Hardware Upgrade

Chapter 1
better, stronger, faster

I opened the boxes with anticipation. I always loved getting new computer gear, and I finally pulled the trigger on some real state of the art stuff. My new machine had an ultra fast processor, 3 gigs of ram, and a 200 gig hard drive. It had the state of the art video card. I was getting into digital photography and also treated myself to the highest quality color laserjet printer. I had heard certain countries actually made these illegal because they could be used for counterfeiting. It cost a bundle, but I wanted the best. I also got the best scanner that money could buy. Now I was all set, I could do some real artwork with this machine now, some photo editing programs, graphics programs...I could hardly wait!

As I was assembling the stuff I couldn’t help but think that this beat working...but I couldn’t let Karen know that. My wife, Karen, the love of my life. A successful pediatrician, she works long hours. I was a house husband, I ’m not embarressed to say that. I stayed home with the kids, our two daughters. When they started going to school full time obviously the focus shifted to me. Was I looking for work, etc. But I’m an artist! I know, I know when people say that (or ’I’m a writer’ or ’I’m a model’ or ’I’m a musician’), what they usually mean is ’I’m unemployed.’ Ok, so I haven’t sold anything in a year, but I’m waiting for that inspiration, that spark. I had done some good photo work, and this machine was gonna put me over the top. I would make up in post processing what the original images lacked. And if sometimes I had to take a break and unwind with some video games...them’s the breaks.

I had it all hooked up and fired it up just when my daughters came home from school. Chelsea was 14 and Rebecca 12, and they are really good kids. They try hard at school, help around the house, and don’t give me any sass. I have friends with teenage daughters that aren’t so lucky. They are really cute girls, tall like their mother and with nice little bodies. Both have brown hair and eyes, but Chelsea is more developed and a little taller; she is older, after all. They were wearing their school uniforms, short plaid skirts and white blouses. "Hi kids, how was school," I asked.

"Booooring," Chelsea said. It was late in May, and the school year was almost over. It had been hot out lately and we just opened the pool in our back yard for the year. We lived in a very nice house courtesy of my wife. "We were going to go swimming. I told Jackie she could come over to swim, is that ok?" Jackie lived across the street and is Chelsea’s age.

"Sure," I said.

"Whatcha doin daddy?" Becky asked.

"I just got some new computer stuff," I said.

"Oh, cool! so the video games will play better?" Becky asked, her eyes wide.

I grinned. "No, that’s not the reason," I said (although maybe it was part of the reason). " Its to help my work. I can do better image processing with it," I responded.

Chelsea laughed. "Yeah, right! Whatever," she said, and we all laughed. We played lots of video games together, usually until Karen got home and told us to stop. "Honestly, its like I have 3 kids instead of 2," she would say after a long day of work. The girls went to their room to change into their swimsuits and I went back to my new toy. I heard the front door and Jackie come in. They all went to the pool. I could see them in the backyard through my window. They are all so cute. Jackie has really grown in the last year...tall, blond hair, and with a nice set of tits...you would never guess that she is only 14. She was wearing a light blue string bikini to show them off. We just set up the pool last weekend and the water was still a little cold. I saw her test it with her foot, then jump in. When she got out I could tell she was cold, with her nipples standing out against the sheer fabric. I shuddered and turned away....looking at a little girl like that! What was I thinking? Bad old man....bad! Bad!

I signed on my internet provider and surfed around, looking for new downloads. My old machine was a few years old and wouldn’t run some of the hot new image processing programs, or it would run them but take all day to do it and then crash. I was curious to see how they would run now. I did a search and found a site I never heard of before called NuYu. "They always try to come up with some catchy name with phonetic spelling," I thought. I read the program description...it was a beta test program version 1.0a "Want to bring some life to those old pics? Nuyu 1.0a can do just that with a powerful new engine that can alter shape, color, texture and size with a just one click. A proprietary technique that can even remove wrinkles and other physical imperfections. Processing a portrait? Sending an image to an old school friend? We all want to look our best, don’t we? And that means looking younger. NuYu 1.0a can do just that through a complex algorithm that can calculate what the younger individual looked like and retouch the image accordingly. Beta testers wanted for free download..." and it went on with some legal mumbo-jumbo, etc Sounds cool! And the take home message...it’s free! The hardware requirements were very substantial, but matched all of my new stuff! Wow, this could be a great tool! Everyone wants to look younger...I know I did. I mean, I was in good shape and all, and worked at it. But in some of my recent pictures I thought I looked a little old...a little fat....a little bald...oh well, what do you expect when you’re 40. I clicked to download the huge file...795 megs! Even with my dsl connection it would take a couple hours. When I clicked to download one of those little boxes appeared with fine print that I didn’t read but clicked ok. As it was loading, I went to the kitchen to get a drink. As I turned the corner I ran right into Jackie who was soaking wet. Neither one of us were looking where we were going.

"Oops, sorry Mr Bennett," she said. She was so close, her breasts actually touched me as we collided leaving 2 wet stains on my shirt. She’s about a half head shorter than I am, and really, really cute. I could feel myself getting aroused despite myself and shifted uncomfortably. I saw her eyes shoot down a little then back up..."I ...um...was just going to get a soda," she said.

"Oh...that’s ...that’s ok Jackie...me too," I stammered, and poured us some. I was a little uncomfortable around this pretty young girl and ashamed of myself for it. She sort of smiled at me...as if she sort of sensed my discomfort. I’m sure she gets the same reaction from kids her age, cute as she is. I smiled at her as she went back out to the pool. I remember when I was her age...that seemed like eons ago. I would have trouble...lots of trouble...talking to pretty girls. Thank god I grew out of that, and was a little better at it when I met Karen in college. It took me months to get up the nerve to ask her out, because she was truly stunning...and still is. Tall, brown hair and blue eyes, and a killer body. She was pre-med and as such a little bookish. I was liberal arts all the way. It was love at first site.

College...those were the days! Partying until dawn, no need to worry about the real world...complete freedom. I sat down at my computer and popped in a video game. Games certainly weren’t as good back then, I thought. All we had was Space Invaders, Centipede, PacMan..I played them all to death though. I loved games. As I was playing I forgot my reminiscences until the tone sounded indicating that the program had downloaded in its entirety. I installed it, and even in my ultra new powerful box it took a while, with the hard drive clicking and shuddering as it did...error messages would appear then vanish..."c’mon, you can do it," I coached. It finally installed and a message came up that I had to restart my computer to finish the installation. I exited the game and restarted. As it booted up the lights in the house dimmed then brightened and the radio cut off. Power surge? It didn’t seem like one. It was almost as if the computer was drawing much more power than it should. I shrugged. Seemed fine now. I started the program and a little help box appeared with one of those check boxes in the corner to click if I didn’t want the window to appear with each startup. I checked it and closed the window. I usually liked to find my way around new programs myself, kinda like an explorer. It had a very interesting menu, and I opened the image processing slate. Usual stuff...image capture...tone adjustment...sizing...all very straightfoward. Then something different..."NuYu effect"...and next to it a box to enter numbers. That must be what it said on the website, the proprietary wrinkle fixer. Hmmm. Lets play with that. I scanned a recent picture of Karen that she didn’t like because it made her look like she had crow’s feet. It was sunny that day, and she was squinting a little to the camera. She made me vow never to show that picture to a living soul! Said it made her look like she needed an eye job, although in my opinion she is far too beautiful to even think about plastic surgery.

I scanned the picture, and it came up great courtesy of my new expensive scanner. Image looked so real it almost jumped off the screen. I clicked the NuYu button and the number box appeared. I wondered what would happen. I entered 1. The computer worked and worked. The image disappeared, and after about a minute reappeared. Looked the same to me. I shrugged. "Lets try this again," I thought. I clicked on NuYu again, and this time entered 5. This time the computer really, really worked...I could see the hard drive light blinking furiously. The image disappeared, this time for about 5 minutes. Then the temperature alarm went off. I checked the cpu temp... 93 C! Shit! I was gonna fry this thing! I turned off the alarm, ready to shut down before my latest investment melted, when the image returned. I looked at it closely. The crows feet were gone. Karen’s picture looked 5...I corrected myself....6 years younger. It looked like she was 34. Wow, that’s one good program, but it is very taxing to my computer. Better let it cool down. I saved the image to show Karen later and shut her down. The hard drive almost sighed in relief. First thing tomorrow I was going to fill it with as many fans as I can to keep it cool.

I went into the kitchen to get dinner ready as was my routine. I really did enjoy cooking, got lots of good recipes on the web, from magazines...you know the drill. Karen was going to probably be home soon and because she worked all day it was only fair that I did the cooking, and the cleaning for that matter. The girls were still playing in the pool outside. I poked my head out the door. "You staying for dinner Jackie?" I called. "We’re having chicken and rice."

"Sure Mr Bennett," she said.

"Hey daddy, why don’t you swim with us, we want to dunk you! " Chelsea said. They loved it when I picked them up and threw them, like I did when they were little. My girls do love the water.

"Maybe after dinner honey," I said. "Mom’s gonna be home soon and I’m sure she’ll be hungry."

"’k, " she called, and jumped back in.

I set to the task of cooking, getting all of the things ready...marinating the chicken, which I planned to grill...doing the salad, cooking the rice. I had timed it perfectly, Karen just got home. I heard the door slam. "Hi honey," I called. "I’m in here."

Karen walked in, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor. She was dressed in a smart looking skirt and blouse, as she usually does for work. "She’s easily the hottest looking doc ever!" I thought. She kissed me hello. "How was work?" I asked.

"The usual...kids with runny noses, that sort of stuff. Not bad though," she said, looking out the window at our daughters and their friend in the pool. She had long ago stopped asking about whether I found any work, and accepted that I was essentially the homemaker. After all, she did like my cooking. "Smells good...what’s for dinner," she asked. I looked at her pretty face.

"Chicken on the grill," I said. "Want me to throw it on?"

"Well, why don’t we jump in the pool first. That always feels good after a long day at the office and I ’ve been looking foward to it all winter long," she said.

"Great idea," I agreed, and put dinner on hold. At this point all I had to do was cook the chicken, and that didn’t take too long. We went to our bedroom and got on our suits. I watched my wife as she changed into her black bikini. I had to admit, I was one lucky guy to have such an attractive wife. I didn’t care what she thought about some tiny wrinkles around her eyes....a plastic surgeon better not touch her ever. They were hardly even noticable. And her body is so firm and tight, no cellulite at all. "Women always evaluate themselves with a microscope," I thought. The beautiful ones do, anyway, looking for any imperfections. I saw her smiling at me as she changed. Wrinkles...I didn’t see any at all.

"What are you smiling at Matt," she said, approaching me. God, she looked hot...hotter than usual even. I got very aroused. She glanced down at my bulging trunks and smiled, and I felt her hand on me.

"Just horny for my lovely wife," I said, holding her bottom, pulling her close to me and kissing her. It was a really good kiss. "Maybe we should blow off the pool, and have a quickie," I said, pinching her.

"You devil! The girls are outside and have a friend over! You wait until later mister!" she said, kissing me again. It would be a long wait.

We went outside and I jumped right in. The water was a little cold, and better than a cold shower as far as that goes. Karen jumped in too and dove right under. She didn’t usually do that, she likes to keep her hair dry. I guess she planned to wash it anyway. We swam around and Chelsea got behind me and dunked me. I surfaced and picked her up and threw her in. It sure was easier when she was little, I couldn’t throw her that far. Then it was Becky’s turn, she was lighter and easier to throw. Jackie sort of hung back which was ok. She used to like for me to throw her too when she was little, but now that she’s more grown...it didn’t seem right. After we swam around for a bit, I dried off to make the chicken. I fired up the grill. As I was scraping it I heard the girls talking as they got out of the pool.

"Geez, you’re mom is so pretty," Jackie said.

"Yeah mom, you look great," Chelsea added.

"Thanks girls, I can’t hear that enough times," Karen replied, laughing. I watched her as she dried off.

"Yeah mom, no way you look 40," Becky said.

"Rebecca!" Chelsea said, embarressed. Jackie giggled.

"That’s ok girls, I’m not ashamed of being 40," Karen said. I looked at her...the girls were right, she didn’t look 40....she really didn’t look 40...if fact, I can see when she laughs, those little wrinkles she was so concerned about, there’s no trace of them now, just like the picture I edited. That’s too weird. It’s as if my editing of the picture resulted in an editing of my wife! I have a 34 year old wife, and yesterday she was 40. What an imagination I have! I chuckled to myself.

"And what do you think is so funny," Karen said.

"Nothing dear, just remembered a funny story is all," I responded. She smiled at me. I cooked the chicken and we sat down for dinner. I couldn’t help staring at my apparently younger wife. She didn’t seem to notice that anything was different, and in reality how different is a 34 year old from a 40 year old woman, personality wise. The rest of the evening was sort a blur to me. Maybe she was using some sort of new face cream. You can’t ask a woman, even your wife, if she’s using a new wrinkle cream (because that would imply that she needed one in the first place...you don’t go there!). But that’s probably it, and I would leave it at that...I guess I could see if I could make her a little younger, in her 20’s perhaps...but no, that wasn’t right, especially without her consent, and she would think I was a nut with way too much free time on my hands for implying that me and my new computer can really make her younger. And besides, on the outside chance that it really did work, it would have implications in her livelyhood, and since she brings home the cash, that could conceivably force me to get a (gulp!) real job. That was simply out of the question. I couldn’t use it on Karen. We got ready for bed. She was wearing a sheer sexy teddy that she hadn’t worn in years. It had a kind of little girl look, and she knew it made me crazy. We got into bed and kissed, my hand cradling her tight bottom...kissing her neck and breasts, taking off her clothes and finally doing it. It was great, great sex...maybe the best in 6 years.

The next morning I got up and made breakfast for the girls and coffee for Karen and myself. She looked pretty, as usual, dressed like the sexy professional. As she read the morning paper, again I studied the lack of lines on her face. Maybe I just never looked at her face that closely...or maybe she really is 6 years younger. I could hardly wait until the girls left for school and Karen went to work. I had to know for certain.

When they were gone, I went to the computer store and got as many fans as the case would hold. I got back home and installed them, and turned on my computer. It hummed to life. I opened NuYu and was informed that I only had a week of free trial left. I hate it when they do that, but I guess they have a business to run. Lets see, to test my theory I needed a willing subject, and I narrowed the list down to 1...me! I found a recent picture and scanned it. The image came up on the screen. "Let’s see...I want to make myself young enough to know whether or not I’m imagining all this, but not so much younger that my family doesn’t recognize me...ok, I had more hair when I was 30," I thought. "That should be a good test." I pulled down the image processing menu and clicked on NuYu and punched in 10. Like before, the computer really started working hard, the image disappeared, and the lights began to flicker. "That didn’t happen before," I thought. I guess it has to work harder when you try to de-age more. I checked the cpu temp, which was still an alarmingly high 87 C. This better not take too long or I’ll lose it. For myself, I felt no different. same old me. Around 10 minutes later the image returned, and sure enough, I had more hair, my face looked less tired, more youthful, and I was certainly less flabby. I saved the file and turned off the computer to let it cool down.

Hmmm. I don’t really feel any different. Do I? I stood up. My belt was a little loose, and I remembered I was about 10 lbs lighter when I was 30. I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My jaw dropped to the floor! Look at the thick hair! And no gray at all! I’ll be damned, this thing really works! Wait till Karen see this! Maybe I should visit her at work. With that, I called her and asked if she would be free for lunch. Turns out she was. I told her I was going to bring lunch over and that I had a surprise for her that she wouldn’t believe.

to be continued