THE FIRST TIME

CHAPTER TEN - SATURDAY NIGHT

Saturday night, dance, I like the way you move

Pretty baby

It's party time and not one minute we can lose

Be my baby

WHIGFIELD (From the album "Whigfield" (1995))

Jen´s evening at Chris Wolfe´s party wasn´t turning out the way, she´d thought it would have. After a few hours of observing Abby´s failed attempts at picking up boys and even striking out with the drunkest of them (something she thought was practically impossible, considering the amount of drunk guys, Abby had hit on and that Abby was kind of a cutie, if she was going to be blunt about it), she´d taken things into her own hands to at least insure that her friend wouldn´t be coming home with nothing, except for a whole lot of massive disappointment and feeling of rejection, still lingering in the back of her mind. If there was one thing the old Jen had been a master at, it was pretending that she enjoyed herself, even when she wasn´t, and at first, that had been her tactic as well. To shower Abby with enough positive thoughts that it would make her feel wanted again, but the more they´d danced and laughed, the more she found herself actually enjoying the party. That she´d managed to get Joey to dance with them, looked like it was starting to make the ice wall between her two friends start to melt a little as well. Just the fact that they were beginning to communicate like a pair of normal girls would, told her that she must have been doing something right, although she had zero clue what she´d done differently from all of the times, she´d tried it before.

"This is going a whole lot better, than I expected it to!" she smilingly told Joey, while the two of them were taking a short break from dancing and Abby was waiting in the long queue to use the bathroom.

"I´m still not entirely sure, that I´ll ever grow to actually like her" Joey told her back.

"As long as you two can get along well enough, that you aren´t at each other´s throats all of the time, I´ll still call the evening a massive success".

"I kind of get the feeling that she likes you, though".

"I certainly hope so!" Jen answered, without following exactly what Joey meant to tell her. "I can´t imagine that we would be friends, if she didn´t".

"I don´t mean "Likes You as a Friend"! I mean, likes you as in the way, Pacey and I like one another" Joey explained, while looking her in the eyes.

"I´m sure, you´re just misreading her signals! After all, you are basically half-boy, and we all know how bad they are at it!" Jen tried to say dismissively, even if she had thought the same to herself, more than a few times during the evening.

"When you think about it, doesn´t it sort of make sense? I don´t remember ever seeing her flirting with a boy, tonight excluded and we´ve both seen plain as day, how little interest she has in making out with any of them. I mean, try putting yourself in her shoes for a second".

"Although, she wears shoes that are half a size smaller than I do, sure, I´ll play along!"

"Here´s Abby, lonely social Pariah with just about worst home-life imaginable and very little to be thrilled over in her life. Then, along comes this girl, who she clicks with, understands her like no one has before and is someone she can see as a spirit, kindred to her own. You can´t tell me, it´s completely unthinkable that she could like you "that way", all things considered now, can you?"

It wasn´t like Jen hadn´t known her share of gays back home and from observing them closely, she´d also become pretty decent at predicting when someone was on the brink of coming out of the closet. One thing she hadn´t tried on the other hand, was having one of them crushing on herself and as much as she´d grown to love Abby, would she be ready to try it for herself? The more she considered it, the more she started to doubt what the answer to that question would be.

"Don´t think of Jen that way! It´ll only lead to yet another unlucky crush for you!" were the words that Abby tried repeating in her head, in order to make herself believe that she could turn her crush on her friend off, all the while knowing with herself that it was probably impossible to. Was it an impossibility, however? From the way Jen had saved her from making even more of a fool of herself, than she already had that evening with all of the boys, she´d (to her own inner relief) struck out with, it was clear to her that she now had the kind of friend, she´d always wished that she would find. Jen cared about her infinitely more than anyone else, save for perhaps Pacey and with how in love up to both ears he very obviously was in Joey, he was all too clearly a no-go.

Compared to her parents (the ones who should, in theory at least, love her unconditionally) Jen was the one who almost constantly showered her with love and affection, whenever they were alone together and along with Pacey the only one, she felt like she could turn to in times of trouble. It sure as hell wasn´t the ones who had created her and either treated her like she didn´t mean Jack to them or like a nuisance, that they couldn´t wait to get rid of.

It didn´t help either how immensely sexy Jen was looking to her in the short and stylish black dress, she was wearing that evening. Even if Abby hadn´t been a little bit drunk to add to it, she still would have found it hard not to stare at Jen´s perfectly sized, perky breasts or those lips, that looked ever more kissable to her, with every sip she took from the beer that was slowly beginning to grow on her as well. They´d already made plans for herself to share Jen´s bed with her after the party and with every song they danced to, the more she had to admit that she was starting to look forward to the after-party in Jen´s room later on.

For the first time since the evening where Pacey had saved her from her own misery, she wasn´t thinking about him at all either and the way she saw it, that could only be seen as a positive.

"If even just one of them is gay, then you have to be accepting of it!" was quickly becoming Joey´s main thought, as she danced her troubles away with Jen and Abby. While she´d never actually known a homosexual person (aside from someone else telling her, that they were), she´d always pictured that if someone she knew was to come out of the closet, then she would be the first one to welcome them with open arms and tell them, that it wouldn´t change anything between them, the way that she felt like a real and proper friend should react to news like that.

Now that she, according to her own theory at least, was coming face to face with it however, she was also to her own disappointment finding out, that practicing what she preached wasn´t as easy, as she thought it would have been. She didn´t want to think it and honestly, she´d never been given any reason to, but what if Abby had been checking out her naked body, when they showered together after P.E.? Or even worse, what if Abby had been picturing it, in the most private of moments?

While she was well aware that some of the guys (mostly those, who she could tell ate her up with their eyes, when she was in class with them) had probably been guilty of it, it still wasn´t the same in her mind, even if it should have been. After all, Abby was a girl her own age, with the same thoughts that she´d had constantly about her own sexual awakening and wanting to find love, so who was she to say that Abby´s thoughts were wrong in any way or that she wasn´t allowed to fantasize about the two of them, doing things to pleasure one another? Fantasies are just that, fantasies, and she knew as well as anyone that what you think about in the heat of the moment isn´t easy to control, no matter how hard you try. If anything, she should be flattered that another fifteen-year-old girl (knowing all too well how ruthless her own gender could be in their appraisals of each other´s looks) thought that she was sexy enough, to enter that girl´s innermost thoughts in the naughtiest of ways. Still, at the same time that thought made her feel uncomfortable in a way, she didn´t want to.

That it was all a moot point until she found out for sure, did little to ease Joey´s mind.

By the time Pacey and his siblings made it down to "The Watering Hole", one of the last of the old dive bars that used to practically line the pier in days past, their dad was so drunk that he could barely stand up and from the looks of the guy behind the bar, he was already far overdue for a kicking out of the premises. As it often happened when he was in that stage of drunkenness too, he´d become confrontational and downright unpleasant to deal with. His victim, who he was telling off for everything he didn´t like about him, was one of the local drunks named Ralph, that he´d in all likelihood had to throw in the drunk tank a time or twenty over the years. On this evening, it looked more like they were on an even playing field however, and Pacey could see from moment one, that Peterson hadn´t been overselling the truth, when he said that it wouldn´t be easy to get his dad out of this state of mind.

"What the hell do you know about anything, Ralph?" they heard him shouting like he didn´t give a damn what anyone in there thought about him. "I´ve given my whole lousy ass life for this town and what do I get in return? Jack fucking shit, that´s what!"

"Jesus Christ, he´s hammered tonight!" Pacey and Doug heard Gretchen whisper to herself, and while Pacey had seen his dad in a sad state before, he also had to admit that this looked like a new low for him.

"This is what I´ve had to deal with every day, since mom kicked him out. Do you want to give it the first try, or shall I?" Doug asked them.

"We´ll do it together. I don´t think any of us can do it on our own" Gretchen replied and while none of them wanted to do this, they also knew that they didn´t have any other choice. Being born a Witter was both a blessing and a curse, often in equal amounts.

"Hi, dad" Gretchen began with and as their dad turned around, he shot her a drunken smile. Even Ralph looked like he´d had enough of him as well, since he used the opportunity to quietly slip out of there.

"If it isn´t my daughter, the hot shot in college! How are you doing, Buttercup?" John got out drunkenly and just hearing their dad call his daughter by his childhood nickname for her, told all of them that he had to be at least a few six-packs deep.

"Not too bad. You?" Gretchen answered and it drew a dry chuckle from her dad.

"Like shit, but what else is new? Did your mom tell you that I´ve fucked everything up so bad, that she couldn´t stand living with my sorry ass anymore? I didn´t think she´d have the balls to, but I guess, hers are bigger than I thought they were. Doug, my son! Did they call you here to arrest me for being a royal pain in the ass?" he grinningly joked and from the look on Doug´s face, this was just about the last conversation, he wanted to have right then and there.

"Something like that. Dad ..."

"And Pacey! My son, who´s dumb as shit and still managed to find himself a decent girl somehow! Do yourself a favor and stay with that one! She´s a lot smarter than you are, that´s for sure! Then again, knowing you, you´ll probably find some way of screwing it up with her".

"That´s enough!" Doug interjected, although it didn´t look like it did much to help with the situation. "Come with me and I´ll take you home, so you can sleep it off and then maybe, you can avoid getting fired in the morning!"

"They can´t fire me until the next election for chief of police. Even if I lose, why should I give a damn, anyway? It isn´t ike the ungrateful jackasses in this town appreciate what I do for them either way, so why the hell I even bother with them, I don´t know!"

It took another hour (that felt like it was five of them) to get John out of there and with all of the insults he´d hurled at anyone, who happened to be within listening distance, Pacey thought to himself that there was no way, his dad could still keep his job after this. He´d seen him hit some depths before, it wasn´t that and to be called all kinds of nasty things by him wasn´t anything new either, but he´d still never seen him sink this low before.

"I guess, I owe Joey thirty bucks now!" Abby joked about her own failed attempts at scoring at the party. After they´d said their goodbyes to Joey, who had to head in the other direction to get home, they´d decided that a long walk to sober up back to Jen´s grandparents´ house, wasn´t the worst idea in the world. Unfortunately, neither of them were wearing shoes fitting for a long walk and for that reason, they were taking a small break halfway.

"It isn´t like she had put a time limit on it. You had fun tonight, didn´t you?" Jen asked and judging from the ear-to-ear smile on Abby´s face, she clearly had.

"Yeah, I did. Thanks to you and crazily enough, Joey too! Whoever would have seen that one coming?" Abby asked her rhetorically and from what Jen could tell, this wasn´t anything she´d minded at all either. After a few seconds of gathering her courage, Jen just had to ask her the question that had been on her mind all evening.

"If I ask you something, will you promise not to get angry with me?"

"Why would I get angry with you? You know that you can always ask me anything".

"It´s just that when I looked at you hitting on those guys, it didn´t look like you were all that into the idea of getting with any of them" she began leadingly, hoping that Abby would pick up on where she was going with the question, without actually having to ask it.

"Was it that obvious?"

"Kind of. I guess, what I´m asking is if you´re ... into the idea of making out with guys at all?" she asked cautiously and from Abby´s giggle at the question, it at least didn´t look like it was something, she minded talking about.

"I probably would with Pacey, if he wanted to with me. Seeing as I´m not named Joey Potter and I don´t want my first kiss to be with someone, who´s using me to cheat on his girlfriend, I won´t hold on my breath on it happening, though. Apart from him or perhaps ... no, just forget I said anything!"

"So, there is someone else, you would kiss? Who?" she asked and from the look she got back, it wasn´t like it needed to be said out loud.

Perhaps, it was the loneliness she´d been feeling or the frustrations over once again falling for a guy, who didn´t like her back the same way, that led her to act on a fleeting impulse. Maybe, it was something deep inside that she hadn´t allowed herself to be entirely open about. Whatever the case, when their lips met moments later, she had to admit that it was the biggest rush, she´d ever felt from a kiss before.

Abby hadn´t expected to get her first kiss that evening and even if she were to, she´d never expected it to be as magical as it turned out to be. In those moments, it felt to her like any and all of her problems had disappeared in an instant, along with the fear, that something like this wouldn´t ever happen for her. Kissing Pacey would have been nice for sure, but at the same time, she couldn´t imagine that it would have come close to how she felt now.

"Was it everything, you hoped it would be?" Jen gaspingly asked her, when they finally had to break what had become a very long and wet kiss and come up for air.

"All that and so much more! Jen, you have no idea how much I´ve wanted to do that!"

While it felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off her small and narrow shoulders, Jen only smiling back at her and not saying anything, also raised some lingering questions. Because what if it was only her, who felt this way and Jen had only kissed her, out of feeling pity for her poor self?

Joey had planned on trying to sneak into her room without being noticed, but thanks to her baby nephew keeping Bodie up, that plan rapidly went out of the window.

"Did you have anything to drink tonight?" he asked her, while Alexander worked hard on emptying the baby bottle, he was feeding his son with. From her own uneasy legs, it must have been easy to see, even if she hadn´t been too drunk to be able to walk home from Chris Wolfe´s house, a few miles away.

"Please, don´t tell Bessie. I had a couple of cups of beer" she felt like she might as well confess to him, since she already knew that he wouldn´t dream of doing anything to cause a disruption between her and her sister.

"Did you like the taste?" he asked with a wide grin.

"No! It tasted horrible!" she answered honestly and the hearty laugh, he let out, told her that she wasn´t alone in her first appraisal of it.

"It either grows on you in time, or it doesn´t. Did you at least have fun?"

"I didn´t think, I would. But yeah, I kind of ended up having a blast".

"That´s nice. I´d been planning on catching up on my sleep, but this little guy had other plans".

"What else is new? Bodie, did you know any gays growing up?"

"Back then, it wasn´t something you spoke too loudly about, I´m sad to say. I´d like to think that we´ve moved beyond that, but sometimes I wonder to myself, if we actually have. Are you asking because you think one of your friends might be?"

"It´s a girl, I´ve known for a long time. It could just be in my imagination, though".

"If she is, then she´ll need her friends, when people find out. There´s a lot of good things to be said for Capeside, but open-mindedness is perhaps the one thing, they´re most in short supply of around here".

Minutes later, as she laid in bed and tried to fall asleep, she also made a decision with herself. If Abby or Jen or both of them were into girls "that way", then she would be there for them, as much as she could within reason. With all of the hatred and bigotry, she knew that they would be sure to face, it almost felt like the least, she could do.

The day after the drunken horror show of the night before, Pacey left the house early to clear his head of any residual anger, he had left in his mind. His dad could be a mean old SOB, when it hit him and no one knew this better than his direct family (who were often the targets of it), but it didn´t mean that it hadn´t hurt deeply inside to be told directly in every thinkable way, how much his own father looked down on him. Doug and Gretchen had gotten their small share of it too, but not in anywhere the same vein as he had and it made him wonder to himself, if his dad really saw him that way or was just saying it to get a rise out of him. It hadn´t been easy to keep his mouth shut throughout it all, and if his siblings hadn´t been there as his support, he wasn´t sure that he could have.

It was with those thoughts in his head, that he rode his bike down to his favorite fishing spot, where he could hopefully forget about it for a while and just concentrate on his fishing rod and the gorgeous scenery surrounding him. Those hopes went out of the window, when he saw his dad´s police cruiser pull up close to where he was sitting. As his dad got out and walked towards him, he immediately began preparing himself mentally for another telling off.

"Are the fish biting this morning?" his dad asked him.

"Only the ones that are too small to be worth keeping. How´s your head?"

"My entire body is giving me the punishment I deserve, for how I behaved last night" his dad dryly answered, before taking a seat on the ground next to him.

"Did something happen to make you lose it like that? I´ve seen you acting like a jackass before, but that was on a different level, even for you".

"First of all, I hope you know that I didn´t mean any of that stuff, I said to you. You´re a good kid, Pacey and you care enough about your fellow man to go out of your way to help people, when they need it. There´s a hell of a lot to be said for that and if I don´t give you enough credit for it, then I´m sorry. It isn´t everyone, who would, and we could sure use more of your kind in this world" his dad said with a warm smile, that made most of the anger he´d been feeling, melt away quickly.

"Thanks, dad, but you didn´t answer my question".

"It wasn´t anything, I haven´t seen before. Have I ever told you, why I decided to become a cop in the first place?" John asked and Pacey shook his head.

"When I grew up here, it was a different time. Pretty much everyone would beat their kids for the smallest of things, like it didn´t mean anything. Your grandmother slapped me upside the head a few times too but compared to most of the rest of the kids, I went to school with, I got off easy. Every day, I saw the fear in their eyes, Pacey. Real, pure and unadulterated fear, the likes of which I pray to God, that you, Doug, Gretchen, or the kids you´ll have someday will never have to feel, for as long as you´ll live. The family living next door to us ... I could hear the screams of pain from those kids over there every day, when their parents would beat the crap out of them and the worst part was that nearly all of the adults here just saw it as something normal and something, they had no business trying to stop. That was just the way people thought back then, but it doesn´t make it right either. In my innocent and probably too naïve young mind, I made up my mind that I wanted to be the one, who did change things and could put people like those piece of filth parents of theirs in front of judge and make them pay for what they´d done. Like it should be. You have to believe me, the last thing I´ve ever wanted was to turn into someone like them" his dad told him as truthfully, as he´d ever been told anything by him before.

"You could be worse!" he told his dad back bluntly and it got a small chuckle out of both of them.

"I´m glad that you think so! Anyway, yesterday we were called out to a domestic disturbance. A house, we´ve been to too many times before and every time, it´s the same story. She´ll call us to get him to stop beating her and her two little kids, but when we get out there, she´ll be too afraid to tell us, what´s really happened. It shouldn´t have gotten to me like it did, it just made it all feel like I´ve been kidding myself for all of these years in thinking, that I make any kind of difference in this cursed place. Worse yet, somewhere along the way, I lost sight of who I wanted to be and turned into this ... whatever it is, that I´ve become! Your mom was in the right to kick me out, so don´t hold anything against her".

"I won´t".

"That´s good, Pacey. You should have seen her, when we first started dating. She was so full of life and hope, that she even managed to pass some of it onto a miserable bastard like me. I was the one, who took it away from her and there isn´t a day that goes by now, where I don´t curse myself over it. Whatever you do with your relationship with Joey, don´t do to her what I did to your mom. Take it from me, it´s hard to find a worse feeling in the whole big scope of human emotions".

"I´ll try not to".

"Do you love her?"

"Yeah, I do, dad. Sometimes, I wonder what she sees in a screw-up like me, though".

"You only become one, when you start thinking like one. Your granddad, he was a screw-up of the worst kind! Compared to that selfish bastard, that didn´t give a damn, who got hurt as long as he got what he wanted, you´re an angel. That´s what Joey sees in you too. She´s always been a clever one, that girl, and not only when it comes to what you can learn from a book".

For the next half an hour or so, until his dad had to get back to work, they mostly sat in silence and watched the water. None of the fish felt like biting, but it didn´t matter to Pacey in the slightest.

END OF CHAPTER TEN