Maria

One of the stories that I had to drop from Welcome to College because of space was the story of Maria.  It all began late one Thursday night when we were just Freshmen.   We were all still in the dorm then and we had gotten ahold of some hard liquor.  I think it was Southern Comfort and we began to play drinking games with Southern Comfort and Diet Coke.  We were all drinking heavily and around 1 a.m., Deanna had a bright idea.  She had brought her prom dress to school for her Halloween Costume and decided that I absolutely had to try it on.  She not only had the form fitting strapless dress, but also the silver shoes she wore with it.  They had me go back to my room and get some sexier lingerie.  I was already wearing my wig.  After I was dressed and made up, it was getting close to 2 a.m.

Dressing in public was still new to me at this time, but very few people were up this late so they decided that we should be daring and sneak down to the television lounge.   We did and fortunately found it open.  We turned on the television and played a few games of pool.   Amanda excused herself to go back to her room and when she returned she had a whole lot of rope.  I started to try to make a break for it, but with those shoes, I had no chance against 4 girls who quickly grabbed me and escorted me over to the couch.  With Deanna holding my wrists together Amanda tied my hands together in front of me and then pulled them up and behind my head so that my elbows were sticking out on either side of my head.  The rope connecting my wrists together was then tied behind me to the bottom of the couch.  Karen moved over a small table and Wendy put my feet on top of it.  She tied my ankles together and then to the table legs.

The whole time this was going on, I was trying to talk my way out of it with very little success.  In a moment of utter cruelty, Amanda turned on QVC.  The girls kissed me on my cheeks and then left me to enjoy looking at handbags. I don't know if the girls were planning to return or if they were just too drunk to think things through. I was pretty drunk and after awhile I dozed off.  

I woke up to a humming sound behind me.  The clock said 5:45 and there was somebody vacuuming.    As she got close to the couch she suddenly noticed me.   Her name was Maria.  I had seen her once or twice.  Along with an older white guy, they did the janitor work for the dorm.   She was a pretty Mexican woman who appeared to be in her late 30s.  She spoke slightly more Spanish than I spoke English.  She was alarmed, but didn't scream or anything fortunately.  She used one of the English words she knew and asked me, "Police?"  I shook my head and she then got a puzzled look.  As I told her, "no police" she realized I was a guy.

She managed to ask me if it was a joke and I nodded.  She untied me and I slunk back to my room in the prom dress feeling utterly humiliated.   Almost a year to the date, she found me in a very similar position, in a red sweated and black and red plaid skirt.  When she saw me she just shook her head as if to say "crazy college kids."  She actually spent another 15 minutes finishing her vacuuming before untying me.  As I walked out of the television lounge, the last words I heard her say were "nice shoes."