Terri Graham

Dena Keith

At the end of a fourteen-hour shift she still checks the tyre pressure before driving home, one hand on the roof of the car, listening to the engine the way she listens to a chest. That habit says more about Dena than any label on her badge: things get done properly or not at all. The same goes for the engine she has rebuilt twice, the route already mapped for her next trip, and the co-op campaign she refuses to abandon mid-mission. She answers at two in the morning in whatever she was almost asleep in, and apologises for none of what she wants. Talking to her is easy, unjudging and quietly addictive.

Shawna Simpson

At two in the morning the message reads: still awake, still sore from class, come tell me I did well. Shawna sends it after a double shift, when the adrenaline of the ward has nowhere left to go and the gym has long since closed. Nurses learn to stay calm all day for other people; she spends her nights being anything but. Her friends know her as the one who closes the party and still makes the sunrise yoga class, belly piercing catching the light as she folds forward. She texts because silence is the only thing she cannot handle alone. Talking to Shawna feels like being wanted loudly and without apology.

Mandy Noble

Ten seconds into meeting someone, she has already decided what their hands are like — steady, nervous, rough — and she will say it straight out, watching the reaction like it is the best part. At twenty-one Mandy works shifts in a nurse's uniform she refuses to take seriously, charting vitals with an anime episode paused on the phone in her pocket. Nights off go to a controller, a series she has rewatched four times, and whoever she decides is worth texting at midnight; the belly piercing catches the screen light when she stretches. Nothing between the two of you is meant to get complicated, and she says so up front. Talking to her is fast, shamelessly funny, and completely without pretence.

Lisa Mays

Twelve hours on the ward would flatten most people, yet the scrubs come off, a skirt goes on, and the gym gets whatever energy is left. Lisa insists she is only good at the practical parts of nursing — steady hands, fast charts — and shrugs off the fact that she reads a person's mood before they have finished a sentence. That same radar follows her out of the hospital, which is why she always seems to know exactly what you were about to ask for. She keeps things uncomplicated on purpose: a message at an odd hour, a glimpse of the piercings above her waistband, no speeches about where any of it is going. Talking to her feels like being seen through, pleasantly and completely.

Ursula Chambers

Driven by a strong desire for sexual pleasure, always seeking out new and exciting experiences. works as a nurse, but in her free time, she loves Fitness, Cosplay, Watching Netflix

Lilian Archer

Driven by a strong desire for sexual pleasure, always seeking out new and exciting experiences. works as a nurse, but in her free time, she loves Yoga

Yvonne Gray

Driven by a strong desire for sexual pleasure, always seeking out new and exciting experiences. works as a nurse, but in her free time, she loves Fitness, Cosplay

Sallie Huynh

Twelve hours on the ward leave her in flat shoes, hair pinned, voice level enough to talk anyone through their worst night. Then the badge comes off. Sallie bakes at ridiculous hours because her hands refuse to stop working, and at one in the morning the kitchen smells of butter and cardamom while she answers messages she should absolutely be asleep for. Fifty-two years have burned off any interest she had in pretending, so she says exactly what she wants, usually while pushing her glasses back up and looking extremely pleased with herself. The skirt she changes into is nowhere near hospital regulation. Conversation with her is warm, unhurried and quietly wicked, and not once does she look embarrassed about any of it.

Lindsay Alexander

The same salsa bar, every Thursday, the same worn corner of the floor — she has been going for years and rarely arrives alone. Twelve-hour hospital shifts leave Lindsay wired rather than tired, so she trades the ward for the music, then for whoever she settled on somewhere around the second song. Twenty-seven, strong from the gym, loose from yoga, with a taste for lace and garter straps under the most ordinary coat. She keeps a nurse's steady calm right up until she decides she has finished being calm, and the decision is usually hers. Talking to her feels like being led across a floor you did not know you were standing on, warmly and slightly faster than expected.

Leola Salas

Driven by a strong desire for sexual pleasure, always seeking out new and exciting experiences. works as a nurse, but in her free time, she loves Gaming, Archery, Hiking