Part I

Chapter 1

I was sitting at home one evening grading papers when my phone rang. Picking it up I was greeted by the voice of my neighbor Ally. "Bill is working late and I can't get this fucking computer to work! Could you be a dear and come over and give me a hand?" Though her husband Bill was a junior executive at a software form, Ally the freelance health writer was inept. I was over at their house last month using their washing machine because mine was busted and they were kindly letting me use theirs; I could hear Bill, with a tone of exasperation in his voice rising steadily and by the minute, trying to explain to Ally how to get MS Word to automatically number each of the page in her article about lyme disease. His frustration peaking after a few minutes, he reached across his wife and paginated her document. Ally was complaining that on her old computer, recently consigned to the scrap heap because the power supply burned out, such tasks were much easier. Bill retorted that no person should still be using an Apple IIe in the 21st century.

When I reached their house I let myself in through the garage, which led to the laundry room. I noticed that one of my shirts was hanging by a wire hanger from a hook on the wall. I must have left it in the dryer from the time last month when I used their machine. I took the two short steps up into their kitchen and yelled out, "Ally, I'm here."

"I'm in the study. Grab a beer and one for me." One of the things I've always liked about Bill was his discerning taste in beer. His company did good deal of work in Europe, and he often traveled to Belgium, the seat of the European Union. He had developed a taste for Belgian beer, and when I was over at their house and he offered me a beer I never knew what I was going to get, but it always was delicious. I popped open the refrigerator and grabbed to bottles of something called Westmalle Trappist Tripel and headed into the study.

"I have to get this article to my editor right now. I told her that I was mailing it yesterday, but I've only just finished. If it's not on her desk by tomorrow morning I'll never get another assignment from her again. You've got to help me." I asked if she had the editor's email address, and Ally began fishing through her rolodex. Pulling out a rolodex card with the editor's business card stapled to it she read off the address. I was already logging on to AOL and typing it onto a blank email message. Then I minimized the AOL window and clicked open My Documents and said, "Which one of these files is your article?" She pointed to the screen and said, "That one, in the upper right-hand corner 'Inhaled Insulin Study'." I went back to AOL and attached the file; Ally took my place at the desk and typed a message to her editor. She clicked send.

"You're an absolute lifesaver. Bill must have shown me how to attach a file to an email a hundred times, but I can never remember exactly how to do it." We both sipped our beers, and then heard Bill's car door slam shut in the garage. When he entered the study he grinned. "Found a new man to torture with you computer phobia?" I rose to her defense in mock indignation, "No torture at all. I am happy to help this lovely lady." I looked over at Ally and she gave me a cute smile. She really is lovely, about 5'4" with a pretty face, nice breasts (C cup I would guess), trim legs topped off by a nice soft rear end. I noticed that her hardened nipples we poking through her t-shirt.

Ally excused herself and went upstairs, and Bill and I went into the kitchen. He grabbed a beer and started to make sandwiches for us. We sat and drank for awhile, shooting the breeze. He asked about my job, and I about his. "How do you spend all day around those young pretty college girls without a permanent hard on?" he asked. I think we had had a few too many ales. I told him that I had seen a colleague shattered by sexual misconduct charges, losing his job, his wife and kids, and even his home, and I just would not let that happen to me. I had just turned 30, and new to this faculty, having recently been minted a PhD two short years ago. I had broken up with my girlfriend because she did not care to move to this quaint college town, and the effort to check my libido in the face of the temptation offered up by the sight of pretty young coeds sometimes took its toll.

As I was leaving bill pointed to a box on the kitchen table. "I just returned from another software convention and I stocked up on freebies. I already sifted through the stuff and took anything which interests me or I need for work. Help yourself to the rest." I thanked him and let myself out.

Chapter 2

A few weeks later I was cleaning out my den when I noticed Bill's box of CD-ROMs on the far side of my file cabinet. We were on semester break, and stupidly I eschewed leaving town for points warmer. Though the roads and driveways were neatly plowed there was nearly a foot of snow on the ground. I was puttering around the house, reading for pleasure, editing some academic articles I was working on (publish or perish), and cooking big pots of stuff like tomato sauce and chicken soup. I save the plastic containers from Chinese take-out and use them to freeze stuff I cook in large batches, so I can just defrost and eat. I started doing this in grad to save money so I could spend more on wine and pot. Though I gave up the pot smoking I still do the cooking thing-assistant professors don't bring in the big bucks.

I was going to meet some of the other young faculty for a game of touch football on the quad at 1pm, but around 11 it started snowing really hard. The phone rang a half an hour later, and Jeff, the new guy in the Anthropology department told me that the game was called. An hour after that the cable blew out; life was getting better and better. I couldn't even use the internet because I had a cable modem. I pulled the box of software over to my computer stand and drew out some discs. Some of them were games, and I tried a few... ho hum. I was sifting through them again, about to unwrap a dick which promised 15,000 recipes, when I saw one which I hadn't noticed on my previous forays into the box. Instead of a jewel box it was in a paper sleeve, the same color as the brown cardboard of the box. I snagged it and saw that the sleeve was blank. The disk was embossed with the word "Master PC" on one half, and in the other it said in smaller print "Windows 95/98/2000/ME 128Mb Ram required."

I slipped it in.

After clicking on "Master.exe" a dialog box appeared in the screen asking for a user name and a password. The next screen was blank. I was about to eject the disk and move on to another when I noticed a small icon in the corner of the screen; after clicking on it the screen exploded into a colorful starburst, and a small figure appeared on the screen. The figure appeared somewhat human... but not entirely. "Welcome to Master Command Center, your own personal command center. The Master allows you to become a virtual god to the people around you. You now possess the power to bend their reality to your specifications. You are the Master's representative." A menu came up on the screen and asked me to input a name, so I typed in my own, Julian Coreto. The screen showed me in a 3D rendering slowly spinning. I was amazed... how could this program show a picture of me? I look more closely at the screen and noticed that the "me" on the screen was dressed identically to me in "real life"! The collar on my sweater was fraying, and so was the collar on the screen. I sat and looked at the screen for what seemed like 10 minutes. I looked over at Bill's box, trying to locate the documentation to this program. No luck. I pressed the F1 key and a help screen popped up. I spent the next hour reading the help files.

"Holy shit," I said, speaking aloud for the first time in the last hour.

I closed the help screens and was confronted with "me" as spinning slowly as if I was mounted on a globe stand. I clicked on the menu bar and called up the Command Center dialog box. Confronted with the ability to change reality around my whims I paused. I wanted to test the program, not entirely sure if it really worked. I stood up and walked into the kitchen, filling the kettle and setting it on the stove. Reaching into the freezer I pulled out a bag of ground coffee and then over to the cupboard to get a mug, a filter cone and a filter. While waiting for the water to boil I scratched my chin, noticing that there was heavy stubble. Striding into the living room I sat back down at the desk and typed into the Command Center dialog box, "remove stubble from face" and clicked the send button.

It felt like a thousand ants crawling over my face, not, as you can imagine, a pleasant sensation, but it passed in a few seconds. I put my hands on my face. "Smooth as a baby's bottom." Who am I talking to? Just the kettle started whistling. I looked at my watch. 3:30. The day was far from over.

As I sipped my coffee I decided to make some more changes, but also to keep them subtle. I programmed myself to lose 2 lbs. a day for the next ten days, and to add definition to my physique. My optometrist told me that I was a couple of years away from reading glasses, so I decided to reverse my imminent presbyopia. Immediately the screen became almost imperceptibly sharper. I decided to leave my vision alone otherwise, because some women had told me that glasses made me look sexy. My ex-girlfriend had picked out my current frames, and they did look good on me. I decided to make myself stronger and increase my endurance by 20%, and I set that up to take place overnight.

When I was tired of making small adjustments to myself I started to think of others to manipulate. I looked at my bookshelves and noticed an old picture of my girlfriend and I standing on a beach in the Bahamas. I typed her name in, but the program told me that she was out of range. Damn... I forgot that someone had to be within one hundred miles to be affected by Master PC. Shit, thinking of Daphne made me horny. On a whim I typed in Ally's name, and the same error message came up. Then I remembered that they had gone skiing. Most of the pretty girls on campus had gone home for Christmas, and I couldn't think of anyone. I looked out the window and sighed. Even if there was a good looking girl out there waiting for me to bend her mind and body to my will, there was no way I could get to her. The snow had been falling steadily, and it was so high it had even buried my mailbox. I puttered around the house for a few more hours and finished grading the last of my students exams. At least that was out of the way, thank god. With nothing else to do I made some phone calls. Mom and Dad were happy to hear from me. Dad, in his less than stimulating retirement, liked to watch the Weather Channel. He joked about sending a rescue party to my house to dig me out. I wished that I had taken up their offer to spend winter break in Miami with them.

Frustrated, I went to sleep.

Chapter 3

The next morning Jill Lattimore called me. She is the trophy wife of my department chairman, twenty years his junior, and a frequent jerk-off fantasy. She and I had a friendly relationship, and we frequently jogged together. As we were talking on the phone I entered her name in Master PC. She had called to drag me out of the house for a run. I looked out the window and saw the plows had already been by. Looking back at the screen I saw that she was decked out in winter running gear: navy blue polypro tights, a wool sweater and a large headband covering most of her head and face, her dark ponytail sticking out the back.

"Is Myron home?" I asked.

"No, he's in Boston doing research on his book on labor history," she replied.

"When's he coming back?" I probed.

"Next Tuesday. Why?"

"Just asking."

We agreed to meet in ten minutes in front of the administration building. I dressed and ate a few Fig Newtons and dashed out the door. As I was jogging to campus I realized I was making better time than usual, and as I ascended the hill I noticed that the run seemed effortless. As I was sitting on a bench waiting for Jill I suddenly realized that this was due to Master PC. Rubbing my face for warmth I realized that it was as smooth as it was when I told the program to make me clean shaven. "Well, that's at least one good thing, never having to shave again." I said aloud.

"Who are you talking to?" Jill asked

"Sorry," I said. "Cabin fever."

Usually Jill has to slow her pace so I can keep up. We are about the same height (5'10"), but her legs are longer than mine. Today, however, I ran her ragged. When we were about a block from my house she pulled up and bent over at the waist, complaining that the harsh winter weather had prevented her from running regularly. I smiled and she looked up and gave me a sheepish grin. Swallowing hard and ginning up a little confidence I invited her back to my place for a warm beverage, and surprisingly she accepted.

We sat around drinking coffees for about an hour, and then Jill asked if I wanted to have lunch in town. We went to the garage and found that my car wouldn't start because of the cold. Jill laughed and said that she suspected me of doing all I could to keep her in my house. We returned to the house and decided to eat at home. I got an electric blanket and an extension cord, popped the hood of my car and put the blanket on the engine block to warm it up. I told Jill that I had made some pasta sauce last night, and she agreed. She went upstairs to shower while I put the frozen block of sauce in a pan and onto the stove.

Quickly I went into my den and started up Master PC. I typed in Jill's name and a nude image of her came up on the screen; her hair was matted down, due to the spray of the shower. She had a fantastic body. I immediately put out a command for her to take a longer than usual shower so I could have time to "play" with her.

Chapter 4

Though Jill is an attractive woman, she has never been a flirt, a tease. She seems to understand her role as the "wife of the great man" very well, and never, at least in my presence, acted inappropriately towards other men. Our own relationship consisted of running together occasionally, and of course mutual attendance at department and university-wide social events. Though I occasionally fantasized about her, she never gave me the slightest encouragement. The most physical contact ever shared between us was a handshake, with the exception of the Christmas party she and Myron held last month. After pointing out to me that we were standing under the mistletoe, she favored me with an exceedingly demure kiss on the cheek. Myron was just a few feet away, and grinned at me, almost with a paternalistic look on his face.