Everything was so meticulously tidy as to be not quite genuine. True, she’d lost nothing; there was just that feeling. Ghosts, her friends said (in a building that was let out to students while the paint was still drying, it was so new). But Candice didn’t share that feminine fascination and horror of (supposed) ghosts. So she arranged to pretend to leave one day, opening then closing the front door, then nip into a friend’s room closest to the door and listen.

Sure enough, after a few minutes they heard a door open then close softly, followed by light footsteps along the corridor towards Candice’s room.

“Do you want me to come with you?” breathed her friend, Sarah.

“No thanks,” she answered looking grim. Then she grinned,” Don’t forget, I’m studying women’s self-defence.”

“And dance,” Sarah reminded her.

“Yes, but I don’t intend to start waltzing with him.”

“How do you know it’s a ‘him’?”

“I just know,” she replied, stepping out down the corridor.

But the dance came in handy after all. If the previous footsteps along the corridor had been light, no one could hear hers at all. She suddenly flung her door open and, sure enough, there was a male student, Jason, sniffing one of her blouses. He was sitting, naked if you please, on her bed. He froze and she glared. But only for a moment.

Candice pounced and pulled him up by his ears, then shoved him down on his front. She pressed her knee down expertly between his shoulder blades and pulled his head up by the hair, camel-clutch-style.

“How did you get into my room?” she demanded.

“I made a fake key,” he snivelled.

“Doing the mechanical engineering course, are you?” she asked, pulling him off the floor by the hair while she retrieved her blouse.

“Yes,” he blurted out.

“I have a job for you,” she continued, locking his right arm behind his back. “But first, I’m going to beat the hell out of you,” she told him ominously, marching him out of the room with his arm still locked, while she held a fist full of hair in her other hand.

“Where are we going?” he blurted out.

“Shut up,” she snapped.

He found out soon enough. They were in the gym, and she had manhandled him into the ring. He sighed in dread as he recalled she was on the women’s self-defence course. His dread was justified, because as soon as she released her hold, she kicked him savagely in the balls from behind. He yelled and dropped to his knees, clutching his wounded manhood.

“My parents’ car failed its MOT,” Candice told him, preening herself and smiling down at the stricken male, “and they can’t afford to get the work done. My Dad has to ride his bike 10 miles to work, and Mum has to get the bus to go shopping.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jason groaned.

“But it’s okay!”

“How’s that?”

“You’re going to do the work! It’s either that, or I get you expelled from the university.”

Still on his hands and knees, he turned to look at her – God, she was lovely! She had long, cascading blonde hair, sparkling, mischievous eyes, large, shapely breasts, an urgently slim waist, broad hips, with a wonderful round bottom.

“It’s simple,” she continued. “I’m going home next weekend, and you’ll come with me to repair the car. They’ll buy the parts this week, and you’ll fit them. Bring your welding gear, because it needs some of that, too. Now get up, pervert!”

Candice raised her fists, and Jason did the same. His fixation with her increased twofold at the sight of her standing confidently ready to fight. Her fists appeared in his vision halfway between her smiling face and her breasts, which seemed to be pointing at him.

Trying not to get distracted, Jason threw a left, but she merely leant back, laughing, so it failed to reach her. She jerked her body to the side, so that a subsequent right went over her shoulder. Getting frustrated, he tried to surprise her with another left, but she batted it away with her right arm.

Cursing under his breath as her deflection made him stumble, the girl’s left fist cracked into his jaw. His head rocked back, and he had to take a few steps backwards to stay on his feet. But she came after him, right fist in at his ribs, left one roaring into his ear.

Noting his sharp intake of breath when her fist struck his ribs, she stepped back and launched a huge kick to the same area. Doubling back, she fired a high kick but, against the odds, Jason managed to ward it off. Buoyed by this success, he swung round and tripped her up as she was just putting her foot back down on the mat.

Candice landed on her backside behind the celebrating Jason. She abruptly halted his celebration by kicking up into his balls. Once more he held his injured manhood, stooping in front of her. She took a huge jump and brought him down to his knees, locking his left arm in front of him. Then she plumped herself down on the small of his back and dragged his upper body up via a full Nelson, combining that hold with a camel clutch.

It was a surreal day for Jason. One hour ago, he’d been in the workshop, happily designing and building precision instruments. It was the familiar, to him friendly environment of machines, noise, and the pervading smell of oil. Then, back at the hall of residence, he just couldn’t resist his guilty fetish and use the key that he’d secretly made. Now, he was being hauled about by a beautiful young woman, well versed in unarmed combat.

And this was her familiar environment: in the ring and punishing a young man who should have known better. She dropped him down, knelt straddling him, and started to scissor the life out of him, securing his arms at the same time. Then she stretched out, inflicting an exacting front head scissor on him, pushing with her feet and pulling his hair while squeezing with her well-toned dancer’s legs.

Feeling him go weak, she lay across him, maintaining the scissor so she could watch his face while she got on with her work. She propped herself up on her hands and chuckled at the various pained expressions he wore.

Kneeling with one knee between his shoulder blades again, she pulled his hair, dragging his head against her free leg. Next, she brought him up by his hair firstly to his knees, then to his feet. Thrusting her right hand into his face, she menaced him with her left fist. It wasn’t long in coming either, for she swung it round in a hook, spinning him half round.

Seemingly in the mood for a bit of “fisticuffs”, she uppercut his jaw with her right. His head shot to the side and his mouth opened wide in a silent exclamation of pain. It would have been comical had she been in the mood to see the funny side. But right now, she was on a mission.

She grabbed the back of his head with her right hand, and once again showed him the prospect of her left fist, before this time hurling it at his ear. That was now both his ears that had suffered at her fists, although the effect on his other, left ear, was beginning to wear off by now. Well, she couldn’t have that, could she? She punched it again, and his hearing went “furry”, as if he was swimming under water.

She got him with a nasty short left to the mouth. It was ironic. In the machine workshop, there were signs everywhere about the dangers of machines and noxious substances. Yet here, where he felt he was in genuine danger, there were no warning signs at all!

Levering him to one side with her fist at his face, Candice kicked his flank from the other side. A dull, throbbing pain spread through his side and he sank to his knees, whereupon she thrust her knee at his chin. It put him on his back.

At this point, the rules and accepted norms of MMA ought to have dictated that Candice leave off. But there was enough of the Saturday night street fighter about her to carry on, and she began to set about him with her fists. Standing over him, she struck him on the jaw with her left, turning his head. Lowering herself, she got him in the eye with her right, then the jaw again with her left. She was possessed. Rather than a formal ring, the way she was going, some sleazy underground fight club was more her style at the moment.

“Was this one of your fantasies?” she asked derisively as she sat on his middle, belting him on the nose with her right. Then her left joined in at the same target, knocking his head first one way then the other.

She attacked his forehead. He reached out for something to hold for some odd notion of security, squeezing a pleasant handful of her buttock. That definitely was one of his fantasies! Though such dreams were far from his mind now, with her in her present mood.

Thump came her right in at his ear; his already battered, sore ear. She swung her left fist at his cheekbone. His head lurched to the side for the last time, because she had knocked him out. At last, time had been called on this battering. She stood up and celebrated what had been a display of raw strength. Then she waited in a corner for him to recover.

Jason began to stir, moaning at his aching head, and unable to breathe through his nose, thanks to her pummelling. He took a moment on his hands and knees, feeling as if he had a hangover (which, in a way, he did). He stood up and gingerly approached the now smiling and calm young woman.

“You didn’t have to go to those lengths,” he complained.

“Well, I’m standing here, so take your revenge,” she invited him.

He took another hesitant step – and she kicked him devastatingly in the balls. He froze, temporarily paralysed. If it had been a cartoon, you would have seen his hair stand on end.

“You’re going to get my parents’ car through its MOT!” Uppercut.

“But I don’t want any oily boots indoors!” Left cross.

“If my Mum doesn’t say, ‘What a nice young man’ once you’ve left, I’ll beat you up all over again!” Right cross.

Candice pointed her toes in her boot as if she were in her dance class, and let him have one last kick in the balls. He yelled in pain, reaching for the wounded area, and her left fist came clanging into his head. She redressed the balance with her right, and he collapsed onto the mat, unconscious once more.

She stood over him with her foot on his balls, then flexed in triumph, thinking, “I’m going to ring Mum now, and tell her I’ve got someone coming with me to mend the car. She’ll be so pleased!”