Insider Trading

The first time I saw Lizbeth Quinn my eyes bulged out of my head, my heartbeat quickened, my cock twitched, and for the first time since I married my wife Anne five years before that date I wished that I was single. Unfortunately, I was at my workplace, the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) main office in Washington, D. C. so my reaction was embarrassing and noticed by others. At the time I had recently graduated from law school and since I wasn't yet high on the pecking order I shared an office with another guy, Jim Morrill.

Jim saw my reaction, chuckled, and said "That's the Ice Queen."

The only familiarity I had with that term was the stereotypical depictions I'd seen on TV or in movies that painted an "ice queen" as an unsympathetic power-monger whose hyper-professionalism was viewed as unfeminine and cold. Since Jim had worked there a year longer than I had I asked "What do you mean?"

"She's all business, unapproachable, never smiles, is never mean but is just plain cold. She doesn't chit-chat, gossip, or go out to lunch with others," he smirked.

"How old is she and what's her job?" I inquired further.

"I think that she's only twenty seven years old," he continued stroking his chin -- the same age that I was at the time -- "and she's the head of the Compliance Office."

I was shocked and blurted out "How can someone that young be the head of the Compliance Office?" For those not in the know, the Compliance Office is the internal organization that makes sure that everyone at the agency plays by the book in every way, especially with respect to trading stocks but also for sexual harassment and other unethical behavior.

Jim chuckled. "Oh, I forgot to mention that she's a fucking genius. I'm not exaggerating that; she's the smartest person in the agency, maybe in the entire Federal Government."

"No shit," I whistled -- by that time she was no longer in sight.

"Yeah -- you don't want her to pay you a visit; if the name 'Blake Jarvis' comes to her desk on a complaint, commit suicide," Jim laughed.

I guess in view of that comment you've figured out that I'm Blake Jarvis.

You may wonder why the Ice Queen took my breath away. At that point in time it was only her appearance because since I'd never talked with her I couldn't confirm Jim's comment that she was a fucking genius. In her three inch heels (which I found out later were ubiquitous and often Louboutin) she was probably six feet (183 cm) tall, had a pleasant but not beautiful face, had a perfectly tailored skirt business suit and perfectly styled brunette hair with natural-looking auburn streaks, and a body that any artist would love to immortalize on canvas or in bronze. Some white women, and a few white guys, may think that her perfect bubble butt was a little large, but since I love slightly oversized butts I thought that it was perfect; as was her prodigious chest.

**************

Due to her Ice Queen demeanor at the office I might never have gotten to really know Lizbeth Quinn except for a bizarre incident about six months after I lost my cool when I first saw her.

I was with my wife Anne and Tom and Shelley, a married couple that were good friends of ours, at what we thought was an upscale nightclub on a Saturday night when I spotted Lizbeth with a guy who almost assuredly was her husband. Being as inconspicuous as possible I ogled her whenever I thought that I could get away with it. I was surprised at how fluid her dance moves were considering that she always seemed rigid at the office.

Anyway, at one point her husband seemingly went to the washroom and shortly thereafter a large man approached her and apparently asked her to dance. She obviously declined. The guy was either drunk or an asshole because he wasn't taking "no" for an answer and after a few seconds of conversation that Lizabeth clearly did not want to have he grabbed her arm.

I'm not a superhero, karate black belt, or anything of the sort; nor am I the biggest guy around at six two (189 cm), 195 pounds (89 kg)(several inches and many kg smaller than the obnoxious dude). However, I had a technique that normally defused confrontational situations and also had an "Ace" in my repertoire. That "Ace" is a course that I took as a senior in college -- not at the school but at an off-campus location -- called "Master 4x4." The guy who taught it -- known to us only as "Earl" -- was really sketchy. He didn't give out background information but probably at some time had either been a Seal, spook, or underworld enforcer; he was the toughest guy that I have ever personally encountered. In any event in his course, over two months, you mastered four defensive and four offensive techniques that were simple yet highly effective -- and unusual. When I say "mastered" I mean it. You did them so many times in the class that it was like riding a bicycle -- once you knew them you never forgot. Also, since I took the course with a lifelong friend of mine we practiced the techniques on each other about once every three or four months.

I excused myself from Anne et al, walked over toward Lizbeth, and in as pleasant and non-confrontational manner as possible said "Oh there you are, Lizbeth; I was looking all over for you. The others are ready to leave, so let's go," as I held out my hand toward her.

The big dude -- who had released her arm by then -- was initially taken aback and didn't say or do anything. Lizbeth -- she actually was a genius but only had to be slightly street smart to know what I was doing -- played along, took my hand, and stood up. That's when the guy was exposed as an asshole, not just a little drunk. He pushed me, swore at me, and when I moved Lizbeth behind me and I was obviously about to leave, swung at me with his right fist.

Defensive technique #1 from Earl's class was just for this situation and his swing turned out to be a miss and his body was turned sideways as a result of his momentum moving him off center, undoubtedly assisted by his diminished coordination from alcohol consumption. Then I used offensive technique #4 and after two well placed elbows in and around his exposed solar plexus the big dude was on the chair where Lizbeth's husband had been sitting and puking onto the table.

I hustled Lizbeth toward the men's washroom and in a low voice, but still loud enough to be heard over the nightclub din, said "I suggest that you and your husband leave in case that jerk has friends; I'm going to be taking off shortly too."

Lizbeth stopped and turned me toward her. "I've seen you at the office; you're Blake Jarvis aren't you?"

My heart leapt that she would know my name -- only later did I think "I hope that it's not because of a complaint that she's investigating."

"Yes," I smiled.

She smiled back -- I hadn't see her smile at the office but she should smile more often it was such a beautiful friendly smile -- and then she gave me a quick kiss on the lips; it was warm, juicy, and delicious, not what you would expect from an Ice Queen. "Thank you Paladin," she chuckled.

Just then her husband came out of the washroom, she briefly introduced me to Evan Wilson (she didn't take his surname when they married), and then she obviously was telling him what had happened as they quickly went toward a nearby side exit and I returned to Anne and my friends.

Only Tom had seen my "altercation" (but not the kiss); thankfully the women hadn't seen anything.

"What was that all about?" he inquired.

"Just being a Paladin," I snickered. "Let's go someplace else; the guy I hit may have friends."

The girls initially didn't want to leave but /Tom is a quick-thinking slick dude, and he swiftly convinced them that there was a better place just a block away. Since we were up-to-date with our tab, we were out the front entrance in less than a minute, and no one followed us.

***************

The first work day after the "event" at the nightclub Lizbeth stopped by at my office -- fortunately I now had my own office and didn't share one with Jim any more. "Thanks for helping me out at the nightclub Saturday -- and my husband thanks you too," she said with a smile.

"Well after all I am a Paladin," I chuckled, "so I had to."

"Cheeky bastard, aren't you?" she chuckled back, then said "thanks again," and turned and walked out. I hoped that it wasn't my imagination -- but Lizbeth seemed to be provocatively swinging her bubble butt as she walked away.

Over the two ensuing years Lizbeth and I actually interacted at the office on dozens of occasion, and even had lunch together a half dozen times. About a year after the nightclub "event" at her recommendation I joined the same health club that Lizbeth had patronized for several years, and about once a week we worked out at the same time, sometimes together.

In those two years I got to find out a lot about Lizbeth. She was a very, very unusual woman and my zealous attraction to Lizbeth had only increased by getting to know her personally although I never even hinted at a sexual liaison. I did learn for myself that she was the smartest person at the agency, and the smartest person I had ever personally encountered. I also learned that her Ice Queen persona was only for the office and the health club; without it she would be hit on constantly. In other situations she was warm and friendly -- and much to my delight didn't eschew occasional body contact.

When I say that she was "unusual" I'm actually understating her personality and outlook on life. She loves kids -- and thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the travails of my two little girls -- however she doesn't want to get pregnant since she likes her body exactly as it is. She looks at almost everything analytically rather than emotionally, and given her intelligence her analysis of almost every situation ultimately proves to be correct. She is obsessive about her appearance not because she is interested in attracting male attention (which she attempts to avoid with her Ice Queen facade) but because everything she does is orderly, and admittedly in rejection of her mother's often slovenly appearance when Lizbeth grew up.

Although Lizbeth and I actually developed a friendship and I believed that she had the same hidden smoldering sexual attraction to me that I did to her she, like me, never made any hint of a possible sexual relationship.

By the time that I had known Lizbeth for close to three years I believe that I was a respected member of the SEC's Enforcement Division that investigated securities violations and recommended them for prosecution by the litigation office, and I sometimes also actually assisted with the prosecution if I wasn't a witness.

**********

Just before and just after my thirtieth birthday my personal life got complicated. Up until that point my life with Anne, and my now four and two year old daughters Cindy and Bailey, respectively, had almost been idyllic. Despite my attraction toward Lizbeth I was the furthest thing from a philanderer -- nor was Lizbeth the type to cheat even if I was. Also, I had no sexual interest whatsoever in any other woman aside from Lizbeth and Anne -- so I never considered a sexual relationship outside of marriage. Unfortunately, I had reason to wonder if Anne was of the same mind.

If you go on the Internet and search signs of a cheating spouse you will get lots of information, some of it contradictory. However, almost universally the major sign of cheating, or planning to cheat, is "change." Sometimes the change obviously indicates a problem, such as the spouse getting a second cellphone, going out with "the girls" or "the guys," significantly more or less initiation of sex, or starting to work late or early. Other things are not as obvious.

The changes in Anne that I recognized were none of the obvious ones. The two things that concerned me most that I recognized were a sudden intense interest in material things, and the purchase of more stylish (and also more revealing) clothing. Anne had gone back to work when our youngest daughter Bailey turned two and at first wore plebian work clothes, but now more provocative work clothes although still suitable for a workplace rather than a night club. The sex with Anne had always been good but now even though the frequency and adventurousness remained about the same she was more mercurial during intercourse. Sometimes she was more of a tiger than ever before; sometimes more passive.

By profession I'm an investigator. In my work I usually either investigate companies for submitting inaccurate information to investors, or I investigate insider trading by company executives, stockbrokers, or even average investors. I hope it doesn't bore you for me to define insider trading for you, but essentially SEC Rule 10b-5 defines insider trading as "...the purchase or sale of a security of any issuer, on the basis of material nonpublic information about that security or issuer, in breach of a duty of trust or confidence that is owed directly, indirectly, or derivatively, to the issuer of that security or the shareholders of that issuer, or to any other person who is the source of the material nonpublic information."

Got that (lol)?

Anyway, using the same type of investigative skills I utilize in my profession I put them to use in investigating one Anne Jarvis. It took only five weeks for me to find out that she was having what then was a weekly liaison with Reginald Worthy, a corporate executive at a company that I'll call Ripoff, Inc.

When you have two little kids that are the joy of your life you don't -- at least if you're smart and want to have a great relationship with them for life -- go nuclear when you find out something like that. Going nuclear can lead to becoming a once a fortnight dad especially since in our state of residence adultery by the mother rarely results in her being considered as an unfit mother and the mother almost always gets custody of small children. Also, since I'm not capable of murder I needed a different approach than the nuclear one. I tried to take a page from Lizbeth's book and analyze the situation thoroughly.

As part of my analysis I took an in-depth look into Ripoff, Inc. I found that the division that Reginald was the head of was definitely providing inaccurate information to investors. However, since I hadn't been tasked by the powers that be to specifically investigate it I had to somehow get it on my supervisor's radar. I did that by sending three anonymous tips, one by regular mail, one by email addressed to my supervisor, and one by phone to the agency's "tip line." The tips were spread out over two weeks, had vastly different language, and slightly different complaints, but all complaining about Ripoff. When my supervisor still hadn't given me the assignment to investigate Ripoff I sent an anonymous email to myself and dropped it off on my supervisor's desk without comment.

Two days after I dropped off the anonymous email to me at my supervisor's desk she called me into her office and assigned me four new companies to investigate, including Ripoff.

Before I "officially" (I already had "unofficially") launched into my investigation of Ripoff I first started an investigation of another company on the list and started on Ripoff only three days later. I also decided that I needed to protect myself since it isn't unheard of for sleazebag companies to try and get some leverage on the SEC investigator and since Anne was in a relationship with Reginald she might be enticed to help him.

I actually went to talk to Lizbeth about ways that I could protect myself -- without revealing any details, and certainly not Anne's cheating. I implemented all of the things that she suggested.

The idea that Lizbeth had turned out to be the best -- although I thought it was ridiculous at the time but since she's way smarter than I am did it anyway -- was to have our IT department put software on both my work and home computers that did some unusual things. This also included me providing two passwords for each computer, one that I had always used in the past and would still work, and a new twenty six character password that I now exclusively used when I was using one of those computers. Two things that the software did were to turn on the computer's video camera when the old password was used and send the video to a secure cloud, and deny all remote access to the computer so that no files could be remotely planted on it.

Once that was done and I had initiated investigations into all four new companies my supervisor had assigned me I went hard after Ripoff, and thus Reginald. Reginald made the mistake of resisting the changes to their marketing of securities that I insisted upon. Considering my pit-bull-like pressing of the case that got him to the point where after only three weeks the litigation office had sent him a cease-and-desist letter.

Then, Lizbeth's advice to me turned prophetic when Reginald apparently went after me by having hackers attack my home computer. I know this because the software the IT dudes inserted in my computer were able to trace the attacks to the area near his company's main office building. Unfortunately it was not possible to track the attacks exactly, but Ripoff was the only entity in that area that had any motive to do that.

Unbelievably to me, Reginald was able to talk my wife, and his lover, Anne into assisting him. She must have been hit with a "stupid stick" to do that since it could cause me to be suspended and adversely affect our finances; apparently she thought that it would just get me to back off going after Ripoff.

Several days after the outside hacking was blunted the SEC Compliance Office got an anonymous tip that I was bringing confidential SEC files home and put them on my personal laptop.

Lizbeth came to my office, accompanied by two security officers, personally to tell me about the complaint. I understood that she couldn't play favorites and was as accommodating as she could be considering the situation. She already knew of the outside hacking attempts so she expected the complaint to be bogus. Procedure required me to be driven to my house by the two security officers and for me to turn over my laptop to them. Also according to procedure I was not suspended but had to interrupt my normal work.

It was only a day later when Lizbeth, a security officer, and a tech investigator came to my office and returned my laptop. "Blake," Lizbeth said with the other two there, "I have some bad news even though you have been completely officially exonerated. The bad news is that your wife Anne installed a confidential SEC file on your laptop."

"What?" I replied in a much louder voice than I intended to.

"Jeremy will explain," she replied in a calming voice, Jeremy being the tech guy. "The software that you installed that turned on the laptop's camera if your old password was used clearly showed Anne at the keyboard at the same time that the offending file was loaded. I don't need to be here for the demonstration -- but I am investigating who got the file for your wife because it's not one you ever worked on but had to be obtained by an SEC employee."

That shook me too.

Lizbeth handed me a "Complaint proven inaccurate" letter signed by her just before she and the security officer left my office.

Jeremy booted up my laptop, showed me the offending footage and exactly how to access it from the cloud, and left me to steam in my office. "Oh, and so you know Mr. Jarvis, the confidential file has been removed from your laptop and is part of the investigation."

I thanked Jeremy, closed my office door, and yelled out a string of expletives that did little to quell my anger.

I didn't go home that night. I sent Anne a text telling her that I got called out on an emergency matter -- this had actually happened once before so I had some credibility with this -- and that I would be back tomorrow afternoon. Through tracking software I surreptitiously installed on her phone, and the fact that I confirmed with our regular sitter that Anne employed her the night I was dealing with the fake emergency, for about two hours she met with Reginald at a hotel halfway between our houses.