Q Without U

*Author's Note: Any and all persons engaging in any sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.

Disclaimers: Yes, I need an Editor; no I do not want an Editor. Yes, there's too many people to keep track of. Yes, it jumps around too much. Yes it's too long. Yes it's too short. Yes it's in the wrong category. Yes, this is stupid shit, confusing shit. And, yes, I am barely literate, hardly legible. Honestly? Why even bother?

Just scroll down to the bottom and leave comments based solely on the Disclaimers.

For everyone else, I hope you enjoy this little tale.

*.*.*

Ulysses Lee entered the Dead End bar, still dressed in his nurse's scrubs. He lingered by the entrance for a moment and let his eyes get adjusted to the dimly lighted interior. Loud music was blaring and he bobbed his head along to the tune even though he didn't recognize the song.

His eyes adjusted and he admired the young woman that swiveled and gyrated to 'State Of Shock' by The Jacksons. She was coyly edging her leopard print skirt down, smiling that blank smile of a seasoned pro.

Then he saw him, Dr. Marcus Olsen. The man was waving to get Ulysses' attention. Ulysses approached the table and Dr. Olsen got to his feet and extended his hand.

Ulysses ignored the man's hand and sat down at the table. Again, he glanced at the small stage. The young blonde was now prancing around in faux black patent leather bra and thong panties. Her hair very nearly reached the floor and was a very light shade of blonde, looking almost white in the harsh lights that illuminated the small stage.

A man approached the tip jar at the edge of the stage and the girl smiled and leaned forward, affording the man a good look at her cleavage. She brought her arms together, squeezing her breasts, forcing them to bulge out of the top of her bra. The man smiled and nodded his appreciation and the girl whirled and shook her buttocks for him.

"Well I uh," Marc cleared his throat and also sat down.

Ulysses almost smiled; Dr. Marcus Olsen was used to commanding respect in others. It was obvious that Ulysses' intentional slight perturbed the man.

Dr. Marcus Olsen was a thirty six year old man, six feet four inches in height, with broad shoulders, narrow waist, curly blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. He had a light tan, muscular physique, and a dazzling smile.

Ulysses, with his multitude of freckles, tightly coiled carrot orange hair, and slightly pudgy physique, did not begrudge the good looking doctor his looks. Nor did Ulysses begrudge Dr. Marc Olsen the numerous women on the hospital staff that stood in undisguised awe of the handsome doctor.

But Ulysses did begrudge the young doctor for sleeping with Quinn Lee, Ulysses' wife of five years.

"Can I get you a drink?" Dr. Marc asked, trying to force a smile to his face.

"You buying? St. Elizabeth's draft," Ulysses agreed.

A short Asian-American waitress approached the table, dressed in the black half-shirt and red short shorts that was the uniform of the Dead End bar. The young girl's obviously surgically enhanced breasts stretched the top so that the 'Dead End' lettering was disfigured.

"My friend will have a St. Elizabeth's, draft you said?" Dr. Marc ordered.

"Yes sir; you ready for another Dewar's on the rocks?" the girl chirped.

"Hmm? No, no, I go on duty at nine," the man smiled.

"Be right back; boy's room," Ulysses said and got up from the table.

He returned to the table a moment later. The blonde was now down to just pasties over her nipples and a skimpy thong. When she whirled around, the thong was just a string between her luscious buttocks.

Ulysses nodded to the two men that were looking at his table instead of at the blonde dancer. Both men abruptly averted their gaze to the dancer as Ulysses sat down.

He took a deep drink of the ice cold beer and smiled.

"Nothing like an ice cold..." he started to say.

Then suddenly, his brown eyes opened wide.

"Ulysses, I uh, the reason I wanted to have this little meeting, you and I, is Quinn, well, she's very upset," Dr. Marc said, carefully scrutinizing Ulysses' face. "She would really like, and I'd like it, if we could come to an understanding, one that..."

"Ma'am?" Ulysses stood and waved to the waitress.

"Yes sir?" the Asian girl asked.

"Ma'am, take this beer, take it, do not let it out of your sight," Ulysses said as he pulled his cell phone out of the patch pocket on his uniform top. "Don't pour it out, please."

"What?" Dr. Marc asked.

"What?" the waitress asked.

"Pleaze," Ulysses lisped, tongue becoming thick. "Pleaze, lizzen tuh me; that beer izz evuh denze."

"Nine one one, what is your emergency?" a female voice said.

"Yeth ma'am, my name izz Ultheez Lee and I'm allerthic to suffer," Ulysses said thickly. "I'm at the Dead End bar and my wive's lover jush poizeneded me."

"What?" Dr. Marc squealed.

Had he not been trying to stay alert, stay focused, Ulysses would have laughed at the tall, muscular Nordic god's squeal.

"Hey man, you didn't say..." one of the muscled men at the adjoining table protested.

"Yes ma'am," Ulysses groaned into his phone. Please send an abuanth."

Had he not been gasping for air, had he not been drooling blood where he'd bitten his tongue, Ulysses would have been impressed with how quickly an ambulance, and two squad cars did arrive.

Ulysses showed the paramedics his medical bracelet. The bracelet clearly stated Ulysses Lee was allergic to Sulphur.

Dawn Li handed the mug of beer to one of the police officers. He sealed it in a plastic bag and had the frightened girl initial the bag with a felt tip marker.

For the next forty minutes, no music played, no girls removed their clothing while all the patrons and the staff were questioned.

Dawn Li, the short Asian-American waitress was in tears as she asserted, over and over, all she did was bring the beer to the table. She wasn't even the one who poured it, Mandy, the diminutive bartender had been the one to pour it.

"Shit, dude, I don't know, I'm just sitting there watching some girl dance, next thing I know y'all are in here," one of the muscle bound men at the adjoining table protested.

"Yeah, we don't even know him," his friend claimed.

"Uh, even though y'all all work at the hospital?" Officer Steve Hebert asked.

"Maintenance, man," the first muscle bound man said.

"For the hundredth time, he came in, asked for a beer then went to the bathroom," Dr. Marc Olsen said to Sergeant Elise Richards. "Next thing I know, he's on his phone with you guys."

Then the doctor stated, "For all I know, he could have poisoned himself."

Elise regarded the doctor for a long moment, just stared at him until he looked away.

"And, why would someone want to poison themselves?" she asked. "He even has a medical bracelet saying that he's allergic to Sulphur."

"I don't know," Marc mumbled. "I mean, he's pretty distraught. His uh, his wife and I..."

"Yes?" Elise asked when the man said nothing more.

Arriving at St. Elizabeth's Trauma Center, Ulysses Lee was hurriedly wheeled into a curtained off area. Blood drooled out of his mouth and his lips were blue.

Dr. Charles LaPointe performed an emergency tracheotomy and slowly, color returned to the ER nurse's face.

"Going be all right," Charlie assured his nurse. "Haven't lost an employee yet."

Ulysses wearily nodded understanding.

Ulysses woke up and saw that he was in a private room. Molly Dunham, the head nurse smiled at him and he weakly returned her smile.

"Man, Lee, you wanted some time off, just put in the requisition, huh?" the woman said.

"Paperwork takes too long," Ulysses quipped and Molly laughed and patted his hand.

Quinn jerked awake as she heard Molly and Ulysses talking. She got to her feet and approached her husband's bed.

"Oh, Baby!" she happily greeted her husband. "Oh God when they called me..."

"Out!" Ulysses spat angrily. Get out! Get out of my face, get out of my life, get out of here!"

Molly lost her smile and stared at the two combatants. Then her professional brain kicked in.

"Come on, Mrs. Lee, come on, let's let him recuperate," she said, bustling the maternity ward nurse to the door.

"But that's my, he's my husband, I've been here all night!" Quinn burst into wails.

"God damned bitch!" Ulysses snarled as loudly as he could with his raw throat. "I'm in here because of you! You and that God damned doctor!"

Outside of the private room, Molly hugged the short, pale woman, patting Quinn's back.

Then she watched as the woman numbly went to the bank of elevators and pressed the 'down' button.

A few minutes later, the elevator doors opened and Sergeant Elise Richards stepped off. The girl at the rotunda pointed to Ulysses' room.

Elise rapped once on the closed door then entered the room.

"Mr. Lee? I'm Sergeant Elise Richards," Elise introduced herself. "I uh, you think you're up to telling me what happened?"

*.*.*

Ulysses Lee met Quinn Michaels in Microbiology 101. The teacher was Dr. Kim Quan, a North Korean refugee with a speech impediment. For the first two classes, Ulysses was marked absent because he did not decipher that when Dr. Quan was calling out 'Wee,' he actually meant 'Lee.'

The class may have been an introduction to microbiology, but Dr. Quan taught the class as if it was a post-graduate class.

"I'm going fail and then I'll never be a nurse," Quinn said, dark eyes filling with tears.

Ulysses smiled sympathetically; he'd done very well in Science in high school, but this wasn't high school.

"Let's go to the library and study; maybe we can help each other," he suggested.

Quinn had an Algebra class to rush to, but the two made plans to meet after lunch.

Ulysses watched the girl's chubby backside as she ran to get to her Algebra class. Her abnormally pale legs were made all the more pronounced in her black shorts.

They met in the library of the University of Louisiana at DeGarde, went up to the third floor and grabbed a booth.

Quinn Michaels was no beauty. She had black hair that just reached her shoulders and she brushed it back, making her forehead look huge. Her heavy eyebrows were also black, giving her already abnormally white skin a startling paleness. Her eyes were a very dark brown, her nose was a little large, and her thin lips were pale pink.

When she opened her mouth, Ulysses couldn't help but smile; she had bulky orthodontic braces giving her teeth a metallic glint.

"Yeah, I know," Quinn said. "I look like that Jaws guy from the James Bond movies."

She was pear shaped. Her shoulders were almost nonexistent and the strap of her halter top kept sliding down her neck, threatening to expose her small breasts.

Together, she and Ulysses compared their notes, studied the material in the text book.

"Then why the hell doesn't he just say that?" Quinn complained.

"Bad as his English is? Maybe that IS what he's saying," Ulysses shrugged.

She laughed, a musical, happy laugh and Ulysses smiled.

With his tightly coiled carrot orange hair and his plethora of freckles and his chubby body, Ulysses wasn't used to spending time with girls. In high school, the only time a girl ever talked to him was when she needed help on an assignment.

So, he treated Quinn Michaels like she was a guy. Over time, they studied together; booth number three became 'their' booth. Microbiology 101 was the only class they had together, but they were both taking Algebra classes, American History classes, and Sociology 101, so they studied those classes together as well.

Their first test, Ulysses and Quinn were the only ones in the class to make a '100. And when they met at booth 3, Quinn excitedly showed Ulysses her Algebra 101 test, showed him the '100' in the corner.

Then she kissed him. Squarely on his lips.

Until that kiss, Ulysses had simply thought of Quinn as another student, a buddy. They had the same curriculum, the same aspirations of becoming nurses, even shared a lot of the same likes and dislikes. They both thought that hot dogs were gross, both loved Reuben sandwiches, thought oatmeal looked like vomit and wouldn't eat it, but loved oatmeal raisin cookies.

"Although peanut butter is the best," Quinn smugly declared.

"Maybe after girl scout thin mints," Ulysses agreed.

"Oh God! I could eat a whole box of them in five minutes flat!" Quinn agreed.

"Five minutes? What? You stop to make a phone call or something?" Ulysses asked and she laughed her happy laugh.

But then she had earned a '100' on an Algebra test and kissed him.

Quinn actually seemed to be as surprised by the kiss as Ulysses was. After a long moment of staring at each other, she cautiously leaned forward and kissed him again.

And just like that, they went from being study buddies to being a couple.

Katie Lee, Ulysses' mother was not a very warm woman to begin with; Ulysses had warmed Quinn of this fact ahead of time.

"Doctor asked her if she planned to breast feed me and she said 'no, we'll just be friends,'" Ulysses quipped.

"That's horrible!" Quinn said, then smirked as Ulysses laughed.

"Yeah, I was the only kid in my kindergarten class that was encouraged to take candy from strangers," Ulysses said.

Katie was cool to her only child's girlfriend. Exceedingly, uncomfortably cool.

"Quinn; don't believe I've heard that name before," Katie said after the introductions.

"Uh, yes ma'am; my mom was a big fan of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and her name was 'Mike' on that show," Quinn explained. "And, since our last name is Michaels, she uh, you know."

"I see," was Katie's response.

"But uh, why'd you name Ulysses uh Ulysses?" Quinn asked.

"Had to name him something," Katie replied.

"Uh yes ma'am, couldn't go around calling him 'Hey you' but uh, I mean, Ulysses is kind of unusual," Quinn faltered.

"Our last name's Lee, someone said we're related to Robert E. Lee," Ulysses jumped in.

And finally, they left the house.

"Whew!" Quinn said as the door closed behind them.

"Told you," Ulysses said.

The meeting of Quinn's parents was another exercise in restraint.

"Uh, thought only guys went into nursing were faggots," Dwight Michaels, Quinn's father asked.

"Dwight, really!" Terrie hissed, highly embarrassed.

"First time for everything," Ulysses said easily. "But uh, didn't know I was the first straight guy to go into nursing. Quinn, why you didn't tell me that?"

"Thought you knew," Quinn said, also glaring at her father.

So, as far as Dwight was concerned, Ulysses Lee was a faggot, and a smart ass to boot.

The day Quinn got her braces off was also the day they lost their virginity.

Ulysses and Quinn had touched each other, had used their fingers on each other, bringing each other to climax.

But after taking the hated braces out, in the rear seat of Quinn's 1991 Delta Eighty Eight, she used her mouth on his thick cock. Then he eased her jeans and full cotton briefs down over her wide hips and saw her pale belly and hips, saw the thicket of black pubic hair for the first time.

"Oh, don't do oh, that's so gross," Quinn protested as he put his mouth on her wet slit.

"You just put your mouth on me," Ulysses reminded her.

So, she lay back and let him lick and suck her pussy, even shuddering through a mild orgasm.

She was on the pill, but they also used a condom. Both had been through enough courses in school to know neither the pill nor condom were fool-proof, but possibly both pill and condom would be effective protection.

"Like taking a shower with my socks on," Ulysses mock-complained as he rolled the condom on.

"And when's the last time you took a shower with your socks on?" Quinn challenged, watching him pull the condom on.

"Uh, this morning; I always take a shower with my socks on," Ulysses said.

"You do not!" she laughed and kissed him happily.

Their first time was less than spectacular. The pain of losing her hymen was intense and she sobbed. Her tears caused Ulysses to lose his erection.

As she dropped him off at his home, Quinn leaned over and kissed him.

"I uh, I love you," she whispered.

"God, I love you too," Ulysses affirmed.

The next time there was no pain; in fact, Quinn achieved a very powerful orgasm. After his ejaculation, she kissed him passionately and asked him how many condoms he had with him.

"There's three more in the glove box," he gasped, trying to catch his breath.

"Get another one," she demanded.

"Damn, Quinn, give me a chance catch my breath, huh?" he whined.

They used all four condoms; Quinn was disappointed that Ulysses couldn't get it up a fifth time.

So on their next date, Ulysses had a box of one dozen condoms. But still, four was the limit.

By their third year at U.L.D, others began to notice the couple, began to see one or the other as desirable. Quinn was outraged when Naomi Blumenthal, one of the cheerleaders asked Ulysses for help in their Organic Chemistry class.

"Uh, I'M in the same class," Quinn snarled as the brunette beauty thrust her surgically enhanced breasts in Ulysses' face. "I'LL help you, got it?"

Another chubby male nurse's candidate tried to separate Quinn from Ulysses. The young man tried feigning ignorance of their materials, tried compliments, tried casting doubts of Ulysses' masculinity, doubts of Ulysses' faithfulness.

"Grant, you're a really nice guy," Quinn said sweetly after the young man had tried once again to question Ulysses' masculinity. "But you say one more word about Ulysses and I'll gut you like a pig, okay?"

Right before their graduation, news of St. Elizabeth Parish opening a Trauma Center in DeGarde rippled through the nursing school.

As Quinn Michaels and Ulysses Lee were both carrying a 4.0 GPA, the Dean of the School of Nursing wrote glowing letters of recommendation for each of them. Paula Lambert, as the acting CEO of St. Elizabeth Parish Trauma Center hired Quinn and Ulysses after one interview.

And as soon as they had their diplomas and certificates in hand, Ulysses asked Quinn to marry him.

They married at Atonement Lutheran Church in Kimble, Louisiana, as the Michaels were Lutheran. Not very committed Lutherans, but they were Lutheran all the same.

Katie Lee was atheist and raised Ulysses as an atheist as well. But, unlike Katie, Ulysses did not hold all those that believed in God to be fools, mindless sheep following the flock.

Ulysses did admire the simplistic beauty of the church building, and the beauty of the wedding ceremony.

Quinn, hanging on the arm of her father, was a vision of beauty in her ivory wedding dress; even Katie could find little to critique about the dress.

The reception was held in the hall adjoining the church building. Katie had splurged, slightly, on the reception, hiring Bombay Café to cater the ceremony, and hiring a DJ to provide music.

Connie Edwards took several photographs and felt that she'd earned every penny as she constantly had to remind the groom's mother to smile.

"This is a happy day," Connie called out to Katie. "You're finally getting your son out of your house."

"Was never home anyway," Katie said and placed a practiced smile on her stern face.

"Christ, that's frightening," Connie muttered to herself as she snapped the photograph.

Quinn and Ulysses faced the dilemma; Honeymoon on the beach of Gulf Shores, Alabama, or security deposit and first month's rent on an apartment.

"Uh, guys? Actually, Y'all might want to think about getting a house," Terrie Michaels suggested. "Minute they finish that hospital? Real Estate's going go through the roof."

Katie very, very reluctantly agreed to co-sign on a loan for her son and daughter-in-law. Danny Scandurro of First DeGarde National Bank did not miss the woman's reluctance and quietly suggested that she may wish to do a 'Quit Claim' within thirty days. That did make the mother feel a little more accommodating.