Don't Be Fooled

The air was thick and muggy and even from my position on his roof, elevated from the heated ground, the soft breeze still failed to cool my boiling interior. Sometimes I think the early September nights are the warmest, the last hanging humidity from August that swirls with the heated water off the creek making the air so heavy you can only swallow it in thick gulps.

But maybe it was all inside my head. This heated rage that boiled through my blood and made my heart pound at extreme rates. I duck my head back into his window, parting the curtains, but he's already gone, most likely to Eve or even some other stripper downstairs, these days he wasn't at all picky.

It made me crave the days he lusted for Jen, when he still acted in typical male fashion by wanting to get in her pants, but there was still a search for something more. Now he's a horn dog after anything with a pair of legs and a nice rack. But I guess that's assumed with the teenage specimen, random and meaningless hookups that mean nothing but another notch on the social totem pole.

I wonder why I care anymore, why I still see sex as this beautiful thing that should be referred to as love making or some other corny phrase used only on soap operas. It's obvious that even to the most dedicated romantics that sex is only a physical thing. An insignificant practice that could be categorized under breathing, eating and sleeping. And at one point in time I thought we came to the agreement that sex between us was supposed to mean something, which I guess it still does since he stopped me. But that doesn't change the fact that he's probably in the guestroom with that blonde vixen fondling around third base as I speak.

I can't believe that I was so easy to forgive him, to just forget the past year and what he did to my family and just throw myself at him in some lame attempt to save his virginity and claim it as my own. I mean am I so territorial that I go to such desperate measures to win the title of 'First' in his sexual chain of events?

I fold my arms against my chest still pacing along his roof, the few party goers scattered on his front lawn paying little attention to me in their drunken haze. It's then I can see them walking down his dock, Eve leading him seductively to some elusive corner by his dick I can only assume. It isn't my fault that he's still a virgin, that he can't properly handle an experienced woman such as her, but it certainly is his fault that I still am.

It's his fault that I dream of romance and soul mates, and his fault that I hold sex up on such a high pedestal that I couldn't go all the way with Jack. But two can play at this game in some twisted battle to flaunt our sexuality. Right now I just want to hurt him, make him feel the pain that I do, the insecurities I feel whenever I see him with her.

The ladder rustles beside me and I catch my breath, relaxing when I see Pacey's familiar spiked mop of hair peer over the edge. "I was looking for you," he says climbing up to my level.

I glare at him, "How'd you even know I was here, I'm not a stripper so you wouldn't have even detected my presence had I ever gone downstairs." I know Dawson sent him in some chivalrous attempt, to send the white knight to protect me in my vulnerable stage.

"I didn't," he lamely covers, "the fact that I hadn't seen you downstairs made me wonder if you were here at all."

I roll my eyes, "You can stop acting innocent Pacey, Dawson told you everything, didn't he?"

"Not exactly," he says taking a wary step towards me, "he said you were here, that you were upset and that he needed me to check on you because he couldn't be near you right now."

"Well I'm fine," I spat back, "job well done, Pace, I think you deserve a lap dance, I'll go get some change from my purse," I say dryly climbing back through Dawson's window to get away.

"So if you don't mind me asking since I've been dragged into this situation to the point of curiosity, what exactly happened?" He says following me through the window, stalking so closely behind me that when I abruptly turn to him with raging eyes, his breath is tickling my lips, and I like it.

I get this funny idea in my head, this stroke of brilliance and I use this proximity in my favor, placing my hand gently against his chest and softening my expression. "Nothing," I say offering him a crooked grin, "nothing happened. Just Dawson being Dawson, blowing things way out of proportion."

He takes a step back, startled by my affection as he goes to sit on Dawson's bed to create more distance between us.

It's then that I get the full picture of my situation, Dawson's best friend sitting on Dawson's bed, and for the first time I can't help but admire Pacey's lack of self control when it comes to the proper use of the female form.

"Pacey?" I ask suddenly, tucking my hands into the pockets of my skirt as I bite back my growing smile. "Do you think I'm attractive?"

His face grows weary and he tilts his head thoughtfully, obviously analyzing all the right and wrong answers to my obvious preposition. "Um, yes," he finally says trying to keep his voice light, "you are a very beautiful girl."

The pounding of techno music continues to vibrate the walls but right now all I'm focused on is the moonlight and the way it casts shadows around the room. A shaft of light crossing his dark eyes as they follow me with a stone hard expression.

I stride slowly to him, popping my hips back and forth dramatically with each step, "I don't mean it like that," I say with a raspy voice. "I mean sexually," I elaborate now standing before him. I place my hand on his knee, walking my fingers up his thigh, "Do I turn you on?"

He swallows my hand with his, stopping its journey, "Jo, what are you doing?" He asks sternly.

I shrug my shoulders innocently; "I'm just asking a simple question."

"What happened up here earlier?" He asks ever the insightful one.

"Nothing," I say defiantly.

He lifts my hand from his lap, "Something happened between you and Dawson, what was it?"

"Nothing happened," I repeat, pressing my palm against his and lacing our fingers. "He much rather be somewhere else, and I really don't care."

He doesn't move his hand away, only watches me carefully as I bring his hand to my mouth, brushing my lips against the pad of his finger. "What are you doing, Jo?" He asks again, his voice no longer stern but a husky whisper.

"I want to know if you find me sexy," I say clearly nipping at the tip of his finger.

"Yes," it comes out as a breathless murmur, his eyes fluttering shut.

I bite my lip unsure of what to do next, my chest rising and falling faster then I intended it to be. My other hand shakes as I move it closer to his lap. It hovers above his shorts for a long moment as I lick my dry lips to ask again, "Do I turn you on?" I shut my eyes tightly taking in a sharp intake of breath as I cup what feels to be a hardened bulge in my palm.

He grunts his hand that is twined with mine tightening into a fist as his eyes fly open. "I'm uh… I think that…" he swallows thickly, "I'm going to go back downstairs," he finally concludes.

"Why?" I ask applying more pressure and he gasps again, his hips nearly thrusting off the mattress.

"We— we can't do this," he said frantically clenching his teeth together, "for so many reasons that my current disposition has left me unable to list, we can't do this."

I lean forward, my lips teasing his, "What does it matter? It's just sex."

His tongue sweeps across his lips and it catches my eye, tantalizing me for a moment, "Since when has it ever been just sex?"

"What's wrong with two people who are obviously attracted to one another acting on those feelings?"

"Because it's coming out of nowhere and at a time when availability isn't exactly present," he explains, still not making an attempt to move.

I remember Andie suddenly but only for a brief moment before this heated desire consumes me, "So you don't want me?"

He removes his hand from mine, finally lifting my other hand from his lap, and I realize that I've only added to my humiliation for the night. But then his touch is running up my arms, his fingers tangling in my hair and I finally grasp just how much I want him.

"Oh God yes," he grumbles, "but I can't. So I'm— I'm going to go back downstairs right now."

I sigh taking a step back to let him pass, "Alright."

But he doesn't move, just sits there staring at me with those dark, piercing eyes and suddenly I'm frozen too.

I bite my lip taking a daring step forward, touching my hand carefully to his cheek before I lean in to kiss him. It's slow at first but the passion grows quickly, consuming us, drowning us in this bottomless sea. He pulls me closer and I straddle him, my hips involuntarily rocking against his as his fingers disappear in my hair, tangling and tugging roughly.

I push him back against the bed, my nimble fingers clawing at the buttons of his bright orange shirt, ripping it open as I sneak my hands beneath the hem of his wife beater, sprawling my fingers against the rippling muscles. He struggles out of both articles and I admire his bronzed skin in the moonlight, struck with this overwhelming urge to taste him. My tongue darts between my lips, licking his salty flesh, slick with desire.

He pulls my mouth back to his kissing me hungrily as his hands run up my sides, bunching up my tank top till we're forced to part for it to get over my head. His kisses are like electricity, sending jolts through my body as they trail down my neck, encompassing the curve of my breast between the gray barrier. A mixture between a gasp and a growl tumble off my tongue and I hardly recognize it before it's already forgotten by the sound of another.

My skirt rides higher up my thighs and I'm embarrassed of the pounding heat between my legs that is now pressed firmly against his arousal, but that only turns him on more and he thrusts harder against me, making me scream his name. He sneaks his hand between our welded forms and I shudder when I feel his fingers brush against the cotton of my panties.

His other hand dances around my back, stroking up and down the length before flicking the clasp of my bra, the straps becoming limp on my shoulders as I shake it away before pressing our bare chests together. I can't get enough of his body molded against mine, and as I nibble his neck, my hips thrusting in a constant rhythm against his, I've never felt so alive.

The door creaks open and I'm about to shoe away whatever drunken couple has tripped in hoping for an empty bed when I meet Dawson's stunned eyes, Eve's playful laugh drifting just over his shoulder as she hangs off his arm. "What the hell is going on in here?" His voice is the angriest I've ever heard it.

I keep my chest pressed against Pacey's, shy and embarrassed of revealing it to anyone else at the moment and he understands reaching next to him for his atrocious print shirt, draping it over me as I bundle it tightly around me. "Nothing," I spat back, "just like there's nothing going on with your little blonde hussy right now!"

"How dare you indict me of anything when you're the one I catch rolling around half naked with my best friend on my bed," he retorts. "What, I reject you so you throw yourself at the next available body? I'm really having a hard time understanding this all, you accuse me of being all about sex and yet here I find you… like this."

I have no words; I only glare at him.

"And Pacey," he turns his attention on my accomplice who keeps his head bowed. "I send you up here to make sure she's alright, to take her home, so you decide to fuck her? What about Andie? I mean I thought you made some long drawn out metamorphosis last year where you became this caring and compassionate person, and now… and now this?"

Pacey turns his dark eyes back on me, no longer fueled by desire but by anger, because now he knows, now he knows that I used him and that I destroyed the most reliable relationships in his life to do it. And suddenly I'm angrier at myself then he could ever be.

He shakes his head pulling his wife beater on as he heads for the door. Pausing to say, "How many people have to be trampled on this long and twisted and manipulative Dawson and Joey highway till you're both content?"

And for a moment I want to cry, I want to run after him and tell him that being with him for even a moment meant everything. But don't be fooled, because it doesn't mean a thing.

-August 2004

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