THE FUCKIN' MONEY!" yelled the Lone Ranger mask as he slammed through the office door. When I froze, he grabbed the cash box and scooped up the envelopes. Then he turned to the girl.
"GIMME THE MONEY CUNT!" He grabbed at the envelope in her fist, but all he got was air as she shrank back. He waved his knife menacingly and moved in. She backed further away, past my desk's side chair to the wall. He was waving the knife at her when I hit him with the tin box.
"LEAVE HER ALONE!" It caught him on the side of his face and the blood flew.
"FUUUUUCK!" he screamed and slashed at me. My cheek burned and I staggered backwards.
When the chair hit him in the shins, he stumbled and slammed against the side wall. "FUUUUCK!"
The chair caught him just as he was regaining his balance, knocking him flat on his ass. The knife clattered across the room towards the girl.
He was up his hands and knees pretty quickly, frantically looking for the knife, when she smashed the chair into his face.
"FUCK YOU!" he cursed as she shoved the chair at him once more. When he couldn't find the knife, he gave up and sprinted out the door.
She was holding on to the chair for balance and breathing heavily. I went over and hugged her. I was shaking as much as she was. Suddenly Anna appeared and pushed us both to the floor.
"I called 911. The cops will be here in a minute. Just lay quiet," she commanded.
The cops and the medics arrived at about the same time. Anna had torn a strip from her blouse and was using it as a compress against my throbbing cheek.
"You look great, Carl, hope the other guy looks worse," said the medic as she checked my wound. I had no idea who she was, but she smiled confidently as she stung my cheek with the alcohol wipe.
"Kate," she replied to my unasked question. "You and I responded to that car wreck in town a couple of weeks ago." She grinned broadly but I still had no idea what she was talking about.
Before I knew it, she had me on a stretcher and they were wheeling me toward the elevator. I asked her to stop, I wanted to see if the girl was alright.
"She's fine," said Kate-the-medic. "Cops got a job to do. You and me, though, we need to get to the ER."
The doctor chuckled. "You're lucky, kid," she said. "You ear's just been notched. Another inch and you'd be our local Gauguin." Then someone hit me with a shot and I was gone.
When I woke up, I recognized that the guy standing over my bed was a doctor because he was in a white lab coat. He introduced himself and explained that I had a deep cut across my left cheek and had lost a small piece of my left ear, but that he had sewn everything up and had taken precautions about infection from the knife. The gash on my check was long and pretty deep at one place, so he wanted to keep me overnight for observation.
"Can I go back to work tomorrow?"
"Sure, unless something goes wrong, but I don't see why not. You're young, healthy, and we run a good ER."
He introduced the two men who were standing next to him as police detectives. They wanted me to go over what had happened. When they closed their notebooks I asked the obvious question: "Did you catch him?"
"Not yet, but we have lots to go on.
"First of all, we think you probably messed him up pretty good with that tin box, so we're expecting him to seek medical attention. Second, the surveillance tapes from the building and the elevator should give us some useful pictures. Third, the knife has prints and DNA, though they're probably only gonna be good to confirm his involvement when we find him.
"There were lots of people around when this happened, so we'll find a couple who saw a guy running from the building with blood on his shirt and holding his face. Oh, we'll get him."
As the detectives left, an older, well-dressed man stepped forward. "I'm University President Gerald Loughlin. I'm glad to see that you're okay. The University cares about making sure you get the best medical care here at the hospital. We'll take care of everything, since you're an employee as well as a student. Just rest and get better."
I hadn't noticed Anna when I first scanned around, but she came up as the University president left. "The closest I've ever seen that dude in the flesh the seven years I've been here is at commencement and football games. You get a split lip and Mr. Smooth is all over you. Probably afraid you'll sue."
I was really glad to see her. But I also was concerned about the girl.
"Oh yeah, Mai. She wasn't hurt or anything, just shook up. I don't think she likes the sight of blood, and she got a lot of yours on her shirt. Once the cops were done interviewing her, she called the group she's here with and they came and got her. She's in some summer studies program and they're very protective."
"I'm glad she's okay. She's tough."
"Yeah, that's what the cops said. She acted on instinct, just like you did. The cops said neither of you was particularly bright, what with the knife and all, but I've never liked the shit about how you're supposed to just let the assholes take your money, so fuck 'em, you both did the right thing."
"I hope this isn't going to mess up the interviews."
"Nope. We've got almost three extra weeks in the schedule, no problem."
"Great! The doctor said I'd be sprung in the morning, so I'll be at the lab by nine."
"Hold your horses, cowboy," she held up her hands. "You created this gruesome crime scene. The cops were just starting to take pictures when we left to come over here. They're probably finished by now, but the building staff will have to come in and wash the place down, then repaint. They've got this 'Caution Crime Scene Do Not Cross' yellow tape up on the door. We're out of business till Monday."
"Oh," I slumped. "I'm sorry." I was surprised at myself for being so interested in getting back to work.
"We're going to have to make a change in procedure, though. The university insists that we stop paying in cash. Don told them it would damage his research protocol. They told
him
that his research protocol had just fucked you up pretty good and besides, the University'd gotten bad press.
"So we're gonna stop paying cash and offer some sort of credit on the university bursary account. You'll have to notify the yet-to-be-interviewed subjects about the change, and we may have some dropouts. But we've got enough in the pipeline that I doubt if it'll make any difference."
"Was it a real mess? The office, I mean?"
"Oh, not so much," Anna snarked. "The kid just knocked the guy's sorry ass across the room and he bled all over everything. There were spatters and smears on the wall, puddles on the floor where she knocked him down. You contributed some on the desk, the floor, the kid's shirt and her face. I got some on my blouse and bra. No biggie.
"Hey, there's a reporter from the student newspaper who wants to interview you," she said, shifting gears. "The university's PR guy is hovering over her, says you're a hero for protecting the girl."
"That's bullshit!" I was hot. "The kid's the tough one, she went after him. If she hadn't done that, he'd have sliced me to ribbons, and probably her too. I don't think I was much use once he cut me."
"Look, let me bring in the PR guy, you can decide if you want to be interviewed."
The "PR guy" turned out to be the university vice president for public relations. "He" was a she, a diminutive, razor-thin black woman about 30 who talked a mile a minute but in a voice so soft I had to cup my un-bandaged ear to hear her.
The gist was that I didn't have to talk to the reporter if I didn't want to, but the reporter could hound me for days if she wanted a story. She suggested I give a quick interview from my hospital bed, which she could limit due to my delicate state. She would keep the reporter on a short leash and get her out of the room as fast as possible.
It lasted maybe ten minutes. The reporter had the story line about my "heroics." I said the kid and I did what we had to do to keep from being hurt. I pointed out that it was she who chased the guy away. The reporter took it all down, said she hoped I'd be better soon, and left.
The PR VP said the interview went very well and said she'd call me if the reporter wanted any more information. "Here's my card, let me know if they call you directly so we can manage this. Feel better," and she left.
So here I was, working this college summer job doing video technical work and interviewing for a psychology department research project. Anna, my graduate student boss, and I had started the morning interviews with a slightly shy Asian girl to whom I had just given the pay envelope when the door banged open.
We'd made a big splash in the student paper about how we were paying $150 cash for students who would answer questions for an hour because the study had planned it that way — it's tough to get student subjects for small amounts, and we needed to deliver 150 videoed interviews by the end of the summer term.
For the previous three weeks, everything had been routine, no hint of trouble. Actually, "routine" wasn't the best way to describe what we were doing. What started out as interesting, even intriguing work as far as I was concerned, had quickly became boring and repetitive, since the questionnaire was rigid and we had to ask the questions in a carefully neutral voice so that the camera could catch the faces of the interviewees answering the exact same questions.
I'd gotten the job accidentally but discovered that I liked the concept, if not the work, of research. As I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, I decided that I still liked research.
When I got dad on my cell, he said that President Loughlin had called him just after he'd seen me, with assurances that I was fine and would be well taken care of, even if it involved plastic surgery to fix my ear and cheek.
He said mom was upset and worried, but that she would be glad that I'd called. Also that my sister Chrissy would probably think I was being a drama queen.
About 4 p.m., a new nurse came on duty. He pulled a mirror out of his pocket and showed me the damage as he changed the dressing.
The ear was puffy with some dried blood, but he said the swelling would go down overnight. "You'll never notice it. Your girlfriend will, when she nibbles your ear, but that's all."
The cut on my cheek, on the other hand, was about six inches long, very red and black with dried blood. There were eight stitches and I thought about Frankenstein's monster.
"When they spring you tomorrow morning, you'll probably have a long bandaid on your cheek. The guys in the ER did a great job on you.
"Anybody asks, tell 'em it's from a duel, where you were defending a girl's virtue — it's close enough to the truth, right?" We laughed and I dozed off.
*
They'd just taken dinner tray away when my cell phone erupted. The student newspaper's website and the local TV station had carried the story, and word-of-mouth had spread to Martha, Margery, Carrie, Lisa, Amanda, and Tom.
"You're famous," cracked Lisa, "they had both your and her Facebook pictures on TV."
"Is this grist for a new story?"
"Don't get cocky."
I told everyone that I'd be released after breakfast, there was no need to visit. Martha was glad that I would be at the show.
