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"You must be stark raving mad."
"It takes one loon to recognize another," came the reply.
How dare he? He is getting under my skin. I can't, I won't let him in, she thought furiously.
"Hey, you still there?"
"Levity doth not become thee." she replied hastily.
"What does?"
"How should I know? I've never even seen you ."
"Do you wish to ?"
"God forbid. Though since your email ID is "God", that sounds absurd. No, I don't wish to see you. Why I waste time chatting with you, I don't know. What the hell are you after anyway?"
"I've told you already. I am after you - mind, body and soul."
"I've had enough of your baloney for one day."
"Ok, see you tomorrow, same time."
"Don't expect me back. Tomorrow or ever."
"Oh, I'll see you Mary Ann. Good night! Sleep tight!"

She stared at the words on the screen, her hand frozen in mid- air over the keyboard. He had written "Mary Ann" - her real name, not her cyber ID "MX25." She felt the panic hit her. How did he know? How much did he know?

She started as a warm tongue licked the back of her hand. Turning off the laptop, she patted the poodle's head. "Poor Frisk, past your dinner time, huh?"

She woke up drenched in sweat. He was out there somewhere. Someone she did not know. Watching every move she made. She stumbled out of bed to bolt the bedroom door.

She lay awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling. I am darned lucky, she thought. A sprawling mansion in Beverly Hills, three box office hits in a row with her in the lead. If the gossip was to be believed, she was sure to make it to the Oscar list this year. With atleast a good ten years ahead before her looks faded , what else could a gorgeous twenty-something actress want in life? Nothing, except to end the loneliness.

She didn't want to date the industry types - they were all too shallow. In any case, she saw too much of them at work. After "The Blonde Shell" hit the theatres, she couldn't even walk to the neighborhood bar for a drink without being mobbed. The sheer loneliness drove her to the chat rooms late at night. Forty days. Forty days since she crossed paths with the man who had the arrogance to use the screen name "God". Since then he had dogged her in every chat room and now.... No, she thought, he cannot reach me. I won't let him. The sunshine filtering through the curtains mocked her fears.

Bleary with lack of sleep, she poured herself a cup of coffee and picked up the "Los Angeles Post" lying on the porch. "Real Estate Prices in LA Touch the Skies" the headlines screamed. So what's new? she thought and tossed the paper aside. I'll take the day off today, she thought, cheering up all of a sudden.

She turned on her laptop to email Eric, her secretary, to cancel all the appointments for the day. Of course he would be mad at her, she thought with a grin, recalling Eric's melancholy face. An explosion of red roses greeted her with the words " Hello Mary Ann". What the heck! Hey, I am not even connected to the web - Is it a virus attack again? She stared at the screen with rising dismay. She was about to turn off the machine when the words appeared, "Don't panic, my dear. I wanted you to have the flowers. My apologies for the lost sleep."

"What do you want me to do?" she whispered to the empty room.
"Do my will," flashed the reply on the screen.
"WHO ARE YOU?" she screamed.
"I call myself God. That is all you need to know." said the screen.

The next evening, neighbors saw the "For Sale" sign on Mary Ann Stone's manicured front lawns. Next day, the sign was gone. Her secretary and her agent had no clue as to her whereabouts. After waiting for more than a month and threatening legal action against her estate, the studios began to scout for other actresses.

The papparazzi played up whatever wild gossip they could pry from the neighbors. The wildest of all was the rumor that the actress who was hailed as the " twenty-first century Sex Bomb" was now a nun in the Silent Sisters Order, in a remote village on the Scottish border. They say the person who took over her estate is a handsome young psychiatrist from London, who is considered an authority in the little-known art of cyber-hypnosis. He lives quietly and few of his neighbors have actually seen him. They say that his patients fondly call him "God".

Those are the rumors. The truth - God knows.