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Marissé learned early on in her life just how beautiful she was. Starting at age eleven, she had to push boys away from her. Starting at age twelve, she had to kick boys away from her. Starting at age thirteen, she had to run as fast as possible to stay away from the boys that were chasing her. Boys who wanted to get her, and marry her, and take her away, and hide her from everyone else, and keep her as their sole and only treasure to cherish and hoard from the rest of the world.
Marissé was a beautiful girl who turned into a stunningly gorgeous young woman. But no matter how beautiful or gorgeous the boys told her that she was, she had utterly no use whatsoever for anyone of the opposite gender. She didn’t have much use for anyone of the same gender, either. Marissé was equally fond of no one.
When she was fourteen years old, she was cursed and blessed all at the same time. Her father was killed. After that, her mother took her and moved to the United States to be with family in Miami. This probably saved Marissé from a fate of ending up married to someone who lived in the peninsula of the Yucatan where she was born. Someone who would likely have had Marissé barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen for most of her twenties, and perhaps half of her thirties; if she lived that long.
Instead, she had to adjust to a whole new life. She was no longer around her beloved jungle that contained her secret and wondrous connection to her people and her past from so long ago. She traded all that in for a teenager’s life in the poor suburbs of Miami. Which wasn’t all that better considering the animals in the jungle, as opposed to the animals in the city slum streets of Miami.
Marissé had to try even harder to keep the boys away from her in Miami. But she did.
Eventually, she got to the point where it just became easier to physically defend herself from boys. She began to study Tae-Kwon-Do and became proficient rather quickly. It was a skill set she had to use on more than one occasion to teach boys the proper way to respect young girls they didn’t know. This brash behavior coming from such a beautiful babe eventually earned her the respect of many of the tough hombres in her neighborhood. By the time she was sixteen, Marissé found she didn’t have to defend herself any more. That duty had been taken over by dozens of adopted older brothers, whose self-professed job was to protect their young and innocent little sister from the harm of anyone who even looked at her sideways.
By the time she graduated high school, all of the boys knew who she was. The only phase in her life that had not been dedicated directly toward academic pursuits was her junior and senior year of high school. She spent those two years in the dance clubs of South Beach with all of her high school hombres and gang-member buddies dancing all night long. She still managed to make it to school. And she still managed to hold a perfect grade point average.
But the nightlife in Miami was no stranger to Marissé.
The smoke, drugs, and alcohol had no attraction to her. The only thing she went for was dancing. And it didn’t matter who it was on the dance floor. Whether some Latin American Pop Teen Star or just some hot guy looking to get laid, Marissé didn’t care. She danced with all of them. However, she never did anything more than suggestively dance with any of them; unless you count smooching.
Marissé was a smoocher. She liked to kiss, and kissing was all she ever did. But she was talented at it. All the boys in the clubs eventually learned this beautiful girl would dance with them and perhaps even smooch with them. But that was all she would do. And if they persisted in any sort of request beyond dancing, they quickly found themselves surrounded by angry men. These men would promptly escort this person out of whatever club they were in and roughly toss them into the street; along with various curses, in various languages, regarding their adopted baby sister, Marissé. And they usually added something colorful that had to do with the parentage of the person being tossed out on their butt.
Even the club owners would look out for their little señorita.
If it had been Hollywood, Marissé would have found herself in the middle of a tabloid scandal. She was only seventeen years old when she was out late one night during the week on the South Beach strip. She was at one of the hot dance clubs when an un-named Hollywood A-List celebrity came into the club with his entourage. He had been visiting Madonna, or Stallone, or someone else who had a mansion in or around the international metropolitan society of Miami. He immediately spotted Marissé on the dance floor, and he sent one of his bodyguards to invite her to the VIP area, which had been roped off for his group. She declined. Then she turned around and continued dancing by herself.
The Hollywood asshole thought this only made her more attractive. So he decided he would make the move himself. He got up and walked onto the dance floor then started trying to shake his booty. He couldn’t dance for shit. But he started bouncing a little as he approached the underage girl then boogied around in front of her. She had been turned away from his VIP section and didn’t see him approach her. When he got around and made eye-contact, he introduced himself.
Marissé just looked at him.
He smiled and pushed on. “Don’t you know who I am? Do you speak English?” He tried to put on his best Hollywood charm.
Marissé started to answer him. “Should I—”
He interrupted her.
“Well, I am famous.” He smiled at her again and kept trying to bounce to the music.
Marissé smiled before she began. “You didn’t let me finish. I was going to say, Should I care? It was only going to be a rhetorical question. Which means I didn’t expect you to respond. What I do expect, is for you to quietly turn and walk back over to your little corner. I am NOT the one, not tonight.”
Then she looked him up and down for the first time. She had been staring intently at his right eye, like she did when she target-practiced with her uncle’s handgun at the gun range. She was getting proficient at shooting. She knew how to handle a gun. But she still needed some practice on how to handle celebrities; like the asshole that was standing in front of her. He suddenly stepped up close and stared down at her. Marissé didn’t blink as she looked up at him and stared right back. She spoke first.
“Now that I see you up close, I can assure you, I will never be the one. Comprendé amigo? Now would you please get out of my way so I can continue to dance with the only person in arms reach of me who actually knows how to dance, and that would be me.” Then she smiled.
He didn’t react well.
“Why you little Cuban piece of sh—”
He started to grab her arm. That turned out to be a gigantic mistake.
Those six-and-a-half words were all he got out. Actually, they would be the last words he spoke for a week. Marissé stepped forward and used her closed fist to swing her arm up sideways and clotheslined him directly in his throat. She stopped right before his larynx crushed. She had practiced this in real life. She knew exactly how hard to warn; how hard to maim; and how hard to eliminate any type of threat to her person, from anyone.
“I’m not Cuban… And YOU don’t get to touch me.”
When the asshole A-Lister hit the floor with his hands at his neck, his three body guards jumped up and started for the girl. Marissé didn’t flinch. She turned toward them and spread her legs in a bent-knee stance in her short mini skirt. She wore tights underneath just for this reason. She could put her foot in your face without leaning back. And depending on whether you were dancing with her, or about to have your dental work readjusted by her, she could pull her leg back down away from your face without flinching, either. And she could do all of that in three-and-a-half-inch stiletto heels, but it was easier without them. She was about to kick off her heels when she suddenly saw movement out of the corner of her eye, lots of movement. Marissé relaxed and stood back up. The ignorant bodyguards didn’t detect the change in her posture in time. They kept charging toward the dance floor where their boss was writhing in pain on the ground. All of the other dancers had moved farther away, and a corridor had opened
up in front of the bodyguards that led right to the two people they were running for.
They never got within ten feet.
Two groups of gang members at the club reacted as soon as they saw the crowd disperse from the middle of the dance floor. They charged toward the front of the corridor of spectators on the dance floor before the bodyguards could see them coming. The Hollywood security crew was now outnumbered five to one. The first bodyguard never took his eyes off Marissé as he sprinted toward her. He should have. Because he never saw the punch that broke his nose and blackened his eyes for weeks. He just collapsed backwards, like he had run into a glass wall. The other two bodyguards took all of twenty-two seconds before they joined their comrade and their boss on the floor. Their boss was the only one of them who was still conscious. In his nightmares, this A-List asshole wishes he had been unconscious at the hands of the beautiful smart-mouthed dancer. Because what happened to him next in the back alley would land him in the hospital for a while. The last punch was by the club owner.
The Star’s publicist told the press he’d been in an automobile accident. The bodyguards all backed up that story. But right before he punched his lights out, the club owner told the asshole A-Lister if he ever showed up in his club again, he would release the security video showing him getting his ass kicked by a girl. And then he’d hire the same gang to kick his ass again, personally.
The Hollywood A-Lister would never return to Miami, ever.
Marissé had managed to make friends in Miami.
Marissé had also managed to stay innocent. Marissé had managed not to get married, or pregnant, or hidden away by some greedy man wanting to hoard her beauty. Marissé had also managed to get a high school degree and a scholarship to the University of Miami. When she entered the University as a Freshman, she knew immediately what she would do, and what she would study, and what degree she would have when she left this remarkable place of knowledge that she had now entered.
What she did not know, was how to get along with all of the spoiled rotten American jerks that surrounded her in this brand new University life-experience. The full scholarship she earned included a paid dorm room. Even though her mother still lived in the city, and even though she could have found a way to take public transportation to and from class, both her and her mother decided the smartest thing for her to do, would be to live in the dorm. That way, no distractions from home or the old neighborhood would interfere with her studies. However, neither of them considered what it would be like to find a roommate. And not just any roommate; a roommate that would be capable of tolerating Marissé.
But more importantly, a roommate that Marissé would not kill.
Marissé’s flair for personal temper and her well known abilities to defend herself quickly became the source of legend among the Freshman Coed Dorm. Her roommates for the first two months of the semester flowed in and out of her room like a breeze from the Atlantic. It was actually quite humorous. There were two weeks where the number of days in the week equaled the number of roommates she went through. The Dormitory Monitors didn’t have a clue what was happening. No one who wanted out of the room would say anything other than they had to leave, and they had to leave, now.
And that’s all they said.
Those exact words had been given to those young girls, verbatim, by Marissé; along with their marching orders and their luggage. Which was usually tossed out in the hall prior to the rejected roommate actually being tossed out. The last part of the message of farewell that Marissé gave to each of her ex-roommates, was never to speak about this, ever, to anyone. Everyone just pretended it was mutually agreeable they all wanted to have new roommates.
Unfortunately, after two months of this, there were not any more roommates to be had. Marissé had to spend one entire night alone in her half of the two-bedroom apartment-type suite, which she had been sharing with an ongoing stream of new freshmen girls.
But that one night was all she had to spend alone in her suite. Because the next day, she was awakened by an envelope being taped on her door. When she retrieved the notice, she learned she would be getting a new roommate that same day. Marissé also discovered this would be the last roommate she would ever get. The note informed her the Dean of Housing told the Dorm Monitor to pass along this message: if Marissé couldn’t get along with this roommate, Marissé would not be welcome in student housing on campus.
Marissé didn’t honestly care. But she was curious what the new roommate would be like. She hadn’t heard anything when she woke up, except the delivery of the note. But she hadn’t checked the rest of the dorm room. The bedroom doors were on opposite sides of a combined living room and desk study area. On the back wall, was a door into the shared bathroom. The bedrooms each had a smaller door that opened into the bathroom, which had two sinks on each side of the front door into the common area. A shower stall with a solid door was across from the sink on one side, and the toilet was behind a door next to the shower. The bathroom made a hallway that went between the two bedrooms if both small doors were open. Marissé usually brushed her teeth as soon as her feet hit the floor. But this morning, she went to the front door when she heard someone outside taping something to it.
Just then, she heard water running in the bathroom sink.
Apparently, her new roomie was already here. Marissé decided now was as good a time as any to meet the new roommate. She walked over to the bathroom entrance from the living area and pulled open the door expecting to find her new female roommate.
What she found was a skinny, pale young man in his underwear flossing his teeth in front of the mirror. Marissé dropped her pretend smile. This was not good.
“Who the hell are you?”
She was suddenly sure this new roommate would be gone soon. Nobody had the gall to bring a boyfriend into the dorm on the first day, not yet anyway. As Marissé was standing there, the boyfriend finished flossing his teeth and then rinsed with a strange cup that was suddenly beside the sink. For a second, Marissé imagined kissing the flossing bean-pole white boy, but then she shivered at the thought. The first thing she intended to do was tell his girlfriend and soon-to-be ex-roommate about how her gross boyfriend used her cup and her floss—
He interrupted her thought.
“I’m your new roommate, Jay-L.” He had just spit out his mouth and wiped his hand, which he now extended toward a suddenly speechless Marissé.
“My… what?” That was all she could get out. Her tongue wasn’t cooperating with her.
Jay-L dropped his hand and turned away toward his room. He took off into it while he talked to her.
“Look, I know English may be your second language, but really. You and I have the same reputation.” He turned around and showed her his copy of the letter regarding the same ultimatum to get along with this, his last roommate. “See, it appears you and I have the same problem, as well. We either get along, or we don’t live on campus.”
Marissé had instinctively followed him into his bedroom. It didn’t matter that he was in his underwear and tube socks. But when she got into the room, she stopped and was even more amazed than she had been over the last thirty seconds. And not because Jay-L was in his underwear and socks. Nor was it because she had a new boy roommate, who was gross.
It was because she suddenly realized they were going to be stuck with each other unless she was willing to leave. Because as she looked around his room, she knew the short-haired geek across from her would never leave. And that was because the room was wall-to-wall computers and monitors. The only clear spot was a narrow walkway in front of his bed. The bed itself was covered with a large overhanging shelf, which contained more computers. It looked like he slept underneath the computer complex. Marissé couldn’t help herself as she quickly wondered if he turned off all of the equipment before he slept, or if he slept at all for that matter. There were coffee cups and pizza boxes everywhere. She couldn’t figure out how he could have gotten all this stuff in here, much l
ess without waking her up. She had to think hard to make sure she hadn’t been drugged and missed a day. Marissé walked up to Jay-L and looked him in the eye.
“What day is it?” That was all she said.
“Tuesday…” he answered after a moment.
Suddenly, Jay-L got a worried look on his face. As he stared at Marissé, his mind began to race with thoughts. His eyes got a far off look as he mentally ran down a tangent, and he was suddenly lost in a daydream. When he did this, his eyes subconsciously drifted down a few inches and stopped on Marissé’s chest.
“Hummm. I’d not actually counted on the possibility this new roommate might be crazy. I just knew she was a woman. I wonder if there might be a connection between the two states of existence? You know… woman and crazy? Hummmmm… I should look into that, sometime. Anyway, maybe later. Now back to the dark-haired new roomie and… Whoa… Hello hooties! Wow, this girl is actually quite hot. And she’s in a very loose tank top. Suddenly I’m thinking I could live with a little bit of crazy for a peek at those honkers.”
Jay-L had to try hard to look up from her cleavage. When he did, he found Marissé looking straight at him. The last thing he remembered seeing was her smiling at him.
He didn’t realize he just said that entire thought out loud.
Everything from the crazy roommate part to the honkers.
And fortunately for him, he also didn’t remember when his brain blocked out the next instant as Marissé punched him in the jaw and knocked him out cold.