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I taste her kisses in my sleep. I can feel the firm heat of her body against mine in my dreams. I can imagine making love to her slowly and completely.
And then I wake up and it’s like someone has wrapped a vice around my dick. It’s heavy and hard and swollen and I want to scream from the tension that’s been building up inside me for so long. It’s not that I begrudge her the decision she’s made. I don’t. But I don’t know how much longer I can take it.
I’m not stupid. I knew that going into a relationship with Joey would be like this. Fraught with emotion and tentative steps. I knew it wasn’t going to be about sex, and not just because of Dawson’s off-hand comments. I knew it wasn’t going to be about sex…just about sex, because I didn’t want it to be. I think I wanted it to be about something else even more than Joey did. I wanted to prove I could do it.
Tamara was about sex. Not in the end maybe, but the beginning was pretty much my overactive teenage hormones colliding with her mid-life crisis and sending the both of us tumbling to the floor in a sweaty embrace. Andie…I loved Andie. Still love her to some extent, but she and I rushed into things we weren’t ready for and, in the end, when all the big stuff came, we didn’t have a strong enough basis to hold everything together.
Maybe that was my fault, maybe it was hers. Maybe there was no fault to be had.
But Joey… I risked everything for this, for her, for us. And I don’t want anything to make it meaningless. I don’t want anything to make it cheap or tawdry or a mistake. I don’t want there to be a second of our being together that she might look back at and wonder what the hell she was thinking. I don’t want her to regret me.
So that’s why it’s like this. That’s why, every morning, I wake up with a hard-on so intense I want to cry. That’s why I set my alarm to go off a few minutes early…so that I have time to get off before my day is supposed to begin.
What’s so funny about it all is that, on the boat, which everyone assumes was just this non-stop battle to resist our baser impulses, sex wasn’t even really an issue. We decided at the outset that we wanted to spend the time getting to know one another and leave everything else behind, and after that, it was easy. Sure there were moments, but most of the time we were busy working the boat, working for cash or docking privileges or just learning who we were and who we were together, that sex wasn’t that big an issue.
Sounds ridiculous, I know. But it’s also true.
But now that we’re back home, we have the luxury of spending time together when there’s nothing to do but kiss and touch and feel. And so every night, while Gretchen’s at work, Joey’s over here and she’s on top of me and she’s kissing me. And whenever it gets to be too much for her, she pulls away and it’s over for the night. And while she walks into the living room to turn on the television, I take a few thousand deep breaths, try and get my cock to stay in my pants, and push my boiling libido back into hiding.
I don’t regret that I have to do it, mind you. It’s just getting harder. No pun intended.
~**~
The noise from the television filled the room, although it did nothing to feel the silence between them. Joey sat at one end of the couch, casting glances over at Pacey in the flickering light. "You’re not mad, are you?"
He shook his head, turning to give her a smile. "No, Joey. I’m not mad."
"You know that it’s not that I don’t want…"
"I know." He reached over and grabbed her hand, pulling her closer to him. She snuggled up against his shoulder, her hand running soft patterns over his shirt. "You’re not ready. And I told you I’d wait."
"How long?"
"As long as it takes." He kissed the top of her head, raising one hand to stroke her hair. "As long as you need. Until you’re ready. And lots of other cliches."
"Wow, you did learn something in English this week, didn’t you?" She looked up to smile at him, glad to see his eyes shining down, full of mischief. "Did I tell you about the lady at the clinic?"
"Nope." He settled back and pulled her even closer against him.
"She was kind of scary. Threw out all these statistics. Sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancies, that sort of thing." Joey shrugged. "Then she asked me if you were monogamous."
"You didn’t tell her about my harem, did you?"
"I figured she’d know. I mean, is there a girl in Capeside you haven’t had some sort of sexual dalliance with?"
"Um…" Pacey tilted his head. "Let me think…"
Joey slapped him and shook her head. "Anyway, Romeo. It made me realize that it’s not just about being in love or being excited. It’s about all these other things, consequences and changes. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah."
"Really?" She cocked an eyebrow and pulled away from him so that she could see his face.
"Yeah." Pacey looked slightly hurt as he shrugged. "You don’t think I’ve thought about all those things? After Tamara, I went and got tested for HIV. With Tamara and Andie both, I made sure that we used birth control. What?" His eyes narrowed at her skeptical look. "You think I just rushed in there, pants around my ankles and didn’t care about what might happen?"
Joey watched as he got off the couch and headed for the kitchen. "That’s not what I meant, Pacey."
"No?" He turned and looked at her, obviously upset. "What did you mean then, Jo? Because I’m a guy I’m not responsible enough to take precautions? Because I’m just a teenager I don’t care about the woman I’m having sex with? I’m just in it for my own pleasure?"
"No."
"You think that if I had sex with you that I wouldn’t care about whether or not you were enjoying yourself? You think I would only care long enough to get what I wanted?"
"That’s not…" Pacey turned and disappeared into the kitchen, effectively ending the argument. Joey climbed off the couch and walked slowly to the door. "I didn’t meant to hurt you. I wasn’t implying any of those things. I just…I’m scared, Pacey."
"There’s nothing to be scared about, Joey." He still wouldn’t face her. "When you come to me and tell me you’re ready, we’ll be together. Not one second before. I told you I wouldn’t pressure you, and I meant it. I told you that you would call the shots on this, and that still holds true."
"What if I don’t trust myself to make the right decision? What if I don’t know when it’s right? What if…what if you get tired of waiting?"
"Joey, any decision is the right one. If you decide you want to wait until you’re married to have sex, it’s the right decision for you." He turned finally, his grin small but impish. "Although I’m thinking that if you decide that, we should line up a preacher pretty soon."
"Pacey."
"Seriously," he continued. "Whatever you decide, it’s right for you. We can wait. We can have sex now. We might never have sex. I’m not with you to have sex with you."
She pouted softly. "No?"
He shook his head and walked forward until he was standing directly in front of her, his hand tilting her chin up so that he could look into her eyes. "I’m with you because I love you. And yes, I’d like that to evolve into a sexual relationship at some point, but I’m not going to hate you if it doesn’t. I want to be with you, Joey. However you’ll have me."
Tears sparkled in her eyes for a moment before she closed them, rising onto tiptoe to brush a kiss across his lips. "I love you too, Pacey."
"Now," he kissed her softly then pulled back. "Shall we finish watching TV?"
~**~
I feel like I’m being unfair. Like I’m asking him to perform some Herculean effort by asking him to wait. I know how I feel when we stop kissing. I ache. My stomach is tight and there’s a harsh tingling between my legs. I want to go further. Whenever I’m with him, I want to say damn the consequences and everything else and take the next step.
But then I get scared.
Not by the things that I’ve heard or stuff that people say or the statistics that are out there. Mostly I get scared that once he’s been with me, I won’t be enough anymore. Not that that justifies teasing him. I feel him beneath me when we’re kissing. I feel how it affects him, how much he wants me, and I know that he loves me. But I find myself wondering if he loves me enough.
How unfair am I to him in that thought? Not just by asking him to wait until a day that may never come, but by not trusting in his love. It’s not his reputation either. Some people might think that it is. Some people might think that because Pacey’s always been the…more sexually active of our group, that he’s a love ‘em and leave ‘em type. But I know that’s not the case.
He stood by Miss Jacobs when the trouble came. And he loved Andie so much. He stuck by her through everything too. So I have no reason to doubt his love or his loyalty.
Maybe it’s me. What if sex isn’t what I want it to be? What if it’s scary and hard and painful and it ruins everything we have that’s good. What if I don’t like it and he does? What if he wants more from me than I can give him? What if it ruins what I love about us by making it about something else?
Sex should be an extension of our relationship. I’m scared it will become all of our relationship. I’m scared that once we start having sex, we won’t be able to go back to just being what we are now. Because I love what we are now. I love having a boyfriend that supports me and trusts me and loves me and touches me the way that Pacey does.
I’m scared. Scared that I’ll disappoint him, even if I do say yes. Scared that, when all is said and done, he’s going to stop loving me the way he does, the way I need him to. And the most horrible thing of all, is that I’m afraid that that might happen, whether I have sex with him or not.
~**~
"So?"
Joey looked up at Jen as she sat down at the table next to her. "So…what?"
"Did you go?"
"Go where?"
"All the way." Jen rolled her eyes. "To the clinic."
"Oh. Yeah. Thanks."
"And?"
Joey closed the textbook she had open in front of her and shook her head. "No, I didn’t jump Pacey’s bones the second I got home."
"Good."
"Good?"
"Yeah," Jen unwrapped her sandwich. "Good for you."
"Really?"
"Yeah." She laughed and took a bite. After she was finished with it, she smiled. "I told you to go the clinic because you needed to know what you were getting into. Sex isn’t just about consummating that all-important teenage love. It can be about lots of things. Not all of them good. And knowing is, as they say, half the battle."
"Have you been watching those pregnancy videos in health class again?"
"Something like that." Jen took a sip of her drink. "How’d Pacey take the news?"
"Well, I didn’t come out and tell him that I went. It sort of came up though." Joey chewed her bottom lip. "I told him that I still wasn’t ready."
"And how did he react?"
"Surprisingly mature."
Jen raised an eyebrow. "Surprisingly? I think, when it comes to sex, Pacey’s probably the most mature one of us around." At Joey’s look she continued. "When the whole Miss Jacob thing happened, he took the entire fall himself. He didn’t expect her to confess her affair with him, because he knew it would destroy her life. Maybe he hoped for a different result in the end, but I think he handled the way it turned out far better than most kids his age would have."
"Most kids his age wouldn’t have been screwing their teachers."
"True," Jen admitted. "So we’ll take Andie. Maybe they had sex too soon, and having it thrust into the limelight by Abby probably didn’t help, but they stuck together. And he helped her a lot through everything that happened after."
"What about you?"
"Me." Jen nodded sadly. "I was afraid we’d get around to that."
"Well, casual sex pacts tend to stick in one’s memory."
"I can’t really speak for Pacey in this, since all I really know is what he told me, what we decided on. Which was that love mucks everything up, but sex is nice." Jen grinned. "Which it is."
"That’s not helping his case much."
"But I think the reason that Pacey thought love mucks everything up might have been because he was starting to fall for his best friend’s…er…you."
"So you were diversionary tactics?"
"Whether he knew it or not."
"What do you mean?"
"I don’t know if Pacey knew he was falling in love with you then. I don’t know anything for sure, but I think he had some inkling that he was getting to the point of no return and he wanted to head himself off at the pass. It didn’t work. Having your mind on someone other than the person you’re supposed to be sleeping with tends to be a bit of a…" Jen broke off at Joey’s look. "What is that?"
"What?"
"That look. Why that look?"
"It’s stupid. And you’ll yell at me."
"If it’s what I think it is, the answer would be ‘you bet your ass I will’. Tell me this isn’t about Dawson, Joey."
"It’s not about Dawson." Joey managed to meet Jen’s eyes. "Not really."
"It shouldn’t be about him at all."
"It’s just…all my life, I expected to be…for my first time to be with him."
Jen shoved her lunch tray away. "Tell me you’re kidding. Tell me that you’re just messing with my head and you don’t really mean to dredge all that up. Tell me you’re so far past Dawson he’s like a dark spot on your rear-view mirror."
"I told him…when we got into town…" Joey’s voice seemed to shrink as she hunched her shoulders in an effort to avoid Jen’s angry gaze. "Everyone was asking if Pacey and I had…but he never asked."
"So you told him?" Jen’s voice was dangerous and laced with sadness. "Tell me you didn’t tell him, Joey."
"Not in so many words."
"But you told him." Both girls looked up and turned at Pacey’s deep voice. He was standing behind them, obviously listening. His blue eyes were dark and hurt, but he managed a smile. "Enough that he would know that you’d saved yourself for him. Saved yourself from my sinister clutches, huh, Jo?"
"Pacey…"
"It’s okay." He held up his hand. "I was going to join you, but I just remembered I’m late for class."
Joey watched him walk away, her heart tight in her chest. "Oh God."
~**~
I should have fucking known. That’s what I keep telling myself all the way to wherever the fuck I’m going. I don’t even know anymore. Someplace that no one’s likely to look for me. Especially my…girlfriend. God, the word even sticks in my throat, my mind. Especially since she had the fucking audacity to mock my ability to be monogamous while she’s making what should have been ours be about Dawson.
I don’t know who I fucking hate more right now. Her for lying to me, for assuring me that we were making our own world without Dawson while he was in her head all the time, or him for being her self-described fucking soulmate and expecting us to all believe in the concept without question, or me for being so stupid as to believe that I ever stood a chance.
She gave me hope by choosing me, and I was stupid enough to believe that maybe it meant something more than just a summer excursion down the Atlantic coast. I wanted to believe in her, in us and in doing so I forgot the most important thing.
She’s his. Always has been, always will be.
~**~
"Is Pacey here?" Joey pushed open the door of the B&B and rushed over to Bessie. "Tell me he’s here, okay?"
"I haven’t seen Pacey at all today." She gave her sister a quick glance. "What’s wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Joey."
Joey tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling, barely able to stop the tears that threatened to overflow. "I screwed up."
Bessie moved over to her sister and wrapped her arm around her shoulders, guiding her toward the table. "What happened?"
"I was talking to Jen…about everything that I’ve been thinking and dealing with lately. And I said some stuff that Pacey overheard."
"I thought you said Pacey understood that you weren’t ready."
"He did. He does." Joey rubbed her eyes, brushing the tears away. "He understood that sex was a big step for me, for us, and he was willing to wait."
"So what’s the problem?"
"He thinks I’m waiting for him to be Dawson."
"What?" Bessie leaned forward to stare at her little sister. "What did you say?"
"I screwed everything up," Joey admitted with a soft cry, her tears finally gaining control and running down her cheeks. "I ruined it."
"Pacey loves you, Jo. I’m sure that you guys can work it out."
"You don’t understand, Bessie." Joey got up from the table and moved over to the sink, unwilling to face her sister. "Dawson is Pacey’s biggest fear. He’s afraid that he doesn’t mean as much to me, that I’m going to run back to Dawson, that I don’t love him like I love…loved Dawson. He’s been held up to Dawson’s example so many times in his life that he just expects to come out as the loser. Until me. He said that when I picked him, it changed everything and he was so afraid that everything was going to come crashing down. And even knowing how he felt, how scared he was, I still told Jen…"
Bessie got up and held Joey as she cried. "It’s okay, Jo."
"I told Jen that I told Dawson that I was still a virgin. And I told her that in the back of my mind, I still always kind of expected Dawson to be my first…and Pacey overheard all that."
"Oh, Joey." Bessie hugged her tighter then pulled away from her, forcing Joey to meet her gaze. "Oh honey, I’m sorry. But…can I ask you something?" Joey nodded and Bessie thought for a moment. "What you told Jen, was it the truth?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you imagine Dawson as your first? Is he who you want to have that experience with? Because if that’s how you feel, sweetie, then you haven’t done anything wrong." Bessie gave her a small smile. "It’s okay to not want Pacey to be the one."
"I…I’m going to go to my room," Joey finally said softly, pulling away from Bessie’s grip. "If Pa…if Pacey calls, promise you’ll get me? I have to talk to him."
Bessie nodded, reassuring her. "I promise."
~**~
I know he won’t call. I looked every place I could think of for him, every place I thought he might be. I even poked my head into the strip club and looked around, but he wasn’t there. I called all our friends, his family, the hospital, the police station…and he wasn’t anywhere to be found. The only place I didn’t try was Dawson’s. Maybe I should have, but I knew he wouldn’t go there.
I even checked the docks to see if his father’s boat had been taken out. I was so afraid that he might have gone out to where "True Love" sank and…
I didn’t think anything could hurt this bad. I didn’t think I could hurt someone as much as I hurt him. He hid it so well, except for his eyes. His eyes were black with pain. I’ve seen them that black before, with passion and with regret, but never with pain like this. Even when I told him at the Leery’s wedding that I couldn’t choose, he didn’t look so lost. Maybe that’s because then he expected me to choose Dawson.
And this time he didn’t.
I haven’t. I swear that. It’s not that I want to have sex with Dawson. I don’t even really think about him that way, not anymore. And sex was never the biggest part of our relationship. I mean, it was really the first for us both and we were testing all the waters. And when I dated Jack, he and I got closer than Dawson and I ever did. Even with the extenuating circumstances.
It’s just this reflex I seem to have when it comes to Dawson. He’s been in my life for so long, such an important part of it, that I don’t know how to view a situation without thinking of his reaction, his interpretation, his…
I never wanted Pacey to know that Dawson was in my thoughts, because now that he knows, he’ll see him everywhere. Any lapse of interest or attention and he’ll assume that I’m thinking about Dawson. And even if I deny it, he’ll think that he’s right.
And he’ll never trust me again.
~**~
Joey walked into the school, feeling the aching loneliness from not having Pacey at her side. It was like a physical pain, being without him, but she managed to smile at everyone she knew, ignoring their quizzical looks. She looked up just before she got to her locker, her heart leaping at the sight of him, leaning back against it. "Pacey."
He ignored the breathless sigh and nodded. "Potter."
"I need to talk to you."
"I’m studying through lunch, so I won’t be around. I just wanted to let you know."
"Walk me to class?" Her voice was thin with desperation, her eyes pleading to him for understanding. "Please?"
"Sure." He didn’t look at her as she gathered her books and moved beside him, taking his hand in hers instinctively. He flinched at her grip but didn’t remove it as they walked down the corridor. "And I have class after school. You work?"
"Yeah."
"Right. Well, I suppose I won’t see you until tomorrow then."
"Pacey?" She stopped and turned him to face her. He wouldn’t meet her eyes, instead looking down at his chest. "Can’t we talk about this? We need to fix it."
"There’s nothing to fix, is there, Joey?" He shook his head, still not looking at her. "When I said I’d wait for you, I was working under the impression that we were both headed toward the same thing."
"We are…"
"With the same people." He lifted his head, looking over her. "But that’s not the case, so I don’t think there’s anything to talk about anymore."
"I love you."
The words hit him like punches, forcing Pacey to wince. "I love you too, Potter." His voice broke and he pulled his hand away from hers. "I’ll talk to you later."
"Tonight, Pacey."
He turned away and jogged down the hallway, never agreeing to her words.