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November Rain

Rating: R for language and sexual innuendo. Summary: Dawson reflects on his love life and his great friendships. This contains some tiny spoilers. _____________________________________________________________ When I turned thirteen, the birthday I got my first camera, I told my dad I was ready for a girlfriend. Me? Ready? Ha. Girls are my downfall. Just when I think it's going okay, it sharply swings around and hits me in the face.

But man.I have had some incredible times with incredible women, and I know how lucky I am. I guess I've come a long way from little fourteen-year-old oompa loompa, with my crush on my friend's elder sister Gretchen (who I did eventually make out with) and then that sixteen-year-old teenager with the raging hormones, trying to cop more of a feel of my best friend (Joey's) breast. She always slapped me away saying she didn't want things to get out of hand. She's got beautiful breasts.I love them, I loved kissing them, and yeah she did eventually let me touch them but not before screwing my other best friend. (Which I am completely over. Really.)

And I've come a long way from eighteen-year-old Dawson, the boy verging on man, hurting Joey, mourning my father, losing my virginity to Jen, trying to find my place in the world, feeling lost.and then the nineteen-year-old man-whore, two sexual relationships in one summer, the lying, Joey, Natasha.now, she was wild.

I should have never gotten involved with her.

But she was irresistible, and I was always a sucker to sexy women, and.sex. Sex is put on a high pedestal, after making movies. I don't take it lightly, I don't screw around, I don't throw sex away or just fuck for the sake of fucking. I do try to have as much of it as I can, however.and sometimes that can get me into trouble. Or when I wanted it, which got me into trouble as well.

It all started when I was eighteen. An eighteen-year-old virgin, pathetic. I never told anyone, only my closest friends knew, because they liked to stick their noses into my non-existent love life back then. Or else they were an ex-girlfriend and knew anyway.

It finally happened with Jen on a weekend away, and damn it was good. She was my.instructor if you will. She just showed me what to do, I did it, and we were both happy. It's kinda funny. I always pictured it to be with Joey.especially after we kissed. But Jen was my first girlfriend, and at the time.it just seemed right. Joey and I were in different worlds. I think deep down I wanted her. But like a lot of my decisions, this was clouded by what was happening around me.not including her link to my father. My love for Joey was more overpowering then just a basic sexual urge.it went much deeper, entangled with my father's death. When I finally let my father go, I saw Joey again. Boy did I see her.

I think I did love Jen. The thing is, the attraction wore down. The sex was still good right up to the end, but there was nothing but a strong mutual friendship and support between us. We weren't in love. And let me tell you, the sex is mind blowing when you're in love. Absolutely out of this world.

Ahem.

I met Amy at a Critics night. Sparky, brunette, tall, sexy: we didn't hit it off at first, but then isn't that what starts those memorable one- nighters? She was a milestone for me. She was a much older woman, and my second lover. Like the second kiss, the second lover is.rational. You think about it. And even then, it's still nerve wracking. And ego boosting. I'm not going to say much except I must have done.well, you know, Isomething/I right. All in all it was a great memory.one of those things that only happens in movies, and I got to experience it. Even if she only slept with me because she liked my shoes.

Joey and I kissed after that, when she finally found out I was still.hot for her, in a word (or three.) It was a tender kiss, a kiss full of promise. And like I told her, during the summer I felt everything would be okay. I had.dreams about her for a few weeks there, if you catch my drift. I had images of her.naked, lying on my bed, or lying on me.

And then I met Natasha.

Not many words can describe how I wished I could reverse everything.wish I didn't have to have met such a girl.

But Joey 3000 miles away.we were separated not only by Middle America but also by an entire lifetime of regrets, fights, and betrayal. We didn't even talk that summer. I know she had a boyfriend for a short time in that period, so we were equal, in some respects. I don't know if her relationship was sexual. I don't want to know. Even though I was with Natasha, it made my throat tighten, my jaw lock, my eyes see red when I thought about Joey and that slime ball, Eddie. I hated him, not just for being Joey's boyfriend after me, but for being there to pick up the pieces, oh-so-conveniently. I should have seen then I was still in love with her. Of course I was. And I was jealous and furious with every guy she met after that.

No shit it wasn't fair of me. I like to think I do the right thing most of the time.but it's hard to do itI all/I the time. I'm paying for it, though.

I wasn't good to either Natasha or Joey. Natasha and I jumped into our relationship. She was amazing.feisty, independent, and beautiful. She really liked me, I really liked her. We clicked, not just with our minds but also sexually. With Natasha I exposed a part of me I hadn't known before.a mature, energetic, experienced guy who seemed almost a stranger, but a guy I liked, and a guy I became.

And then I made love to Joey only a day and discovered something more. An almost disturbing sexuality was hidden in Joey, and I think I enticed it out of her that evening. We said things and did things to each other I hadn't even known we were capable of. I woke up the next morning and was hit with remorse.over lying to Joey, of being with Natasha at all. I should have known it was over with Joey and I that split second.but I didn't. We had sex twice more: the first time we slipped dreamily into it, moving as if in an erotic dream. The second time was better-it was broad daylight, anyone could have walked in and she was wearing absolutely nothing whilst I was fully clothed.it was wilder, passionate sex, right there on her dorm bed, where we'd been only hours before, innocently talking about birthdays and being there for each other.

During the sex we became different people, or maybe we were the same people, and we were just unlocking each other. She was so sensitive.her skin reacted the moment I touched her, her nipples hard, her thighs wet.I was uncontrollable with her that night, unstoppable. I sometimes look back and wonder if that really was me with her, making frantic love to the girl I had dreamed about for so long.

It was intense.

I"Maybe we're just two old friends who made a horrible mistake."/I

I wanted to tear my eyes out when she said it. I felt as though she'd ripped my heart out, and thrown it across the room, and I could see it, the red muscle, slipping down the white tiles, blood dripping all over the floor. She hurt me.she hurt me too much, and I hurt her. But she just wanted the chase.didn't she? That's all she cared about! I hated her for that, and at the same time, in that sick ten minutes, the worse time of my life so closely tangled with the best, I wanted to grab her and fuck her, across the bench, on the wall, I didn't care, I just wanted her again. I didn't understand myself. it had to finish.it had to be over. And so just like that, it was.

There were a number of women after Joey: Natasha and I dated for time. I think I did fall in love with her, and we were happy, for a short while, anyway. A couple of other actresses, a lawyer when I was twenty-two and living in L.A followed.

Pacey and I, in our drunken stupors upon his boat, would talk about how many women (or 'birds' as Todd called them) we'd had, and who stuck out in our memories. His sex drive was enviable, but I was close behind. He'd mourn about Jen, who he had a thing for. She had cut him short, which I understood.not a good thing to get involved with close friends. She'd been down that road better not be traveled.

Pacey would move on shortly though. He even hooked up with his old girlfriend, Andie, for one evening. Pacey and I grew closer for some reason. I always thought we'd drift apart.but we didn't. I think our ties were just too strong.

I wouldn't be surprised if we were still sailing or playing basketball together when we are eighty with false teeth and snow-white hair. He'd tell me everything, and cook for me, with Jack or Jen or both on some nights. Old friends, coming together now and then for a good talk. He'd tell me he was disappointed and insecure with Joey not only because she seemed angry with him, but because he couldn't.you know.satisfy her. In that way. "We were very attracted to each other. And there was this.love. But when we got down to it, the sex.it just couldn't measure up sometimes." I used to think he and Joey might reunite, and maybe they might have, but I made it my business not to know. By then Joey and I at least talked and had eye contact.

By now, none of that 'high school hog wash' as Pacey put it, mattered to us. We talked about it openly. Apparently Audrey was brilliant at giving blowjobs. I could believe that. It sucked what happened between those two; I always thought she was perfect for him. She married Tom Hanks son (I always thought he was a little nerdy but, whatever, he's Tom Hanks son) on her twenty-third birthday in Vegas.

And apparently Emma was the first girl he'd.eh I'm not going to repeat that. He and Emma were wild for a bit, but then the weirdest thing happened. Pacey rang me one night, from his mobile. I thought someone had been killed: "Dawson? Bad news."

I almost fucking pissed myself. Not again, I swore. Not again. Joey? It was Joey! I shot up. I could barely let out, "What?" when Pacey continued.

"I.got someone pregnant."

Oh.

Ohhh no. It got worse:

"Jen."

I think I fell off my chair, I'm not sure. All I remember is threatening to stick Pacey's head up his own ass so he could brush his teeth from the inside, and then I calmed down.

"We're not sure about.you know.getting rid of it. We don't know. I just thought." he paused. I ask him if they'd talked through it, and how it happened.

"It was going to happen eventually."

"Maybe you.care about her more than either of you think?" I hinted. Silence. A sigh, and then he said, "Whatever we do.it'll be okay, won't it?"

What do you say to that? I just said yes, it was their choice. When he hung up I thought about it, as I stared at the scripts in front of me, and a half opened box of Thai. My girlfriend wafted out of the bathroom with a skimpy robe on. I wondered what would happen if that was me: if that could happen to me.

What would I do?

Jen had an abortion a few weeks later. I'll never know what it was like for Pacey and Jen, because I wasn't there. It must have been so weird, so horrible. When I next saw them they seemed fine, though, and affectionate. He'd tousle her hair; she'd shove him away by the butt. They'd go on walks together, and would talk for hours. I think Joey sometimes felt left out, as if they shared something she and Pacey never had.which they did.

Maybe this is what capitulated her towards me again. I didn't want to get caught up with her again, but it happened so slowly, so indifferently, it hardly mattered. She'd sneak into my bed on weekends away and we'd play footsie-or, she'd play footsie-until we fell asleep. We'd then have long meaningless conversations in the mornings over coffee or juice. We'd go out to bars with some friends of mine and friends of hers, or just alone, and get drunk, play rounds of pool and dance. We became what we weren't for so long-just friends. Audrey got used to finding me in her or Joey's bed in their shared apartment-she said she liked sleeping with me, (Pacey had looked thoroughly alarmed the first time he heard this) because I was warm. Oookay.

Joey and I did make love a few (more) times when we were young-after college. It was bound to happen. We sometimes shared a bed, so one night we shared a shower. Natural progression.right?

One night was particularly memorable. After a couple of glasses of wine at my mother's house one Christmas Eve, I had offered to drive her home to Bessie's. She had insisted we walk despite the cold wind, and we set off, snug in coats.

However, we didn't get far down an isolated patch of grass by a creek before Joey had kissed her way down my chest, and then I realized my jeans were being unzipped. I thought my dick might have frozen off if she hadn't warmed it.and warmed it she did. I had taken her after that, right there on the half frozen lawn, my hands clutching at her breasts as she gasped and moaned in desperation, wanting more and more until we both broke. It was intensity not equaled since the time we first made love in her dorm room. And it was a time not to be repeated too soon, she told me firmly the next day. Sure. Whatever.isn't that what she said the last time?

We fucked in the ocean after that.

As always, we were torn apart again, by separate coasts, by separate futures, it was the tune of our lives. I realize now we were so much in love we could hurt each other-and so we did, despite being as normal as we could conceive. In reality we shied away from the responsibility of a relationship.

I've had the most legendary friendships a guy could ask for, socialized with rich and famous (assholes) slummed it with the scrapers, been around the world, had weird, stimulating conversations with people like Steven Soderbough and Sam Mendes, made love to beautiful women. But for me, only one mattered, and there was only one I had truly loved.

I'm twenty-six years old, and Joey and I are going out tonight.

THE END