Aching with desire, Michel Martin longs for a new life.

"I want to be happier," she said last week.

Kneeling the grass beside a chain link fence on the Miller Street side of the Santa Maria courthouse, the 38-year-old Los Angeles woman sat on the outside looking in.

For now.

The quick glimpses of Michael Jackson that she has been able to catch as he came and went during the first two days of jury selection in his criminal trial would sustain her until the next time.

And there will be a next time.

Martin said she has attended more than a dozen pre-trial hearings 7 including some inside the courtroom 7 since Jackson/s arrest in 2003 on child-molestation charges. Because she knows he/s hurting, she/s there as often as possible to offer moral support even if he doesn/t know that she exists.

Martin believes the 46-year-old defendant does sense her presence, though.

That hope keeps her faithful to the dream that one day she and Jackson will be together.

"I/ve been single for eight years, three months for Michael," she said. "Total chastity."

For her, the road to never-never land has been a long one.

Hard luck followed her even after she stepped off the Greyhound bus last weekend with ,240 in her pocket to discover that her suitcase was missing.

Heading home with 40 bucks, the clothes she wore for days and whatever possessions she carried in her shoulder bag, Martin said the loss was minor.

"I live for Michael," she said.

Living has never been easy for Martin.

Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a two-foot length of three-quarter-inch black electrical wire folded in half. Black tape wound around one end created a handle to a lash with jagged metal ends.

"This is what I was whipped with when I was a child," she said. "This is what (a family member) used on us. This isn/t the original. This is a re-make."

Martin raised the weapon high above her head and slapped it on the ground.

"He would go back like that and whip us with it," she said. "It never left any scars but it left scars on our heart.

"Michael thinks he/s gone through a lot of physical abuse by his father, that he was afraid of his father," she said. "Can you imagine being whipped with this?"

The beatings that Martin said began when she was 7 and ended when she was 12, as well as her subsequent tortured life as a prostitute on the street, helped create the empathy she feels for Jackson.

"I had a gun at my head, I had a knife at my throat another time," she said. "Jumping out of cars at 45 miles per hour became routine for me."

Through it all, Jackson/s music helped her learn to love.

She has a part-time job to pay the rent. She/s trying to stop smoking cigarettes. And she no longer drinks or uses illegal drugs. Martin/s preparing for the day when she and Jackson will marry.

Not might.

Will.

"I/m saving myself for Michael," she said. "I want to be married in white to Michael. With Michael. Both of us in white. And I want to give Michael at least 20 kids."

Martin said she brings the whip that she calls "Black Bessie" to the Jackson court proceedings because it reminds her of how "tumultuous" life can be for countless people.

"I mean we bled from these beatings. We got kicked in the stomach with combat boots. We got knotted in the forehead with his ring and it would cause a lump on our forehead," she said.

Jackson would understand her torment.

"He has gone through as much pain as I have," she said. "He/s had pain and joy. I/ve had pain and joy."

Martin once saw Jackson on Hollywood Boulevard.

"He waved at me and he looked directly at me, I know," she said. "And I think he saw some footage of me dancing but he didn/t know my address or my phone number or even my name."

A special connection exists nonetheless.

"Cosmically," she said. "Michael knows some mysteries and I know some mysteries and once we come together the mysteries will unfold."

"I/m not crazy," she said. "I/m just crazy about Michael."

* Corbett/s Corner appears Monday. Columnist Steve Corbett can be reached at 739-2215 or e-mailed at

scorbett@pulitzer.net. Read Corbett

online at www.santamariatimes.com.

Feb. 7, 2005