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“You’re going to have some situations where you are going to be a in a lot of pain and need to be able to focus and power through it,” Nikita explained as she got out the rope. “While there’s not any real way to truly be ready for the reality of that, the adrenaline and panic in the heat of the moment, you can practice thinking and moving through pain.”
She motioned Alex to sit in one of the chairs then she sat in the other and uncoiled the rope. Then she reached down and took hold of one of Alex’s calves, pulling her leg up so that her foot was resting on the chair between Nikita’s legs. “You with me so far?”
“You’re going to hurt me now as practice for when other people hurt me later,” Alex summarized.
“Yes,” Nikita’s fingers were gentle as they drew the rope around the top of Alex’s calf, a couple of inches below the knee, and then she made the first knot and pulled it tight and the gentleness was gone.
Alex gasped at the sharp pain as the rope bit into her skin and then Nikita began tightly wrapping the rope down her leg. At every pass around her leg Nikita paused to pull the rope taut against her skin, making her gasp anew. When she reached Alex’s ankle, she took the rope down and around under the arch of her foot.
Then she began working her way back up, the rope crisscrossing over the downward wraps and increasing the pain, especially on the spots where the rope passed over itself and pressed further into the skin. When she reached the top of Alex’s calf again, Nikita tied quick, secure knots. Alex couldn’t quite stifle a sound of pain when Nikita had to reach under the rope already there and tug it up enough to pass the end through to finish the tie.
Alex would have liked a minute to sit with the pain, but Nikita didn’t give it to her. She moved Alex’s leg down to the floor, ignoring the noises Alex made in objection to this abrupt movement, and then overrode Alex’s resistance as she picked up the other leg. Alex tried to draw her leg back and Nikita simply raised an eyebrow, her grip firm and unwavering until Alex sighed and relaxed, letting her have the leg.
The second tie was no less painful for having the first to distract her from the fresh pain. She was trying to be still and make as little noise as possible, but it was difficult. Every pass of the rope on her second leg was bringing a wave of pain, but if she so much as flexed the muscles on her first leg, that also brought pain. Stillness or movement, she had no surcease from the discomfort and increasing agony.
It didn’t take Nikita long to finish though, and she put this leg down on the floor also, giving Alex a minute now to try to cope with what she was feeling. If she kept still, the pain was at a minimum, and she was trying to stay very still, breathing as evenly as she could, trying to bear the pain quietly.
A minute was all she got before the next step in Nikita’s plan though.
“Stand up.”
Alex looked at Nikita like she was crazy, but Nikita was implacable.
“You are going to be in situations where you have to do the impossible to survive. I want you to survive, so we’re training for it as best we can. So stand up.”
Alex swallowed down her objections and stood, hissing as the flexing of her muscles and the change in angle of her ankles made the ropes tighten and shift, increasing the pain.
Nikita walked over to the wall and with a push of a button, turned on music before coming back to grab both chairs and move them far out of reach. She returned to stand in front of Alex, who for all that she was standing, was still not moving if she could help it, hunched over in pain and hissing under her breath with every shift necessary to keeping her upright.
Nikita held out a hand to Alex, “Dance with me,” she commanded, ignoring Alex’s hesitation and taking hold of her hand, pulling her into movement.
Not graceful movement by any means, and Alex cried out at the pain of it, but movement nonetheless. She pulled Alex around for the first series of movements, forcing the actions, holding Alex upright as she stumbled and nearly fell at points, but inexorably insisting that Alex start bearing her own weight, that she move her feet in time with the music, that she reach for the place beyond the pain, and dance.
At some point, though afterwards she couldn’t say how, Alex stopped thinking about the pain, stopped thinking about anything other than moving one foot after the other and danced. It wasn’t as graceful as she normally was, but she began holding her own weight and stopped leaning on Nikita. Each step continued to be painful, but she found the place beyond the pain where her determination to do this outweighed her discomfort, and she found freedom in it, flying beyond the rope, beyond the pain, and she danced.
When that song ended, Nikita lead her over to one of the chairs and had her sit down, slowly taking the rope off, her hands gentle now, rubbing life back into the skin, helping get the blood circulating again, and soothing Alex, giving her a soft place to come back to as the endorphin high left her and she landed.
When the ropes were off and the pain was just a memory, but the glow of discovery remained, Alex smiled at Nikita, not quite grateful for the lesson yet, but pleased with the experience. Nikita couldn’t help but smile back as she helped Alex to her feet again, painlessly this time, and they danced.