The Tutor

Chapter 10: Intimacy

"You're going to have to sleep in your clothes," Sumire said as they entered her apartment.

"It won't be the first time, and it definitely won't be the last," Nick assured her. "Don't worry about me, let's just take care of you, okay?"

"Like I said, I just need a shower and sleep," she said. "Please, just grab a pillow from my bed, and an extra blanket from that closet right there and go to sleep. I'll be as quiet as I can. You need the bathroom before I head in there?"

Nick nodded and went in to do his thing, nodding his thanks when she opened the drawer and showed him where she kept extra toothbrushes. He quickly brushed his teeth and used the toilet, being careful to lower the seat after.

He'd just settled down on the couch in the darkened room, lit only by the lamp next to her bed, when the door to the bathroom opened, letting a sliver of light slice across his body.

"Nick?"

He sat up, kicking the blanket off.

"Yeah?"

Silence.

He rose and walked to where she stood in the doorway.

"What's wrong?"

"I--don't know what to do."

"Oh god, what is it? Do you need to go to the emergency room?" Nick was suddenly wide awake. He knew, though, even as he asked, that her answer would be no. She wasn't worried or upset, he could tell.

She was embarrassed.

She was holding the pink sweatshirt she'd borrowed from Carol closed at the throat in a posture he knew well, even though it didn't really need holding shut, and her head and eyes were facing the floor. Her hair, which had come a bit loose, fell in a curtain around her face.

Sure enough, she was shaking her head.

"No, nothing like that," she assured him. She finally looked up, biting her lips together, then letting out a deep breath.

"I'm left handed," she said, as if that explained everything.

Nick was confused, but nodded. "I know. I've noticed when we've been working together that you write with your left hand." He waited for more. Perhaps she'd hit her head and had a bit of a concussion?

"Well," she finally continued, "I think, when I kicked over my head, you know, when that guy was holding my arms? I pulled something, my side muscle or whatever it's called." And she gestured with her right arm down her left side, where the pain was.

"Your latissimus dorsi," Nick supplied with a gentle smile.

"Okay," she accepted. "Anyway, I guess because I'm a leftie, I pulled harder with my left arm, so now it's really sore." Another deep breath. "I can't lift my left arm at all," she explained quickly. "So I can't take the shirt off," she finished, her voice soft. "And probably I won't be able to take my bra off, either, because my right hand isn't coordinated enough to move like that."

And Nick knew he wasn't imagining the quaver he heard in her voice.

"I would just skip the shower, but I can't sleep in these clothes, I have blood all over myself, and I just feel--gross and dirty, you know?" She looked up at Nick, and the vulnerability he saw in her eyes was heartbreaking. "Even though they didn't really do anything to me? I won't be able to wash, but just to stand under the water will be enough, I think, and put on clean PJs?"

He nodded matter of factly, as if this were the most normal conversation he'd ever had in his life. "Okie doke," he said cheerfully. "So, we'll just get these dirty clothes off you, you'll hop in a hot shower, and we'll get you in some clean PJs, right? Then off to bed with you, how's that sound?" He gave her his famous smile, the smile that had helped him transition from Calvin Klein and Gucci to Miramax and MGM with hardly a blink.