7 Sins: Greed

And it was all going wonderfully. I had Kim's quim dripping with her fragrant juices. Her hips were writhing and she was moaning with pleasure.

Knowing she was ready for a hard fucking, I started to move up. And that's when everything changed, in the blink of an eye or, better, in the utterance of a word.

"Oh, God, yes..." Kim called out. "Fuck me. Please fuck me Warren!"

Warren!... Warren! Shit. Kim was wet and eager to be fucked alright. But it was Warren--excuse me, Mr. Betson to me--she was fantasizing about. It was his cock she was imagining impaling her, thrusting in and out of her, and driving her to an all-consuming climax.

With that sudden awareness, I wilted: my cock, my drive, my whole being. I couldn't stand it. I got up and left the room. I couldn't sleep next to Kim while she fantasized about another man's cock, especially Betson's who'd been the source of so much pain for me.

We didn't speak for two days. I'd called in sick to work and spent my time doing my day trading deals. That was the only part of my life that was going well, but it was going well. I was making more money in a day than I'd ever made in weeks of work.

Maybe, just maybe, I thought, if I got rich enough, I could win Kim back.

But that was not to be. Kim was on the phone every night and, while I didn't eavesdrop, I knew it was with Betson. Thursday morning, I woke up late to find Kim had packed two suitcases and was taking them to her car.

"What are you doing?"

"Isn't it pretty obvious, Mark?" she replied. "I'm going to be with Warren. He wants me to come live with him and I want that, too."

Kim could tell I was crushed. She said, as if it would help, "You can keep the house and all the money. I don't need any of it. Warren will take care of me." And what hurt most was that she didn't need me anymore, either. Warren would take care of her that way, too.

So my life had fallen apart completely. I'd debased myself, ruined my marriage, and now had quit my job, too. (Who needed that? I was making out well in the market.) But I had the money and I was committed to making it grow until I was a millionaire many times over.

For a couple of months, my investment portfolio continued to produce remarkable returns. I felt like I really had this day trading stuff down. It wasn't rocket science. Or so I thought.

I learned, though, that there is a reason financial advisors counsel against day trading. You can soar, but you can also crash. And crash I did. I wasn't thinking very clearly and had no one to bounce ideas off of--no one to say, "hold it, just back off for a bit." As I started losing money hand over fist, I threw good money after bad, determined to recoup my losses. Ultimately, I lost not only all of the money I'd gotten from Betson but the house, too. I'd mortgaged it to the hilt in a last desperate, and unsuccessful attempt to get back in the black.

A year out from Betson's indecent proposal, I was broke, living in a small apartment, with a dead-end job, no wife, girlfriend, or even good prospects for one. From time to time, as I assessed my situation, I'd hear echoing in my head, "a quarter of a million dollars... a quarter of a million dollars." Now, though, it didn't sound exciting. It sounded like the road to ruin.