She was the typical elderly neighbour, quiet but always pleasant and she had a very warm and welcoming smile. Pat had lived with her elderly mother in the house at No. 66 for many years before John and his family moved into the house next door. He only learned that her mother had died some years before when he and the rest of the family attended Pat's 60th birthday party.
When they moved there John had been 16. Now 19 and studying at university he spent much of his time away from home. His father had passed away days after his 18th birthday leaving him and his mother in the house. Only during the summer break did he spend any prolonged periods at home. Since his father's death, Pat and his mother had become quite friendly, even to the extent of spending a couple of weekends away together. On odd evenings Pat would join them for dinner and as soon as it was over, John would beat a hasty retreat to his room where he would spend time online gaming with friends.
On one such evening at dinner, the conversation turned to family and how it was difficult to stay in touch. John was surprised to learn that Pat had embraced social media and had acquired a laptop some time back, talking regularly with her extended family in Canada and New Zealand. She joked that sometimes she was up half the night because of the time differences. She complained that the laptop had become very slow over time and sometimes it wouldn't either start properly or close down as it should. John offered to have a look at it for her and the following day she dropped it off with his mum.
That evening John spoke with Pat before looking at the problem laptop. He wanted to find out if there was anything she needed to save, in case it needed to be reset. Fortunately, she didn't have anything stored on it so resetting it, as a last resort, wouldn't be an issue. So, with the easy option of restoring the laptop to factory settings, he decided to look for issues and try to discover the root of the problem. A couple of scans with some specialist software threw up the usual suspects - adware, the ubiquitous key-logger and an unknown but suspicious process running in the background. He also found that her hard-drive was almost full of junk and temporary files.
He was about to delete the entire collection of temporary files when he noticed that they contained a huge amount of picture and video files. On clicking on some he found holiday accommodation, properties at home and abroad, various cosmetic and diet products and fashion. But he almost dropped the laptop when he stumbled across some extremely erotic pictures of elderly women in very intimate situations with young men. Shocked but intrigued by the possibility that his elderly neighbour was a secret connoisseur of pornography, he selected random picture and video files - all had the same theme, and he found himself getting turned on at the thought of Pat consuming this erotica by night but portraying herself as the prim elderly spinster next door by day.
He didn't quite know how to deal the situation he now found himself in. He could just wipe the laptop and hand it back, good as new, but a tiny voice inside his head urged him to seize the opportunity to fulfil one of his many sexual fantasies, to become lovers with a much older woman. But how could he manipulate the situation to his advantage? As it transpired, he needn't have worried as the situation evolved quite naturally, but before wiping and resetting the laptop, John downloaded copies of some of the image and video files to a memory stick, some that excited him with the common theme than obviously appealed to Pat.
The following day he saw Pat in her garden, talking with another neighbour and took the opportunity to let her know that the laptop was reset and ready to go. Since she was going out soon, she asked if he could bring it around later. His mind began to race.
John's mother went out with friends every Saturday evening. It had become a bit of a girls ritual, so he knew he had the evening to himself. He waited until she had left and nervously picked up the laptop and headed next door. His finger was shaking as he hesitantly pressed the doorbell and he stepped back as she opened the door. She smiled warmly as he held out the laptop, and asked him to come inside to relate what he had done to resolve the issues.