Sutherland

Chapter 1-2

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 s****l 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 p***s 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 f**k you?” he asked as he mopped up with a paper napkin.

Jennalee sipped a Coke and watched his deflating p***s. 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 n*****s 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.