After Hours (InterMix)(18)

“Let’s switch up those groups,” she said with a clap, “and I’ll take you through the basics of a prone restraint.”

Two junior nurses and I ended up in Kelly’s group. He gave me a reassuring little nod that said, You’ll be fine, a taste of the more personal side of him from the night before. It was the last thing I needed, that wriggly feeling upsetting my middle when I was trying to learn skills for avoiding maiming people and getting maimed myself.

“The goal for a restraint is always to have three staffers on hand. One for each arm and one for the legs.”

Audra and Kelly and the two other instructors walked us through a demo—Audra pretended to attack one of the orderlies, and he broke free of her grasp. Then Kelly and the other guy rushed over and eased her to the ground on her belly, one man pinning each arm and another her ankles.

“As you can see,” Audra said from the floor, speaking mainly to the gym mat, “I’m completely immobilized, and no longer a danger to myself or others.” Her feet wiggled and her hands flapped, and I had to bite back a giggle. Then I glanced at Kelly’s flexed and forceful arm and my body swapped in a few other inappropriate reactions. The southerly migration of my blood gave me a head rush and I quickly shoved the thought aside, lest I pass out and look even more incompetent than I felt.

They ran through a few other demos: a restraint mid-attack, a two-man restraint, a restraint with Audra flailing like a windmill.

For such a large man, Kelly had a certain grace about him. Most men his size would’ve lumbered, but his movements were measured and controlled, yet fluid. A ballet dancer he was not, but dexterous and quick. I imagined him f*cking, and the grunting, frantic caveman I might’ve previously conjured was replaced by a picture of elegant, filthy labor.

Oops.

Thankfully I didn’t get any more time to fantasize, as it was the new recruits’ turn to try the moves. The first few were easy, slow motion. But after a half hour, Audra had rotated to our group, and we struggled to “gently but assertively” wrestle her to the ground while avoiding her kicks and thrashes. The woman didn’t f*ck around.

By that time she’d worked up quite a sweat, and she stood from our latest successful attempt, red-faced. “Okay! Let’s try a few two-staff scenarios. One on arms, one on legs. Rotate!”

She bounded off to assist the next group, and Kelly strode to mine. I swallowed.

“You and you,” he said, pointing to a nurse and an orderly. They both looked a bit wary, but surely they didn’t share the fear that had me so unnerved—the fear of enjoying touching this brute far too much.

I watched as they ran drills with Kelly, and tried very hard not to think about getting drilled by Kelly. Then it was my turn, me and another young LPN.

“Legs,” she said. We’d been taught to “call” our intended target, much like shouting “I got it!” in a baseball game to avoid colliding with one’s teammate. It meant I was on arms. Big huge scarred-up Kelly Robak arms. When the moment came to grasp them, my hands were nowhere near big enough to get a decent purchase on his obscenely thick biceps. Lordy me.

He went down pretty easy the first time, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he smiled at me. With the side of his face pressed to the mat, it was tough to tell.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked, like he’d come upon me reading on a park bench.

“I am. Maybe I’ll order you a white wine, while you’re down there,” I said, too quiet for anyone else to hear.

Now he was definitely smirking. “With a straw, I hope.”

“A funnel.”

“Touché.”

Audra shouted her approval of our technique and we let Kelly go. We switched legs and arms, then it was time to rotate again. I was tiring, my back achy from all the bending, shoulders grinding in their sockets. This was a hard-ass job. A decent workout, though, if dampened by the possibility of bodily harm.

“Let’s try some headlocks,” Audra said after a water break, some time later. We’d just rotated back into Kelly’s tutelage and I eyed his arm yet again, imagining it clamped around my windpipe.

“Trainees, attack your trainers, and trainers, break free in slo-mo.”

I swallowed as Kelly turned to me first. With me at five-three and him at least a foot taller, it was easier said than done. I’d look less like an attacker than a scarf.

“You want a stepstool?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not that short,” I said as I circled around him. “You’re just way too tall.” I looped my arm around his neck, having to press my chest flush to his back to reach. Goddamn, he was warm. And hard. And huge.