Mary recommended him. Later she told me that Valerie had recommended him to her. I knew I would recommend him to someone soon. Probably Nancy. But not now.
I was still cussing at the computer that day when I sat down at Mary's table for lunch at BRG.
Jeff used to take care of our computer problems, but he was away on a week-long business trip. The computer had been running slow for some time and since he got his laptop he had been neglecting it. It was my sole computer and I had a paper I to complete for my job.
It wasn't that old, it just had a lot of glitches and ran too slow. So when I told Mary why I was so stressed out she told me about Dan 'The C Man'. I was about to ask her what the C stood for and then realized what a dumb question that would be..
"Aren't some of these home computer guys rip-offs? Unemployed guys who don't know what they're doing?" I asked. "Jeff is going to go ballistic if he finds out I paid a couple hundred bucks, especially if he doesn't make it any better or makes it worse."
"That's the great thing about Dan. He'll come in and look at your computer for a flat $20 fee, tell you what is wrong with it and what it needs. If you give him the okay, he'll fix you right up for $20 an hour from the time he got there. If you say no, he'll just take your $20. And he guarantees his work. He came to me highly recommended and rightfully so."
Mary seemed really satisfied with his services.
"So you've never had a problem with him?"
"No, but I do have Dan over regularly, usually for just a quick tune-up. It is amazing how dysfunctional my machine can get without proper attention."
Every week seemed a little odd, but for only $20 an hour it seemed harmless enough. I decided to call him right away. At this point he couldn't make the computer any worse.
I took the card Mary offered me. 'Dan the C Man' it said on the first line, then 'CCR β Repair Experts' and the phone number.
When I called him on my cell after leaving the restaurant I fell in love with his voice. It sounded smooth like a sexy DJ. I had pictured a 35-year-old nerdy mouth-breather. When I realized that's probably what he looked like I almost burst into laughter at the picture in my head.
"I can be there at 2."
"Sounds great", I said. If I hurried I could get in a quickie before he came. Even with a glass of wine at lunch my insides were still tied in knots. Thinking of the glacial pace of our PC had that effect on me. I had found that the best cure for that was a good orgasm. Since I had an excuse not to work I was hoping for some Rabbit time.
"Mary told you it is cash only?"
"Yeah", I lied before hanging up.
Bye Bye Bunny guy, Now I had to go to the ATM. That would leave only about 20 minutes and I would be spending that straightening up the house. Jeff always gives me a hard time about that: 'They're just service people you are never going to see again. What's to be embarrassed about?' The time he gave me a maid service whole-house cleaning for my birthday I spent the whole morning cleaning the house before they came.
I hadn't had an orgasm in a long time. Jeff hadn't been interested in sex much lately and won't talk about it. Mr. Jack Rabbit does a good job but Jeff hadn't left me any free time this weekend and I had had to be in the office all last week. I wondered if maybe I could sneak upstairs while Dan was working on the computer.
I prefer to warm myself up by writing in my journal on the computer, surfing some light lesbian porn, writing some of my sexual fantasies, usually about other women before I have to run upstairs while stripping off my clothes and pulling the horny hare out of his hidey-hole.
It's not that I am crazy about girl-on-girl stuff, but I usually feel guilty thinking about other guys and can't enjoy myself. Jeff even told me once that if I had an affair with another women he wouldn't consider it cheating or even a problem, though he probably had ulterior motives. It creeped me out slightly.
The doorbell rang.
When I opened the door I wondered if there was some kind of mistake. It was a good looking guy in his late twenties who looked more like a personal trainer than a computer tech. Before I could say anything stupid he smiled at me and walked inside and said, "Hi, I'm Dan." and his voice told me it was the same Dan I had talked to earlier. I felt my heart flutter.
"I'm Karen," I said, shaking his firm hand. He waited a moment while I processed the good-looking vision in front of me before he broke my reverie.
"So where is she?"
I was slightly flustered, so it took me even longer than normal to realize he was talking about my computer.
"She β it's β here, I'll show you."
I think I saw a bemused smirk on his face as I walked past him towards the study. The Blue Screen of Death, or BSD as some people call it, though I think of it as "Bitch β Suck and Die!", was still there bathing the room in its evil glow. I had put a $20 bill next to it.
"Oh, the old Bubonic Sick Death screen," Dan said and smiled at me once more. I froze again like a prepubescent girl coming face to face with Justin Beiber. He rescued me.
"All right. Well, let me take a look."
All I could think of was porn movie dialogue like "What would you like to take a look at?" so I nodded and started to walk. I paused, recovering and asked, "Do you need me for anything or can I get something β things done upstairs?"
I needed an orgasm. Bad.
"That should be fine. I don't need you close by but I might need some questions answered., so just don't get involved in anything too hot and heavy."
"OK", I said. "Damn" I thought. Who new he was a deputy in the sex police?
I floundered around the house for about an hour. I felt guilty not working or getting something else done, but each time I started something I changed my mind after a few minutes and went on to something else..
I finally decided I was too stressed out to get any work done that day even if Dan did get the computer working in the next hour. Since my normal destresser wasn't available, I reasoned it was after 5 in Iceland, uncorked a bottle of wine, and sat down to read the newspaper.
I had a hard time concentrating. My thoughts kept wandering, often into fantasies of Dan. I wondered what his cock looked like? I slapped myself inside my brain. I wasn't going to cheat on Jeff. In my book it was OK to fantasize about other guys, but not when you were alone with them in a house.
I had read the same sentence eight times on page 3 when I heard Dan's footsteps approaching. I clumsily tried to hide the wineglass behind the sports section, I didn't want him to think I was a Kathie Lee. I glanced at the clock and noted it was already 4:15 and that I could have had a doubleheader afternoon delight with Roger Rabbit and had time to spare.
"Karen?"
When I turned around I could tell he was looking right at the Sports section. I wasn't fooling him.
"If you have a moment I can show you what I found."
All kinds of sexual innuendos bubbled in my head before I clamped down on them.
"Sure."
I followed him back into the study. The computer looked perfect.
"Wow"
"Don't get too excited. At least not just yet."
As he started talking I nodded at everything he said while mentally replying in unspoken words, preparing for my next career as a porn movie script writer.
"Your hard drive was really messed up. I started to straighten it out."
I'd like to straighten out your hard drive.
"But it needs a thorough reaming,"