“Good girl.” I step behind her, guiding her elbows in and her gloves back in front of her face. “Protect your face.”

“But no one is hitting me.”

“You need to keep your form anyway. Elbows in, fists up. Strike forward, and don’t hyperextend your elbow.” My fingers glide along the skin of her bare arms, and I feel the goosebumps erupting across her flesh. She glances back at me, and I refrain from kissing her.

“This is a lot of instructions for a stress reliever.”

“Just punch the bag,” I say. Then, laying a hand on her chest, I add, “Hit from here.”

“You just want to touch my boobs,” she replies with a straight face, and I can’t hold back my smile. With a smack on her ass, I step back and let her punch all of the frustration from her day into that bag.

Watching her throw everything into this exercise, I try to take inventory of my feelings for her. Seeing her cry didn’t make me happy. It awakened a sense of guilt. When did I stop hating her? Because now she makes me smile, and I find it hard to keep my hands to myself when I’m around her. And when I’m not around her, I’m miserable, watching the clock for when I can go home to the rope on my door.

She goes nuts on the punching bag for almost an hour. I’m sure her arms are scalding by the time she relaxes on the bench to grab a bottle of water. “Feel better?” I ask.

“Actually...yes.” Her face is red, and sweat beads across her shoulders and back. I know how good it feels to throw punches and work up a sweat when life feels out of control. This is normally the place I come to when I need to work off the arousals and the inability to be vulnerable.

Right now, watching her body move in those tight workout clothes, it’s doing the opposite. I keep thinking about what her lips felt like against my cock, and how freeing it was to watch her swallow it down, knowing that I shouldn’t be ashamed of what I did. It made her happy, and after a few more nights of the same, she only wants it more.

I’m not a complete freak. And if I am, then she is too.

Shelby

“Why do you do it?” he asks, handing me a towel and watching me rub the sweat off my back.

“Do what?”

“Your job. If it’s so hard, then why do you do it?”

I have to take a moment to formulate a response. No one has ever asked me that before, but it’s the question every hospice nurse prepares themself to answer. Why do we choose this life? To stand so near the veil between life and death.

Finally, I look up at him, easily lost in those dark eyes. “There’s something so liberating about these patients. They’re facing death, knowing they have only months, weeks, days left, and they’re some of the most relaxed and happy people I’ve ever met.” Sitting back against the wall a moment, I look at him, with his furrowed brow and angry stare. “Death isn’t scary, and it’s not the worst thing. Living an unhappy life...that’s scary.”