Twenty-three years ago, Marissa Stevens had been every freshman's fantasy with her translucent skin and cool aloofness. But not just freshmen, though; Marissa captured the imagination of all the males, whether sexually repressed and liberated, attending the university at the time.

She was a Social Sciences student reputedly from old Jamaican money, tall and willowy, and when she glided across the campus grounds dressed in her mini jeans skirts, revealing miles of toned, shapely legs, and clasping her folder to her well-proportioned chest, men would look at her and groan inwardly.

Marissa with the piercing almond-coloured eyes and the sharp bone structure of a model that made a man glad to be a man. In fact, the rumours had circulated, although no evidence had ever materialised to circumstantiate it, that she'd done a bit of modelling for a questionable skin-type of publication and had even posed nude in it.

Denny Wilmore, a final-year Guild representative, was credited with starting the rumour, claiming he'd actually seen her, spread-eagled in all her naked glory, on the glossy centre pages of some magazine he'd seen in a waiting room of some office somewhere.

Daniel hadn't known what to make of Marissa; he wasn't sure whether to believe the story about her or not. He held no judgement for her, as some people, especially other girls, did. Somehow, he thought, Marissa would not have posed for any such skin magazine.

There was something dignified-looking about her; there was something desperate in the eyes of women who would do such a thing, a look that said they'd done it for the money, because they were in dire financial straits. If, however, she had in fact done it, then it would not have been about the money. It would have been because she'd wanted to, and there was not a blessed thing wrong with that.

Their paths finally met one day at the Student's Union. Daniel, who was excruciatingly shy, had been reading a novel. Daniel was on a break from studying for an exam when he'd taken a few minutes to read a few snatches from the final pages of the final chapter of the book, which had been completely engrossing.

He was initially dumbstruck when she'd initiated a conversation about the book's author, a prolific American professor who'd made the headlines a few years before when he'd been convicted of the rape and murder of one of his students.

"You think the brilliance of his work kind of negates the atrocity of what he did?" Marissa asked, jutting out her chin at the book's cover. Daniel looked up in confusion. She sidled up to him, and sat, without waiting to be invited to, in an orange plastic chair across the table from him. She was wearing shorts and a tank top through which he saw that she was not wearing a bra. She arranged her pile of books neatly on the table and stared penetratingly at him with her doe-shaped almond eyes.

It was an almost unbearably sunny, light-bright day outdoors. A cool wind moved lazily through the ancient almond trees in the car park which were outlined against the brilliant blue sky, and floated into the room, ruffling her thick chin-length curls.

Daniel looked behind him to make sure that she'd in fact been addressing him. But except for a stray orange-coloured tabby stalking about searching for food, they were alone. "Ahm," he hedged, not wanting to say the wrong thing. "Well, you know, he did rape and kill somebody. You can't exactly justify that."

Marissa had leaned in, so close he'd smelled the soap on her skin. "Yeah, but can't some actions be repudiated for the sake of art?"
And Daniel had adjusted his glasses on his nose and looked at her in alarm, only to catch a glint in her eyes that said she'd been teasing him, and he'd smiled.

Soon after that they began dating. After meeting 'accidentally on purpose' a few times, he'd eventually marshalled the courage to invite her out to a movie that was playing at Carib. They shared similar interests in books and movies and art, he discovered, and he'd taken a chance. The invitation had been almost half-hearted, breezy, almost as if it weren't even a request for a date.

But she'd shocked him when she'd accepted. Instead of the polite rejection he'd anticipated, she'd grinned excitedly, showing her even, white teeth. "God, Danny, yes!" she cried. "I'd love to."

He was beside himself; he, Daniel Lewis, a lowly country bumpkin, had succeeded in doing what any number of guys on campus had not: taking out a glamorous girl like Marissa Stevens, who'd by this time come to be known as the campus Ice Princess.

He liked her even more than he had when he hadn't even met her. She was smart, funny, a good conversationalist, and he enjoyed being around her immensely.

She lived off-campus but they spent a lot of time together in his dorm room, causing many an eyebrow to arch in amazement.
But for Daniel and Marissa, the world around them scarcely existed; they were falling in love.
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