No one could beat my life! No, really I am so serious. I was livin large. The investments I gambled on starting with paper route money I made in 7th grade were booming. Turns out with a little research, "high risk" was nothing but ink on a label, and a kid willing to study financial papers as much as his peers followed football could get pretty good at picking winners. By the time I finished high school, I had quite a portfolio.
My old man took a powder before I really hit my stride. He missed my high school career, and my sister's. She was so close to him, it tore her up, and took her years to recover. Mom was shattered too, so it was good that I could help out with the fruits of my labor. When college tuition time came around for both my sister and I, I just wrote a check. Pork bellies and timber futures had been very good to me, and investing in Intel, Microsoft, Apple and IBM during the tech boom had been....sensible. Hee hee. Sensible is right. Yeah, but that's my style, understated, humble, never let em know what you've really got and you'll never need it all.
So off to college at a small liberal arts school to learn business and finance. Yeah, I was accepted at Harvard and Princeton, but the thing I thought was by being a big fish in a small pond I'd get the attention I needed. And I did! My teachers were fascinated with my investment theories and how I had handled my money, and continued to make good choices. They gave me great tips on standard strategies and theories. I gave them insights into my own theories, which they quickly cited as "unconventional" but eventually labelled as "interesting." Interesting enough to try, and soon I was everyone's classroom pet, as their personal portfolios took some "interesting" leaps in value.
I wasn't a total nerd though. Yes I spent hours reading the Wall Street journal, but I loved the outdoors, and I loved physical activity. I lettered in soccer, wrestling and baseball 3years each in High School, and swam competitively at a club in the summer. I biked to school rather than drive, and ran frequently. I continued swimming in college, and switched to track in the spring. I was a natural candidate for the fledgling triathlon world, and always stayed in fighting shape.
I was a confident kid too. My interests led me into frequent serious conversations with adults over the years, so I had developed some very mature conversational skills. I recognized powerful men, and studied their habits, and emulated those I saw that worked. I also studied the habits of strong women, and though adopting those behaviors was not always in the interest of a teenaged heterosexual male, knowing them would prove useful.
This combination led to an active love life in high school. When you get your name on the morning announcements for scoring the winning goal, or winning a match with a pin, you are an instant winner in the entire school's eyes. You beat the other guy, so a primal switch turns on instinctively in the female mind, and screams for your seed to meet her egg and create a super progeny. Or something like that. Actually, I had no time to learn about human instinct and behavior, I was kind of busy, so don't pay much mind to my discourse there. But i did get to study plenty about the female of the species. I studied every part of every specimen I could get my hands on. And I got my hands on plenty. That changed when I met Penny.
I met my wife at college. She was from an old money family in Philadelphia, with a father who ran a very successful financial brokerage firm. I knew of his reputation, having invested in some of his firm's more aggressive funds. Penny was gorgeous, brilliant, and very compassionate, and was pre-med. she wanted to become a pediatric surgeon. She was not my first love, but I fell deeply for her. We married immediately after graduation. She was heading to Med School at Temple, and I was going to Penn for the Wharton Business School.
So we started off while both were immersed in grad school. My routines didn't change much. Classes, studies, and time to myself. Penny, however, had to put it in high gear with med school. I saw her every day, but usually for a short time before bed or for breakfast. It did place a serious strain on our marriage, but we were both aware this would happen, and were passionately committed to getting through this very difficult time, with no whining, and no crying.
I finished business school first, and since Penny still had years to go in med school and her internships, and since I really didn't need a job to continue reaping harvests of profits from my investing, I decided a couple more years at Penn in the law school would be interesting. I found law easy too. Sorry, but I tend to remember facts and dates really well, and the logic behind a good argument is a fascinating thing. So by the time Penny was finishing her residency, I had passed the bar.
So here I was, a Young Philadelphia lawyer, wealthy by my own designs, married to a beautiful young doctor with family money and social standing, a great house, a great car, plus i was handsome as sin, healthy and fit. I made frequent use of my motorcycle, my boats (i couldnt make up my mind which was better, sail or motor. i bought one of each). I had a ski home in Vail, season tickets to the Phils and the Eagles. Now what could go wrong?
Apparently Penny had ideas. I lobbied hard for kids. My law practice was very limited. I did contract work for a couple of small firms that didn't want to hire a full time associate, but needed extra help here and there. That left plenty of time to invest, and left hours available at the end of the day to care for the kids I so badly wanted.
Penny somehow thought kids would end her career. So she decided to rely on the most effective of birth control methods, total abstinence. Yeah, like I'd go for that. I was pissed, and she knew it. But I wasn't going to step out on her, that wasn't my style. I'm a "word is my bond" kind of guy, and I gave her my word when we married. So I poured myself into my work. You see a day trader makes more money the more active he is, and I became quite active. My legal work increased as well, both because my cooperating firms sent me more and because the clients they subbed work to me for began recommending me. Reputation is everything. I bought an office space downstairs in the same building we had our condo, and hired a part time secretary. My name on the professional directory in the building resulted in another bump in business, and soon I had to hire a paralegal to help me manage the load. The lion's share of this new business was either real estate or domestic related from other residents in my building, and people they recommended to me.
She was cute. She dressed...attractively. She was also very married, and as I told you before, I was all about being honorable, and I wasn't about to mess with anyone else's marriage anymore than I'd mess with mine. So she would remain a pleasant vision to me, and a thorn in my wife's side. I freely admit that was a benefit I had hoped for when I hired a beautiful woman. I had hoped jealousy might drive my wife closer to me, but it only made her colder. She was so cold, I didn't dare touch her with my dick. I was sure it would turn blue as it froze, then shatter I tiny pieces as she laughed.
Yes, my imagination was vivid. Still I never imagined the nightmare that was coming. For this next three months, my wife barely spoke to me. We slept in the same bed, but she made a point of spending little time there. I tried to treat her as well as I could, dinner was on the table when she came home, and the home was clean and tidy. Wash was done, bills were paid. Her favorite flowers were on the table. Yet there was never a thank you, and barely a word from her. Meanwhile my law practice grew to the point I had to hire another paralegal. She too was gorgeous, she too was an extremely efficient professional, and she too was married. Actually she was married to Anita, my first employee. They were an all girl couple, and very dedicated. My wife didnt know this.
Hiring both of them allowed me to continue a significant part of my day in my research and trading. It also left each of them with a significant part of each day with nothing to do. So I sent them to law school. If my little one man practice continued to grow, I would need associates. It seemed to be the ultimate win win to prepare the girls that already worked for me to assume greater and greater roles, and share the financial gains. What Better way to instill loyalty and show your staff hey were valued than by training them, mentoring them, and then paying them well to share in your good fortune. I resolved myself at that moment to hire secretaries who would train as paralegals, then associates.
While my practice flourished, my wife didn't do so well. Se had joined a pediatric group earlier that year, but had made some mistakes. There was nothing life threatening or anything serious enough to bring out a malpractice suit. She was released from the group practice within a month of starting, and found herself black balled from similar groups, which was where the money was for a pediatrician. Poor references also locked her out from any contract work at schools or with local agencies. She was relegated to work at a hospital that had as poor a reputation as she did, in their public clinic.
The money didn't bother her, but the low status of the job did. She was Philly society, and accepting anything substandard was a humiliation. Oh her trust fund still afforded her stylish clothing, and a car befitting a Philly doctor's status, but in social situations she couldn't rub elbows with the high and mighty as anything more than her father's daughter. Or her husband's wife.
Yeah, my success grated on her. I didn't want her family's money, I didn't need her family's money, and anything either of us had ever wanted I bought just by writing a check. Her father had once ridiculed me for it, for not using other people's money to help me get what I wanted. Leveraged buyouts, inside information, under the table deals, grease palms and tax loopholes were all a part of the creed of his world. We had many an argument about ethics, and I never left a doubt that I was not only playing by the rules, I was proud of it. I paid my taxes and played by the rules. Honor first, remember?
He was frustrated by how well I did while playing it fair too. Research relay was the key. I found two opportunities through legal research for every insider tip he got. He'd brag about selling something at a 20% gain that he got a tip on last week, and I'd be able to counter that I did get on that deal, but had found it a month ago while pouring over my statistical models. I'd made twice his profit margin by buying so much earlier. He always dismissed me with a wave of his hand and a comment that in another couple generations I might catch up with his family's fortunes. I don't think he recognized the extent of my holdings, because he always waved the fact that I would need my own money if his daughter ever left me, since he had so wisely coaxed us into signing a prenuptial agreement that would forever keep our money separate.
So here she was, frantic to pay her bills without dipping into her trust or asking Daddy, and I was buying Rolexes. Me wanting no more from her than to be my loving wife, and mother of children that seemed to have no chance of conception. Of course pop in law was lurking in the background hoping to prove that this nouveau upstart was no match for his well bred daughter. The rest of her family made no bones about the fact hey believed she married beneath them. Her brother and sister hated me, and tried to ridicule me every time we gathered for a family occasion or holiday.
Penny's mother however was a delight, and seemed my only friend in that corner of the world. It started when I showed her how to hit a more effective backhand. Yeah, remember me? The High School letterman, the collegiate athlete? We were at there house for a barbecue before we married, and she mentioned how Mildred Douglass owned her on the courts since she couldn't hit a backhand with any force. We spent an hour on the court in the backyard, and later that week she destroyed Mildred for a first ever victory. That day and a day on the links when I gave an equivalent boost to her short game made me her darling son in law, and quick to defend me when the sharks circled.
I really didn't need the defense, though I was glad of it. The kids weren't really very smart. Neither was their dad. Penny was the only one who was smart enough and had followed her dream, her siblings were living of their trust funds. However when they found Penny had cut me off, the sharks smelled blood in the water, and waited to attack when their mom was not around.
"So, can't keep my sister satisfied."
"Bet he's too small to fit inside."
