THE FIRST TIME
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - DAZED AND CONFUSED
Been dazed and confused
For so long, it's not true
LED ZEPPELIN (From the album "Led Zeppelin" (1969))
After weeks of confusion over where exactly he stood, Pacey had decided to man up and do what he´d wanted to the day after it happened: Find out how Joey felt, when it came to them getting down and dirty in the storeroom of "Screen Time", almost a month earlier. He´d tried to beat around the bush on the subject, in the hope that she would bring it up, so he didn´t have to. Seeing as that hadn´t worked, he´d now brought her down to the place, where their relationship had forever changed, to both get a romantic excursion with her out of it and find out precisely where he stood.
"Remember this place?" he asked her with a gleam in his eyes, that almost matched that of hers.
"It rings a bell. Right over there was where we came back onto shore, after you´d lost us our boat" she said, while pointing over to where they´d waded onto land on the day of their first kisses.
"Right here on this spot, is where I found out that I like you" he told her, as he brought her over to where the Wagoneer had been parked and he´d almost gotten a glimpse of Joey topless in the rearview mirror.
"I can say the same back to you" she replied through a sweet smile, in what sounded like an earnest tone to him.
"I can´t say that I´d planned on kissing you that day. I´m glad that I did, though".
"You don´t think, I am? Pacey, these past months, it´s been like ... have you ever had that feeling, that life just can´t get better? I mean, of course there are parts of my life that could be. Like I´d wish that my dad wasn´t in jail, for one thing, or that I didn´t have to wear hand-me-down clothes from Bessie, when she was my age, until there´s practically nothing left to hold them together, because new clothes is a luxury that´s only afforded to us in cases of emergency, if it isn´t the occasional birthday or Christmas present. What I´m trying to say through my endless rambles I guess, is that practically every day with you has been as if I´m living in some wonderful dream, that I never want to wake up from. Don´t think anything else, please!" she told him while still smiling, although it was with a slight look of worry too, that didn´t sit well with him.
"There is something, isn´t there? I knew that we should have waited, Jo! Look, I´m so sorry, if you feel like I´ve pressured you into doing something, you´re not ready for! If I did, then I never meant to, I swear!" he exasperatedly got out, in the thought that this could be the moment, where it all began to go downhill for him. Joey (for some strange reason, that he couldn´t quite understand) looked kind of relieved, though.
"Pacey, if this is about ... that evening, and I don´t think need to spell out which one it is to you, it´s perfectly fine! It took two of us to go that far, remember?"
"You´re really okay with it? Joey, I´ve been worried sick that the reason why we haven´t moved beyond kissing since that evening, was because you regretted it!"
"I don´t, it was just ... perhaps a case of too much, too soon for me. I mean, it´s not like I didn´t like it, because I really, really did! Believe me, Pacey, if this was a taste of what the real deal will be like with you someday, I´m looking forward to it like a little kid who´s counting down the days before Christmas! What I´m trying to say it that you´ll have to be patient with me. Is that okay?" she asked with such hope in those beautiful blue eyes, that the only answer it felt right to give her, was the kiss of her life up to that point.
"Okay, firstly: Wow! Secondly, you´re really fine with us taking this in baby steps?" she gaspingly asked, while trying to catch her breath after their long smooch.
"Actually, I think it could turn out to be an advantage for me" he said, as her brow furrowed in confusion.
"You´ve lost me! Isn´t having sex what all boys your age dream of doing?" she asked, and now he had to laugh.
"Some of us, but not all of us! Let me explain".
"Please do!"
"Some guys my age just want to try it and don´t care much, who it´s with. I want it to be special not only for myself, but just as much for the girl, I´m with. And let´s face it, I´m still a rookie, when it comes to what gets girls off! Honestly Jo, I just tried moves on you, that I remember reading about in some old Penthouse magazine, Dawson and I happened to find lying on a park bench years ago. If it was great for you, I´m both glad and feeling slightly more manly than usual, but you should know that it was more or less by pure luck!" he truthfully told her and now she couldn´t help laughing a little either.
"Whatever works, right?" she jokingly replied, and at the same time easing the tension within him.
"Before we get that far, I need to have worked up a back-up plan, in case my first plan doesn´t work".
"Basically, things that you can do to get me off, in case I don´t have an orgasm from having sex with you. Am I getting that right?"
"If we went all the way now, sure, I´d know how the basics work, I´d just pretty much know nothing more than that. You deserve to have the complete package and as much as I love to be your first, I still have to move up from where I´m at now, to at least where I don´t feel like I´m a fumbling amateur anymore" he honestly confessed, as she pulled him in for a tight and warm hug.
"In that case, we´d better schedule an intense practice session for you in the immediate future! You´re a pretty incredible boyfriend, you know that?" she teasingly asked and it didn´t take many moments for that most welcome feeling of pride, to start rising up within his innards.
"You aren´t too bad yourself, Potter. How´s the whole Abby living with you guys going, anyway?"
"You won´t believe, what´s happened!" she answered while rolling her eyes, making him all the more curious to find out.
It wasn´t like Joey didn´t want everyone else to be as happy, as she was. Cynical as she could be and knowing that such a thing as universal happiness only exists in Disney movies, there was still a childish part of her that wanted to believe, that everyone was fine and there were no problems in the world. She was just finding it a little hard to feel the same way when it came to Abby, now that the other girl was seriously invading her personal space! And not only that, was being accepted into her family, like she´d always been a part of it.
Bessie, as it was expected, wasn´t exactly on board with the idea of one more soul helping to occupy what little space, they had in their house. After Joey had explained the situation to her however, Bessie had agreed to allow Abby to stay temporarily until she could find somewhere else to live. This was what Joey had thought would happen too, when she´d made Abby the offer to stay with them, only now it looked like she was starting to nest on the old fold-out bed, their Neighbor'd had sitting in his attic for years and they´d set up in the living room. The one thing she had been worried about was whether Abby would get along with everyone, but not even that was looking like it would be an issue. Alexander had taken to her practically at first sight, she already knew that Bodie liked everyone who was nice back to him and maybe it was just her own paranoid thoughts, but it seemed like Abby was bringing out an overly nice side of Bessie, when they were together, that Bessie would then dish back in extra anger onto herself.
"The entire evening, Bessie didn´t argue back with Abby once! Not a single time! That just doesn´t happen!" she complained to Dawson, whose bed she was sitting on and was lending a friendly ear to her while he was searching for his copy of "Single White Female", that she´d asked him to bring home from the video store for the occasion.
"Would you rather have them at each other´s throats all of the time?" he asked back, only half listening and clearly more interested in finding the tape, he´d somehow managed to misplace.
"It would be nice, if they could just argue now and then, like me and Bessie do! She´s never going to leave, I just know it and then, I´ll be forced to live with her, until that blessed day, where I leave for college! Either that or until I convince Pacey to steal a boat and sail away with me, I still haven´t decided which yet!"
"You don´t think that buying one would be easier?"
"I love the guy to bits, but it is Pacey we´re talking about here! I´d like to keep my fantasies just a little bit realistic!" she pouted, but it only made him smile to himself and not only over finding, what he´d been looking for underneath a dirty pair of jeans on the floor.
"Is this new houseguest of yours also why you suddenly felt like paying me a visit, after we´ve barely hung out alone since you hooked up with Pacey?" he replied, while clearly doing his best to hide a hint of jealousy in his tone.
"I´ve just been too busy to hang out all that much, you know that. Anyway, I´m not the only one, who´s been sidetracked by romance lately! How are things going with you and mousy girl?" she asked, knowing already what the answer would be. From the time they´d become a couple, Dawson and Mary-Beth had seemed to her like a match, that just made perfect sense. Both were kind of shy, when it came to opposite sex, both of them highly intelligent, though not in the emotional sense yet and both of them came from protected upbringings, where very little bad had ever happened to either of them, save for the occasional loss of an elderly family member or something like that.
"Moving very slowly along. My grades have improved, since we started studying together, so that´s something, I suppose".
"She´s just not into ... getting physical yet, is that it?" she curiously asked him and from the look of him, he was trying not to be annoyed with it, just not doing a very good job at it.
"We´re still firmly entrenched on the first square on the Monopoly board, after the starting point. I´d rather not talk about it with you, if you don´t mind".
"Why not? We used to be able to talk about everything".
"That was before we were both in romantic relationships. If you ask me, those things are better kept as private, as we can keep them. I don´t want to know how far you and Pacey have gone, just like you deep down don´t want to hear about my romantic escapades".
"You aren´t a little bit curious?"
"The wideness of Pacey´s goofy smile after you´ve made out, is usually a good indicator and about as much, as I feel the need to know on the subject. You have Jen to share all that stuff with now, or perhaps even Abby, if you give her a chance. We can still talk about every other subject known to man, there´s just a natural gender dividing boundary there that´s come around with age and we can´t do anything about".
As much as she didn´t want to admit it, she knew that he was right.
Usually, Pacey didn´t mind training the new employees at "Screen Time" and with the extremely high turnover in staff on the morning shift (also known as "The Shift of Death" among those working it, since it was deader at the store than the inside of a grave for most of the time), he´d already trained a few of them in his eight months working at the store. Now that the last two working it, a pair of late-teen college dropouts named Debbie and Dan had been fired for having sex with each other on the job, the owner had been desperately scrambling to find a new staff member to fill the vacancy. With them not exactly being the most attractive place of employment around there pay-wise, they had to settle for what they could get. This had led to the hiring of Nicole, a recently turned nineteen-year-old high school drop-out, who fit the bill to a T, for how the hirings at the store usually went. She was extremely lazy, groaned in annoyance whenever she was asked do to any work, only barely paid any attention to what was being taught to her and had started out on her new job by asking if she could leave work an hour early. When she did, Pacey wasn´t sorry to see her leave and made a three to two bet with himself, that they´d never see her again.
The last hour of the shift was for the most part, a tedious affair as far as the weekdays went. On most evenings there would only be a few customers coming in, mostly those who needed to return tapes at the last moment and didn´t want to pay late fees, the next time they wanted to rent a VHS tape. That was the way it had gone too, all according to the usual, until he had only had a few minutes left until closing time and a beautiful blonde girl entered the store.
"Miss Jen Lindley! What brings you around these parts, at this time of the evening?"
"Just returning these. I was hoping that I´d catch you still being open" she replied, after putting a pair of tapes on the counter.
"What have we been watching?" he mumbled to himself, as he opened up the covers and looked over the tapes. "I see that we´re dealing with a John Hughes fan here. "Pretty in Pink" and "St. Elmo´s Fire"?"
"I know, it totally tips the corny scale, but I like watching characters that are more messed up than myself".
"Demi Moore in that second choice certainly fits that bill. Who´s the messed up one in "Pretty in Pink", in your opinion?"
"All of them are, you just have to read between the lines".
"If messed up is what you´re looking for, may I suggest "Kids" or "Less Than Zero" for your next movie choices?"
"I´ll keep those in mind. How it did it go with your trainee tonight?" Jen asked sweetly, with a smile so warm for him, that it could have melted an entire polar ice cap.
"If she turns up for her first day shift tomorrow and that´s a big if, she won´t last half the day. Wanna bet?" he asked back, while flashing her a boyish smile.
"I´ll take your word for it and save my money for something else".
"Don´t your parents have plenty of moolah in the bank?"
"More than they´ll ever need, but now that I´ve become the black sheep of their immediate family, I´m living on a fifty-dollar allowance from them every month. Most of which I spend on food at school. Doesn´t exactly leave much room left for luxuries like an evening out now and again, does it?" she sighed, giving him an idea at the same time.
"You know, Dawson has been wanting to cut down on his hours, now that he has something more important to spend his afternoons on?"
"Something that has the initials M and B?"
"It´ll only be two or three afternoons and evenings a week, but it´ll give you some spending money. Another thing is, wouldn´t it be pretty damn awesome, if you could tell your parents that you got an after-school job and you don´t need their pitifully small allowance anymore?"
Even as he asked it, her smile seemed to widen with every word.
"You really think, you can get me the job? I don´t have any kind of work experience".
"You think, I had any work experience to speak of, when I got hired? All I had on my CV was the paper route I had for two months in grade seven, that I quit on because of a vicious dog on my route, I was afraid would end up biting me! It showed that I had some proper pedaling skills on my bike, but I was starting at the same point, you´ll be. Dawson did too, so trust me Lindley, you´ll do fine! This is an easy job and you´ll either have myself or Dawson here all of the time to teach you anything, you need to know. Say yes, please! Just so I don´t end up having to work more shifts with someone like Nicole, in which case I will end up running screaming away from here sooner or later!" he said half-jokingly, while not hiding that he´d much rather have Jen working there with him, than anyone else he could think of. There was Joey, of course, but it would be hard to keep his hands and lips off her for that long at a time. With Jen there wasn´t that problem, since he (in spite of the almost natural attraction that a guy like him would have for a girl like her, who on top of being kind, beautiful and sweet, also was someone with a psyche very alike to his own) didn´t for the life of him want to do anything with Joey´s friend, that could lead to the girl he loved, hating himself as a result.
"In that case, how can I say no? Do I have to wear one of those employee t-shirts, though? They´re really not all that flattering to look at!"
After having spent most of the evening at Dawson´s and rowing back to her family´s house, all Joey wanted was to go to sleep as fast as she could, and catch some z´s before she had to get up early the day after. When she came in however, she could hear someone watching Letterman in the living room at a low volume. Coming in there, she found Abby lying on her temporary fold-out bed and watching TV.
"Did you have fun with Dawson? Even if such a concept sounds very foreign to me, you´ve seemed to master it over the years" Abby quipped.
"Yeah, I guess. Look, I´ll just ..."
"What if I told you, that I can keep living here and help to contribute to the house finances?" Abby gladly asked, not knowing that she was telling Joey arguably the one thing, she didn´t want to hear at that moment.
"How?"
"I spoke to my dad for the first time in ages today. After I told him how bad it was living for that last while with my mom and how great I´m doing here with you guys, he´s agreed to wire transfer money every month to Bessie´s bank account, to cover for her and Bodie´s expenses in housing me. They´re both cool with it, as long as I help out around the house and cover for you a few times a week at the Icehouse, so you can have more days off to hang out and have fun with Pacey or your other friends. She didn´t think that would be an idea, you´d have the slightest bit against".
"Why would I? You seem to have it all figured out! I guess, congratulations are in order".
"This definitely blows my old living situation out of the water! So, have you told Pacey about France yet?" Abby asked like this was nothing and something, she was supposed to hear about!
"How did you find out?" she asked so angrily, that it made Abby put her hands up in surrender.
"I overheard Bessie and Bodie talking about it. You haven´t told him yet, have you?"
"No, and if I´m not leaving, there´s no reason to ever tell him!".
"Your sister wants you to go. We talked after I´d heard and she told me that she wishes, she´d have seen more of the world, before she became a mom and had to settle down here. She told me about your mom too, and how she would have wanted you to go. You could be living out that fantasy for your sister and honoring your mom´s memory at the same time. You know that, don´t you?"
Joey didn´t know what to say, that didn´t involve Pacey in one way or the other. Was this first love enough to keep her where she was, however? Or was the lure of the grand adventure bigger, than she could begin to stomach?
END OF CHAPTER THIRTEEN