Sutherland

by Karen Trailor Thomas

  Sutherland

  By Karen Trailor Thomas

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2018 Karen Trailor Thomas

  ISBN 9781634865180

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  Sutherland

  By Karen Trailor Thomas

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 1

  “You’ve keyed it in wrong,” Gerald Preece said. “There’s no O in Sutherland.”

  “Yes, there is.” Jane Preece watched her husband stare at his computer screen. “They were very specific,” she continued. “S-O-U-T-H-E-R-L-A-N-D, from Seattle and San Francisco, a suite and two doubles.”

  Gerald looked at her over the rim of his half glasses.

  “Honest,” his wife said.

  “But that makes it south. You can’t say Sutherland if you spell it Southerland.”

  “It’s their name,” Jane countered. “They can do whatever they want.”

  Gerald’s little finger retreated from his delete key, but the former partner of Kreps, Helwig, Bibby, and Preece remained unsettled with this particular bit of disorder.

  “Leave it alone,” Jane said from across the lobby.

  “Is Jennalee practicing?” Gerald asked, paging down through a host of Sutherlands who managed the correct spelling.

  “Why can’t you call her Lee like she wants?”

  “Why can’t she practice for me?”

  Jane shook her head and pinched a withered bloom off an aging summer bouquet. “Piano should be good for the pianist,” she said. “All you’re doing is pushing her away.”

  “And if I stop pushing, she’ll do nothing at all.”

  “How do you know that? You never give her a chance.”

  Gerald reached the end of the reservations list and began to page up. “Who’s this Laidlaw?” he asked, but Jane had already left the room. “I thought they were all Sutherlands,” he mumbled. “Garden Grove. Where in hell is Garden Grove?”

  When he keyed over to his bookings page and saw every room—one through fifty-five—reserved for the July Fourth weekend, he relaxed as much as was possible for a man of forty-eight who’d endured a quadruple bypass the year before and subsequently given up his law practice in San Francisco on orders of a doctor who remained in the city attending the symphony Gerald did not. “Find something less stressful,” Ben Mertens had counseled, and so Gerald and Jane Preece sold their Pacific Heights house and purchased the Malvern Gardens Inn, which rested quietly among California’s golden hills some hundred miles east. Malvern was a gold rush remnant trading on a colorful past that brought a good tourist trade much of the year.

  “I wish they’d given us more information,” Gerald said as Jane sailed back through the lobby.

  “Fifty-five rooms, four nights,” Jane replied. “What else do you need?”

  “The reunion aspect, I mean. They’ve booked the Oak Room both Friday and Saturday nights plus Sunday morning, and I know they’ve hired Benita Witherspoon to cater, but she hasn’t called. I just think we ought to be more involved, or at least in the know.”

  “They appear to know what they’re doing. Mrs. Burkett said this has been going on for twenty-two years.” Jane had returned to peer over the desk.

  “They’ll expect us to do things,” Gerald insisted. “I know they will. And they’ll be expecting Ralph and Dorothy Burkett and find us instead.”

  “It’s their reunion, Gerald, and they already know the Burketts are gone. Everyone who called or emailed asked for Dorothy or Ralph and I introduced us each time so they know, Gerald, they know. It’s not like we’ve committed a crime. We bought the place, we didn’t steal it.”

  “If it’s a sit-down dinner, they’ll need tables and chairs. I should have been told which night Benita’s been booked for. Fifty-five rooms, how many people? Let’s see.”

  Jane came around behind her husband and absently rubbed his shoulders. When she found him tense, she whispered, “Relax,” and began kneading as he keyed into his totals page. He was adept at Hotel-Motel, the software package he’d downloaded soon after buying the desktop computer. Ralph and Dorothy Burkett had done it all by hand, which Gerald found incomprehensible. “You can’t run a business without a computer,” he had insisted, and while Jane agreed, she sometimes thought it more maintaining a link to his old life in San Francisco than developing a tool for the new one.

  “One hundred forty-three,” Gerald announced as he hit a print command and the laser printer behind him began to whir. “Do we have that many chairs?”

  “Don’t you have that in your inventory program?” Jane rubbed his shoulders until he began to squirm.

  “Don’t do that,” he said, shrugging her off. “And yes, I have it in my inventory, but I keyed it off Ralph’s list. We’ve never verified the number. We need to do that.”

  “Lee and I will count the chairs and tables.”

  “If she’s not practicing, where is she?” When Jane didn’t respond, Gerald glared at her. “You don’t know, do you?”

  * * * *

  Jennalee Preece would have enjoyed the moment had she not been otherwise occupied. Since the move, she had abandoned piano in favor of tormenting her father, whom she intended to make miserable for uprooting her from her senior year at Lowell High School, where she had enjoyed a multi-ethnic group of friends, intermittent study, and piano lessons with Mr. Mendel. That she had enjoyed a brief sexual relationship with eighteen-year-old Howard Li only heightened the anguish of departure, and she compensated by taking up with the Malvern boys, one of whom at this moment had his erect penis in her hand.

  They were in his battered Dodge pickup, which sat atop oversized tires at the back of the Dunkin Donuts parking lot. His name was Jimmy and his main attribute was being nineteen. Jennalee also thought he resembled Bradley Cooper, which enhanced the pleasure she took in bringing him along. She liked to watch boys at this most vulnerable time, lost to primal urges, and she stroked until he bit his lip and spurted onto his belly.

  “Why won’t you let me fuck you?” he asked as he
mopped up with a paper napkin.

  Jennalee sipped a Coke and watched his deflating penis. When Jimmy began to tuck himself back into his jeans, she stopped him. “Leave it out.”

  “Why?”

  “‘Cause I’m not done. Let’s go.”

  Jimmy hesitated before turning the key, craning to see who might notice him in such display.

  “It’s not like anybody can see,” Jennalee said. “I mean, they’d have to stand on their roof.”

  Jimmy started the truck and Jennalee directed him out of town onto Highway 16, which led to the Inn and set Jimmy fidgeting. He appeared greatly relieved when Jennalee diverted him onto Briggs Road, which climbed a long hill and outran its paving on a bluff overlooking the Preece’s resort.

  “Ever been up here?” Jennalee asked and Jimmy shook his head. “God, where do you go?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To do it. Where do you go to do it?”

  “Are we going to do it?”

  “Maybe. Pull in over there.”

  Jimmy did as instructed and parked near a sprawling oak. “I’ve got a blanket in back,” he said.

  Jennalee laughed. “Forget it.” She was out of the truck and Jimmy, whose erection had risen anew on the drive, now suffered his first moments of constraint, searching for some sort of cover. Then Jennalee was at the bluff’s edge and had her T-shirt off, fingering the nipples of her small breasts, the sight of which erased any caution on Jimmy’s part. He sprang from the truck, member in the lead, and barreled to her, dropping down to suck her offering.

  Jennalee kept her eyes on the Malvern Gardens Inn as the boy fed, considering her father and the awful banishment, considering also whether to let Jimmy in for the ultimate. She pictured him going at her from behind like some mutt because she knew he’d do it however she wanted and that would be what she wanted, but she decided against it, pulled him to his feet, kneeled, and took him into her mouth where he came almost instantly. As she swallowed his hot salty ejaculate, Howard Li came to mind, but she worked the recollection aside, visualizing instead her father’s surprise should he discover her at this particular activity.

  It always amazed her that no Malvern boy ever asked after her needs, Jimmy no exception as he zipped up and smiled. Howard had been attentive that way, exploring with her, sharing a mutual pleasure that nearly managed a simultaneous climax before Gerald Preece learned of the relationship, which sealed his decision to leave San Francisco. In Malvern, Jennalee had found boys just as willing—maybe more so, they had a country desperation—but nearly oblivious to anything beyond their own rapid satisfaction. While she enjoyed taking them in a variety of ways, enjoyed them more than anticipated, she never once was asked, “What about you?” It was this that gave her the control she’d come to crave, and she likened herself to a queen of sorts with little erect pets to fondle, discovering an unlimited supply as she quickly gained a reputation at school as the San Francisco Slut.

  As she slipped on her T-shirt, Jimmy leaned in to kiss her. “You’re so good,” he said.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Can I see you again?” he asked later, when he dropped her at the roadside near the Inn’s driveway.

  “Sure,” she said. “Call me.”

  She wandered up the long drive, annoyed with her morning. It was already hot—cool breezes never got this far inland—and the elastic of her panties had begun to pinch. She stopped and, without looking around, reached up under her tiny skirt and pulled them off. A warm wave swept against her genitals. It was better than braless and she’d been doing that for ages. She decided the issue then and there—no more panties,—and left the pink bikini pair on a tree branch as her personal greeting for the horde due that afternoon.

  “Where were you?” Gerald demanded as she sauntered to the lobby desk. He was still at his computer, calculating the projected long weekend take. “You need to help your mother with the chairs.”

  Jennalee said nothing. She lifted one boot onto a small table and suddenly wished she’d let in Jimmy what’s-his-name. She arched back with the idea as her father once again issued a print command. “So when are all these people getting here?” she asked. When her father didn’t respond, she prompted, “Dad!”

  “Hm? What?” He was caught up in a sizeable figure that seemed even more substantial in hard copy.

  “The people, this reunion. When? Are there any young guys?”

  Gerald removed his glasses. “You are not to bother the guests, you know that.”

  “What if they bother me?”

  “Nobody will bother you if you keep to yourself.”

  “Fun.”

  “Go find your mother, help her count the chairs. One hundred forty-three, that’s how many we need. And tables, too.”

  “One forty-three,” Jennalee muttered as she headed for the door. “Should be a few hunks in there somewhere.”

  “Go help your mother,” Gerald said. “And practice.”

  Jane Preece was already in the Oak Room storage closet counting stacks of folded chairs. “Where are all these people coming from?” Jennalee asked after she gave the official count to her mother. Jane Preece was a youthful forty-one and Jennalee wondered if she’d ever gone without panties, then dismissed the notion. She’d married Gerald Preece, after all.

  “All over,” Jane told her daughter. “Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, just all over.”

  Some of the chairs were on an old cart, and Jennalee helped Jane push it out into the room to get to the stacks behind it. “We’ve got enough,” Jane finally declared. “It’s tables that concern me. Let’s see, one forty-three.”

  Jennalee wandered out into the Oak Room to stand at floor-to-ceiling windows that filled an entire wall of the sizeable banquet room. She always imagined this a movie screen, herself an actress, the audience scattered over the golden hills beyond. Inspired by her bare-bottomed freedom, she decided today it was a porn flick and she raised the hem of her skirt and thrust her head back to imaginary howls until her mother called and she shrugged, covered herself, and went to her parent.

  “It wouldn’t hurt you to play, you know,” Jane said as they pushed the cart back into place. “It means so much to your father.”

  “Then why doesn’t he play?”

  “We’re not getting into that again and, to be honest, I don’t understand it, either. You used to love playing. You used to skip meals to practice. What happened?”

  “This happened.”

  “Malvern? Are you going to blame everything in your life on the move?”

  Jennalee’s lips were set. It was harder to do this to her mother. She nodded.

  “But don’t you see you’re just hurting yourself? All that work. If you don’t keep up, your skills will erode. That’s what Mr. Mendel says.”

  “You talked to Mr. Mendel?”

  Jane hesitated. “Well, yes. When you stopped playing, I grew concerned.”

  “How could you! Oh, Mother, that is such an invasion. He’s my teacher. It’s not like he’s a pediatrician or something.” She whirled away so quickly, she felt heat against her bare buttocks. “I can’t believe this!”

  “I’m sorry, but what did you expect me to do?” Jane called, but Jennalee was already outside. She reached the main building just as a silver Lexus full of people pulled up, followed by a tiny blue Kia, and she retreated to stand in shadow while the first of the Sutherlands spilled out onto the courtyard drive.

  Chapter 2

  The biggest guy got out of the smallest car. He wasn’t all that tall but had a large, squishy midsection and thick neck, and the combination gave him a lumbering, animal look. Bear maybe, Jennalee thought, or polar bear, his skin was so white. He looked maybe thirty-five, the girl with him twenty and pregnant, her middle nearly as big as his. He pulled bags from the Kia and the girl kissed his cheek. Jennalee wondered how on earth the poor thing had chosen so badly.

  Wesley, the handyman/bellhop the Preeces inherited from the Burketts,
appeared to attend to the Lexus, dragging along a cart he soon piled with luggage. He spied Jennalee and grinned. In the six months they’d had the place, this gaunt, timeless creature hadn’t spoken a word to her.

  The Lexus people were smartly dressed, middle-aged parents with four children: mother in white, blond, slim; father graying and trim in royal blue and tan. The kids, all boys and none Jennalee’s age, appeared starched. She turned her attention to the squishy guy and his wife who waited until the Lexus family had gone inside, then began pulling their wheeled bags up the walk. He had a nice enough face, Jennalee decided, but his rounded shoulders and heavy gait defeated everything.

  When the courtyard was empty, Jennalee sat by the fountain at its center, a Spanish-style circular oasis with a low brick edge. She was glad Wesley had finally gotten it working. Tracing her fingers along the brick, she imagined a chord beneath them and recalled her final hour with Mr. Mendel, the Kruetzer filling his small studio, her piano, his violin, and she dropped her hand into the water as another car pulled in. It appeared to be the same family as before.

  Jennalee managed in the next few hours to view a string of Sutherlands who looked decidedly unpromising, all with male children, preppy and scrubbed. One boy had noticed her as he stumbled from the car, but he appeared no more than fifteen. Still, Jennalee was drawn and uncrossed her legs when he dropped to tie a shoe which remained untied as he looked up her skirt and stumbled again. “For God’s sake, Kendall,” the father yelled, “tie your shoe!”

  “Jennalee!” She let her father call several times before she went inside, where he asked her to show a Sutherland family to rooms fifty and fifty-one. “At the foot of the hill,” he told the man. “Very nice, very quiet.”

  “And you’ve put the extra bed into the double.”

  Gerald checked his register. “Ah, I don’t see that on the reservation.”

  “Well, you do see three boys here, don’t you?” bellowed the man. “We’re not having them sleep together. My wife specified an extra bed in the double room.”

  Phyllis Sutherland stood with her young sons, the smallest holding her hand while his free hand clutched his crotch. “Stop that,” Phyllis said, jerking the boy’s arm. He seemed puzzled until she added, “Stop holding yourself.”