Mr Computer Cleaner Ch. 01

He uploaded software from his CD and removed all traces of the invasive website from the registry and checked for and removed all other lesbian-related pornography.

Satisfying himself that all footprints of the girls' adventures into pornography had been removed, he had a sudden thought: If Sara was like this, what about her father? He looked for signs of storage of adult material but found none. Daddy was either clean or clever, thought Dio. He ran another program with interesting results. It found eleven gigabytes of hidden files – confidential or whatever files that were encrypted, saved under a password and then 'hidden' within several folders carrying ordinary names such as Old Cars and Good Jokes.

He went to the stairs and called: "Sara, do you know how to encrypt files?"

"No, what does that mean?"

"It's okay, I'll just finish up here."

Well, what was in those encrypted files was the business of Sara's father, and no-one was going to be any the wiser because they were unlikely to find them and even if they did would not be able to open them without the password.

All the deletions had been done using multiple over-writing 'destroy' software. The girls no longer had a problem.

Out on the street, Dio turned and spoke to the relieved girls.

"Now look, young ladies. I hope you have learned your lesson. Remain pure and as young as heart for as long as you can. There's plenty of time to get into adult things in years ahead. Pornography gets a bit boring, anyway."

"Yes Mr Computer Cleaner," Jane said.

"I think I have learned my lesson," Sara offered. "Next time someone gives me a website to try I will decline the offer and say I will look at it on their computer. It's a bit like safe sex, isn't it?"

Dio sighed.

"Cool wagon," said Sara, looking at the ute. "We are usually down at Tony's Ice Cream Parlor on Friday nights. Why don't you come in and get us one night and take us for a ride?"

Dio sighed. "Goodbye girls." As he entered his vehicle a dark Rover sedan pulled up behind him, its horn blaring. A sharp-faced woman, with piled-up hair, jumped out and shouted, "I saw you talking to my daughter and her friend!"

"Yes madam. I'm sorry, but I don't see a problem."

"Leave him alone mummy. Can't you see the sign on his vehicle, Mr Computer Cleaner. Someone in this street appears to have made a bogus call to him. He's looking for Bruce Bishop."

"There are no Bishops in this street," said the mother angrily.

"Exactly, and that's what I told this poor man," said Sara with great confidence. "I think you have been very rude to him."

"I'm sorry, sir," said the confused mother.

"No problem," Dio said cheerfully. "If ever you have problems with your computer, please give me a call. Nice hair."

"Oh do you think so," said the flattered mother, unaware that Sara's eyes had rolled up and she was groaning something that sounded suspiciously like "Bloody vain woman."

This one must surely be a bogus call, thought Dio, now that the possibility had been planted in his head. He knocked, no answer. He was about to leave when the door opened and an old lady leaning on a walking stick asked, "Are you the gas man?"

"No, sorry. I'm looking for a Mr Humphries."

"No one here by that name. I am all by myself and lie awake constantly afraid. I wish Humphrey Bogart were still alive."

"Sorry to have bothered you, madam," said Dio, about to turn away.

An ancient-looking man pushed past her and said: "You silly cow, you're married to me and have been for nigh on sixty years. I'm Mr Humphries. What do you want? Are you the electricity meter reader?"

"No, you stupid old man. He's gas."

"He doesn't look like gas, and anyway, why would he call? We don't have gas."

"Well perhaps he's here to read the television meter."

"Television's don't have meters."

"Excuse me for breaking into this fascinating conversation but I have been called to look at your computer."

"Do computers have meters."

"No madam, they don't"

"Then buzz off," she cried. "You're wasting our time and disturbing the neighborhood with all this shouting."

Humphrey Humphries finally got his head around the problem.

"I called him, you silly old buffalo. Come in sir. I am unable to see my girls."

"You don't have any girls – we have four boys, you brainless goat."

"Quick, into this room and I'll shut the door and lock it. She's get frustrated and when in a mood like this goes looking for our dog that died eight years ago. The toolshed is now packed to the ceiling with dog biscuits."

All of this had made Dio feel thirsty.

"I say, you could your please get me a glass of water?"

"Nope, son. As soon as either of us steps out of that door it means a whack over the head with the walking stick. She'd wait another five minutes and then drift off. But don't despair; let's see what I've got here? Are your bowels in need of a shake up? Here's my paraffin – does wonders but keep away from naked flame if you fart. Ah, this is more like it; a grand single malt from Heather."

Dio had some knowledge about Scotch whiskies so decided to challenge that last statement.

"As far as I know there's no place in Scotland called Heather."

"Heather is our cleaning lady, you fool. She sits on my knee, and we both sip a tipple while watching the girls go by."

Dio look out the window, but the street was blocked by a high hedge. No girls going by there. The old boy is bonkers, he decided.

"What's the problem?" he asked.

"Well, I have these pictures that we sit and watch, or used to. But now they are refusing to screen, so something's up. Heather told me not to take the computer to the repairman because he might report me to the police for having all this pornography. I must not go to jail as the wife wouldn't last a week unless I was around to annoy and abuse."

Ah, it made sense. Watching the girls go by meant watching either a video play through Windows Media Player or some other player or a slide show or perhaps a video on CD.

"Do you play CDs?"

"What's that?"

"Thank you; I'll accept that as a no."

"Please show me the step by step action you take to get the girls going by."

"Right, move over son and give me room. I need my arms out wide because I've gotten used to Heather sitting on my lap."

"How old is Heather, Mr Humphries?" asked Dio, expecting she might be a bit younger, perhaps in her seventies.

"Twenty-six."

"Good heavens!"

"I'm not playing around, if that's what you're thinking, though at times she likes me rubbing the blubber on her chest. She likes watching the girls go by and she particularly likes whisky – her tight-ass husband won't buy her any. He expects her to drink cheap gin, so I give her the cash and she buys whisky for us. Well, let's get into this. In case you're worried that's your sixty bucks on that little table behind the door. You charge too much, you know. The meter reader doesn't charge us at all. You would get more business than you could handle if you didn't charge, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, but how am I going to run my ute?"

"Oh, you mean that red vehicle. I thought you were a fireman when that arrived. Anyway, walk to work – it saves money, keeps you fit and make sure your bowels are happy. Now that's enough advice from me. You're here to get the girls going by again."

Dio paused for a moment to stare at his empty glass – actually it was a former mustard jar. Mr Humphries took the hint and poured in three fingers of fiery scotch.

Dio was pleased that the old fellow was using IrfanView, as it was reliable. He quickly found the problem. In the box to load Files of Type Mr Humphries had it set to JPG/JPEG whereas they were probably in BMP format. He made the change and Mr Humphries shouted, "Oh there you are, you wonderful fellow."

Dio loaded the images from the file and ran the slide player.

What he saw was awesome, at least to students of female form of yesteryear like himself and Mr Humphries and apparently Heather.

They were 'beauties' of the olden days – Mr Humphries said the collection of 2700 images had been amassed over several years.

"Many of them have been scanned from French postcards, but some are pictures from famous naughty paintings and etchings. They were dated from 1850 to 1930.

In the main, the women depicted were voluptuous. "It's my taste in women," offered Mr Humphries.

Some were in indelicate poses with other women, but most were simply healthy looking women in drawing room poses, the only difference they were totally nude or wore only stockings and huge hats.

"They are beautiful, absolutely beautiful," Dio said. "I've seen them on the web but nothing like the extent of this collection on any site or even a half-dozen sites."

Mr Humphries looked at his watch.

"Well son, you'd better go. You've been here for an hour and she'll get sick of looking for the dog that's never going to be there and will come back thumping on the door with her stick saying it's unhealthy for two men to be locked in a room together.

"You say you admire the collection eh?"

Dio nodded, having taken a screen shot of the slideshow window of IfranView which he printed out, and then marked the critical settings that Mr Humphries needed to follow in order to find his files of girls to load so that he and Heather could cuddle and watch them walk by while sipping a top-shelf whisky.

Boy, when he was 80-plus he hoped he would have a set up like Mr Humphries.

Picking up the money Dio wondered if he should give some back – it had been such an easy problem to resolve.

"No, keep it son. We've got heaps of money but nothing to spend it on, apart from our two luxuries – whisky and dog biscuits."

Mr Humphries handed him a bundle of CDs and said it was a copy of his entire 1850-1930 collection.

"Thank you, thank you sir," Dio gushed. "Whenever I play them I shall think of you with Heather on your lap, drinking whisky."

"You know son, when you get to my age that's a perfectly safe place for any woman to sit."

* * *

Dio arrived home just before six, and sunk into a hot bath with Brahms playing from his stereo – his mother played an old vinyl disk of Brahms when she was pregnant, hoping the music would filter through to the brain of her child. But as a youngster Dio preferred what she called raucous music. So why had her son, aged eighteen when tormented by the realization that his mother was a prostitute, gone out and purchased this very CD of Brahms' music that included the lullaby? It was because he knew the music would calm him. Ever since that shattering disclosure about his mother – which really marked his transition into adulthood – he'd play this CD when he felt stressed or irritable and gradually would slip into a melancholy mood.

His cell phone went.

"Mr Wellington, is that you?" asked the female voice probably stimulated by liquor. Her affected voice seemed to Dio to be the turbine effect of top-end voice pressure flitting up one nostril and exiting through the other at greatly increase speed. Cultured people recognize the voice as 'proper' whereas people like Dio describe it as 'horsy'.

"It is I," replied Dio, replicating the wording and acute accent of the British Lord answering the telephone in a recent BBC re-run of a 1937 film about the rise and fall of the family of Lord Buckwheat of Baconsby.

"Imogene is home. Must dash, have to meet Roger at the club. I did promise to call you when she was back. Toot, toot," Ivy Robertson gaily burbled.

Suddenly Dio didn't want Brahms any longer. He wanted Joe Crocker inveigling his senses by singing 'You are so Beautiful' because that's what Imogene Robertson was.

Imogene, a sweet twenty-four year old, was one of only two people who Dio had thought he could happily marry.

The choice was (a) the intelligent, artistic and even tempered beautiful Imogene, only daughter of very rich parents or (b) Paige Turner, the skinny and completely unassuming daughter of a quarry-owning widow.

Paige once infamously decked him on the dance floor by kicking him between his legs. Poor Dio, he'd simply being checking that his zip was done up when Paige came straight in, pushed by someone, right on to his outstretched forefinger.

That choice of potential brides was so incongruous that not even Dio could rationalize it. The fact that neither woman particularly liked him complicated the situation further.

He jumped out of the bath, shaved his face and then his armpits - never having done that before - and put on a trendy basketball singlet (they reveal hairy armpits) and a pair of those goofy below-the-knees silky shorts, black and red socks and plain black sneakers. He chose that rig because Imogene was a sports junkie.

He knocked on the front door, and Imogene called, "Come in."

But the door was locked. He rattled it until he heard her approach, calling in an annoyed tone, "All right, all right" and that about set the tone for their short encounter. She wanted to watch women talking their heads off on TV in preference to cuddling on the sofa with him with the lights out.

Bored, he was thinking about leaving when she said, "Darling, would you like to make me a cup of coffee?"

He obliged, and when handing it to him she said, "Bye, you can go now."

Dejected, he went to his local tavern and the place at that hour was beginning to liven up. To his delight, he saw Paige there. He went over to her smiling but she looked slightly nervous.

Dio's chin dropped and he turned to go away when she said something that sounded like "You haven't come to poke me?" But she grasped him by the arm and repeated herself, shouting above the loud music -"I don't think you've met Bob Leigh."

A tall forty-something man arrived with a cocktail and bottle of beer.

"Dio," said Paige, "I would like you to meet Bob Leigh. Bob, Dio Wellington is an old acquaintance from my tramping club."

Bob stuck his stake in the ground by saying gruffly, "Dio? That's a funny name."

And good evening to you, Bob the Slob, and I hope that beer's flat, is what Dio should have said. He could have even added that his girl likes Dio's finger, then he could have vented his pent up frustrations in the ensuing fight.

But he'd noticing the way Paige was looking at old man Bob. Obviously she was expecting something more than a drink from Bob.

"See you, Paige. I'm pushing off."

She appeared not to hear him and a triumphant smile appeared around Bob the Slob's mouth.

Dio was tired after an eventful, busy day and a very uneventful evening. As he neared home he was waved down by a sweet looking teenager, nicely contoured and well dressed. She also wore a very anxious expression.

Spotting the flat, left rear tire he was tempted to accelerate onward, but Dio had a chivalrous streak so he pulled over.

"Oh thank you for stopping, kind sire," said the teenager smiling, giving her Maid Marion greeting.

Tempted to reply in kind, "At your service Milady," he asked, "Problems?"

"Oh yes," said she, pointing to the deflated tire.

Dio opened the driver's door and pulled the trunk opening lever.

"Oh," she said. "I've already done that but mummy must have taken out the thingies used to make a wheel change to make more room for her shopping – but the spare wheel is there if that's any help."

Useless dames, thought Dio. How the hell is one going to change a wheel without a jack and wheel brace?

He lifted the trunk mat. True, the spare wheel was there but not the jack and handle. In the poor illumination from the tiny light on the lid of the boot he could see there were no fittings to house a jack and handle, so they must be stored elsewhere.

He spotted the outline of a flush panel on the right-hand side of the boot. He pulled the fabric tag to open the panel and backed out of the boot carrying the jack and handle.

The girl clapped her hands saying, "Marvelous, you are so clever."

Dio was beginning to like the lass.

She also had the intelligence to step back out of the way, allowing the street light to reach where he was working. Up went the left rear end of the car with eleven turns of the jack handle. He pulled the lever out of the jack, and saw that it had a flattened end to lever off the wheel cover so assumed that the other thick rounded end would be shaped internally to allow him to unscrew the five wheel nuts; it did.

She was at it again: "You are so clever."

He tried to get a good look at her. The way that her long dark brown – almost black – hair framed her faced gave it almost an oval shape. In the street light her skin looked slightly olive, her eyes were brown.

She saw him looking at her and smiled, not looking away and not at all embarrassed. How old was she – eighteen?

She was damn clever herself, because he felt thirsty as he finished, putting the flat tire into the boot.

"That must have been thirsty work. Would you like a cup of coffee?"

Dio's dry tongue loudly said 'Yes" without bothering to add please, so he quickly repeated himself, "Yes please."

"Well, get into the front passenger seat. I've got half a thermos of coffee, it may be cool but at least it's wet. There's also a date scone."

Date scone! Dio's Aunt Alice when she was alive made the best date scones in the world. He used to believe that he was becoming addicted to them.

The girl struggled into the car with a small hamper that had been on the back seat. Dio leaned over and balanced the hamper until she was settled, and was rewarded with a smile displaying two even rows of gleaming teeth. He could now see that she was quite stunning.

"Thank you," she smiled. "Now you sit back and enjoy this late supper. By the way, I'm Carra."

He introduced himself and they shook hands.

Dio then expressed concern.

"You know, you are awfully trusting. Here you are inviting a strange man into your car and treating him like a friend. He could...could interfere with you."

"If he attempted anything I would tell him that I know Karachi."

"Karate," Dio corrected.

"Well, he'd be frightened off if being unsure about Karachi."

"You're priceless, you know."

"There you go, as soon as I saw you I'd decided that you were a nice man, and that sensitive comment just proves it."

"What sensitive comment?" Dio asked innocently.

"Now, don't prove to be a disappointment," she admonished.

They chatted for almost half an hour, with Dio drinking in tiny sips to prolong the encounter. Women he knew did not have this softness; it was perhaps what writers termed a virginal quality. She was a delight to be with.

Reluctantly the time came to leave, but just before he closed the door she surprised him.

"Are you married?"

"No – how could I look so relaxed and be married?"

She laughed, and asked if he were going steady with anyone.

"No – sorry if that's considered to be a crime."

She apologized, and his eyes fixed on her lips as she licked them briefly.

He explained that he was joking. He was between dates at present.

"Well, as I said earlier I am an events organizer," said Carra.

"I have arranged this cocktail party on Friday evening for the Bookwriters' and Poet's Group. Acceptances are a bit unbalanced as more women are going than men. So I'm wondering..."

"If I would do the decent thing and sip cocktails with old ducks and..."

"If you would accompany me – I'd pay for you, of course."

"Is this a date?"

Carra looked at him closely, then turned away and started the car. She looked back at him unsmilingly. "Of course. And again I sincerely thank you for being my Knight of the Road."

Dio stood watching the tail-lights of her mother's car disappear into the darkness.

"She's young, she's pretty – very pretty in fact – she has energy, humor and poise and obviously by her last remark, she's a romantic. Good heavens, what a combination. She's far too good for me though – and too young."