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The actual reality everyone has to face is boys are gross. The sad, horrifying reality is that boys in close quarters are worse. There's farting and belching, and just general grossness. It's not like girls aren't gross, it's just, Joey thinks, girls hide those things.
Except on a boat, you really can't. It hits her right on day one when she goes to use the bathroom after Pacey. The smell. She gags and wonders what she's thinking.
There is zero chance Pacey has tampons on board, she realizes.
The farting and belching are also on day one. He pokes her thigh with his bare foot. He says, "Everyone does it, Potter. I know you do it, I've known you long enough to know that."
The sunset is gorgeous. Every word she thinks of to describe it is cliche so she just watches and tries not to think. She tries to memorize this moment of beauty and calm and near serenity.
Pacey sits next to her and says, "You are so scared right now."
"So're you," she says, smiling at him.
"Absolutely," he says.
She kisses him, he kisses back. Her heart pounds as she thinks that there is nowhere to go when it's time to stop. She stops and he stops immediately. He sits back and says, "Don't worry."
Because it's Pacey, he already knows what's in her heart. And just like that, she's fine.
Day two, she forces him into port. "I need everything, Pacey. I mean everything. Every little thing that girls need that you do not have on this boat." They manage to get it all pretty cheap. Pacey peels bills off his wad of cash and doesn't blink at the tampons. Good man, she thinks. She says, as they walk out, "Where'd the money come from? Rob a bank?"
"Shhhh," he says. "Don't say that so loudly, they're still looking for me."
"Okay, Clyde," she says.
"You're the best, Bonnie," he says, kissing her. "But it's not as much as it looks. We are absolutely guaranteed going to run out in about a month at this rate."
"I won't need to buy clothes at every single stop," she says.
"Yeah, I figured that, by the way, when I said a month," he says. "Basic addition and subtraction even I can manage."
"What was your plan three days ago when you were running away from everything including me?"
"Three days ago I had enough money to make it about three months if I skipped a few meals, cheated a few other things," he says. "Don't worry about it, we'll just get jobs."
"Doesn't that defeat the whole spend the summer on the boat idea?" She smiles at him. She is silently praying he has thought this through.
"Ah, I see that fear in your eyes, missy. You think we're going to Florida and getting a job in a very humid factory with no union and no one to protect when you inevitably sass your supervisor. But no, just for a few days, as we get further south a lot of these spots will hire you for a few days and pay in cash," he says, confidently.
"You're sure?"
"I am positive, Bonnie," he says. "Pacey did research."
"You looked things up, in books? Did the books have pictures? Did they only have pictures?"
"That was just one of my many sources," he says. "I also looked at magazines and newspapers on microfiche." He makes the turning gesture with his free hand.
"What kind of magazines? How much time did you spend looking at the pictures in these magazines?"
He kisses her again.
They watch the stars after the sun sets. After a long stretch of comfortable silence, Pacey says, "Cards on the table, Joey, I never thought you'd come. I am not the guy who gets the girl, as you well know."
"Except for that time you did," she says.
"I'm saying, I have no plan, I didn't think about company and I have no idea what we're doing," he says. He adds, "I have no expectations, either."
She gets what he's saying. She thinks there's value in being direct. They are going to be farting in front of each other now, apparently. She says, "I know right now there's only so much further than chastely kissing I want to go, but I also know that will probably change. I mean, it's inevitable, right? On a boat together for three months, of course we'll have sex." She thinks she sounds angry, but she isn't. She hears her fear of what Dawson is already thinking in her tone.
"Not if you don't want to," Pacey says, mildly. "It's not inevitable and I'm okay, I am more than okay if you don't want to ever have sex, okay, or just do more than chastely kiss in the next three months, okay?"
"You just used up the word okay," Joey says. "I think you have officially worn out the word."
"You could just answer, you know," he says.
"I am okay," she says, grinning. "Thank you. I believe you."
"Thank you," he says. "I'm glad you're okay."
She likes having her own toothbrush. There's only so many things you can share with a person. They use the same sunscreen, they eat the same meals. She also likes having her own deodorant but around day four she says, "You've just given up on the basic principles of hygiene, haven't you?"
"No," he says. "I wash my hands, I swear. At least once or twice a day."
"You're not using deodorant, are you?"
"Really?" He is adjusting the sails, moving deftly. "You think that's a basic principle of hygiene when you're at sea?"
"It's a nice gesture to people who can smell you," she says.
"Really?" He looks at her, stopping in his task. He's been splashed already and his shorts are wet and clinging. He isn't wearing a shirt because it's hot and she can fill in his shape to imagine him naked. It's not the first time she's thought about it, not by a million thoughts, but it feels like the first time. She swallows. Why is she so afraid to do more than think? Dawson would have a theory and the two of them would argue and use big words and utilize their encyclopedic knowledge of each other's history and dreams to nail down a reason. Maybe that's the reason, she thinks. Maybe the reason is a lifetime of talking everything out and not doing.
"You're right," she says.
He goes back to work and then sits down next to her. "I won that argument far too easily, tell me what I did so I can do it again. And again, every time."
She smiles at him. "You made a good point. You don't do that often, I would actually appreciate it if you would do that more, please. That bright light of logic and reason was visible for once."
At their second stop, she will admit she nags and cajoles until Pacey gives in and they spend the night in a very cheap motel an easy walk from the pier. The place is every cliche in every horror movie or tv crime procedural so it's pretty clear they'll both be dead by morning.
They lay together on a lumpy mattress which still feels pretty great compared to the boat. She says, "I am not the greatest at roughing it."
"I like that about you," Pacey says. "When you admit you're not good at something, it makes you more attractive. Also, for once the the ultimate tomboy acts like a girl."
"I know lots of men who can't rough it to save their lives, it is not a girl quality," she says.
"More girl than guy," Pacey says.
"Your male chauvinistic tendencies are not attractive," she says.
"More or less than the deodorant thing?" They are lying side by side, facing each other, a foot of space between them under the scratchy blanket and thin sheets.
"More unattractive," she says.
"Cause you love my smell," Pacey says.
"Stockholm syndrome," Joey says. She feels no fear for once. She isn't sure how this bright shining moment of the absence of fear has happened. It's not courage. It's quiet in her head, no one saying anything about how she's being bad, about how she should be bad, about how she's frigid or waiting to be a slut.
A few minutes later there is no space between them. They kiss fervently like they haven't seen each other in days. They make out every day, often two or three times, but right now, in this slightly creepy motel with paper thin sheets and blankets that drag on her skin, she wants him. She loves him.
He runs his hand up and down her side, waist to ribs and back and she wants much more. She reaches for him and pushes his hand up under her tank top to her breast. She loves his hands, the way he always touches her face, her head in hand. He says, "Okay?"
She thinks she told him to stop using that word. She says, "I put your hand there, mister."
She leans back a little and takes off her tank top, throwing it somewhere on the floor. She is going to wash it before she puts it back on. Possibly burn it.
The things Pacey does with his hands and mouth on her breasts make lightning bolts sizzle down her to between her legs. She feels so good. She wants this and more and she wants him and he inspires her to do these things. Which she doesn't regret. She wants to be more of herself.
She reaches down and grips his penis. He is panting and out of breath. He says, "Joey."
She says, "Show me. What you like."
His hand covers her and guides her until his hand falls away and she judges by the way he says her name whether he's happy or very happy. He says, "This is, it's a mess," and it is. She tried not to squeal at the stickiness on her stomach and chest. This is a personal first, first time with that on her body.
Joey gets her tank top off the floor, wiping them both sort of clean. Pacey takes it out of her hands and throws it back on the floor. He licks her clean. It should be gross but it's the opposite. He looks up at her and she holds the back of his head. She says, "I love you."
"Me, too," he says. She is pressed against him, her bare breasts on his chest.
She says, "When I was in fourth grade, some sixth grader told me a blowjob is when a boy pees into a girl's mouth."
Pacey laughs.
"I was of course too embarrassed to ask either of my parents if it were true, so I asked Gail," Joey says. It is the closest either of them have come to mentioning Dawson. "She laughed just like you. Then she tried to figure out how much I actually knew about sex -"
"Which was only what you'd seen in those dirty magazines Dawson and I had," Pacey says. It's weird he says the name first.
"You had," Joey says. "And they were not very informative, frankly. So Gail just explained there was no peeing in sex."
"That's what you think of tonight," he says.
She sleeps easily. She wakes up with the sheet and blanket shoved down around her waist. Pacey is still asleep, laying on his stomach, one arm across her, warm and heavy. She touches her breasts, idly. It's weird how at ease she feels. Weird for Joey from Capeside, the prude who hates sex. She doesn't hate any of this. She feels beautiful, like she can see herself how Pacey sees her.
Joey wakes Pacey up. She says, "Guess what? Despite your expected expectations, I am awake and don't regret a thing about last night. We could do it again right now."
He kisses her quickly. He says, "That's great, but honestly, I really have to pee." He's up and out of bed very quickly.
When he gets out of the bathroom, he says, "I had no expectations, Joey. I told you, and I meant it. Also, just because we do something one time doesn't mean we have to do it again. You never have to do anything to make me happy because I am happy you are here and that is enough."
She smiles at him. "I know, I swear."
They don't do anything more that morning. She throws away the tank top.
They're at sea for the next three days and all they do is kiss. Pacey is a gentleman who never initiates anything. Sometimes she gets frustrated. But mostly she likes it, it's a rare thing in a sexed up world. Then she wonders why she ignores her own frustration. What is so wrong about wanting to feel good with someone you trust, someone you love? She's hardly throwing herself at some guy she barely knows, she's with Pacey.
She feels bad that she never felt like this with Dawson, which is clearly something she can never share with Pacey. It's not like she never felt desire with Dawson but everything was tied up in the depth of their feelings and he is just as inexperienced as she is. So basically even if she had felt like going further with Dawson, it wouldn't have happened without 3 hours of analysis. Now Joey has spent more time than 3 hours staring out at the ocean and thinking about this, just without Dawson to bounce off and make her feel inferior.
Pacey doesn't make her feel inferior. Even if Dawson didn't mean to make her feel inferior, it's still the effect of the way Dawson is.
A day before they're going to stop again, it rains. It's not a dangerous rain, it only drives them inside. It's sweltering, though. "Sweltering," she says. She takes off her shirt, and blots the sweat on her chest and neck. Pacey is staring at her, his mouth hanging open.
She isn't wearing a bra, so she gets it. She pushes off her shorts so she's only wearing her cheap, plain, white underwear. She sits up straight, best posture of her life, and smiles at him.
"So I take it you want to make out?" Pacey sounds remarkably calm. But he's wiping his hands on his shorts.
"Yeah," she says, an edge of sarcasm in her voice.
He pins her on the cushions on the floor. She feels powerful when she makes him incoherent with what she assumes is a pretty clumsy handjob. Maybe she's better than that. It's only her second time doing it.
A week later, she's done it five more times and she likes to think is actually okay at it. She is getting to know Pacey's body. She alternates between fear and worry and joy and lust. Pacey is the same. He is waiting, she knows, for her to want off the boat, to go back to Dawson. She worries she will do it, too, because she is afraid.
They talk about all sort of things but so far they have not talked about sex or if it means something that she has seen him naked and held his penis in her hand.
She reads. At their last two stops, she went to thrift store and bought books for 50 cents each. A lot of them are very bad. She reads the worst parts out loud to Pacey. He does the work of sailing and fishes every day.
One early early morning, Pacey says, "Why haven't you read anything out loud from that romance novel? Seems like the kind of thing you would normally find hilarious."
They always sleep pushed together now. She is used to waking up, feeling him hard against her back or thigh or stomach. She says, "It's very smutty."
"I love smutty," Pacey says.
"There are no pictures, Pace, just words like rigid and member and her wet center," she says, blushing.
"Do you ever masturbate?"
She stares at him, a little aghast. A lot aghast. Then she thinks it's incredibly silly to be aghast at that question from Pacey at this point. She says, "No."
"Really?" He looks skeptical.
"I wouldn't even know how," she says.
"You should have spent more time with my sisters," Pacey says.
"Gross," she says.
"Gross is listening to your older sister discover her special spot, gross is finding another sister's vibrator," Pacey says.
"If you're trying to make me think this is something I should try, it's not working," she says.
"Trust me, guys all do it. And a lot of girls, they just don't admit it," Pacey says. "They do it because it feels great."
"I'm so happy for you," Joey says. "Have you been jerking off a lot while we've been at sea?"
"I'm just wondering why you're not," he says. "Not actually wondering."
"Wishing?"
"You're not religious, so why not give it a whirl?"
She takes a deep breath. Pacey is somewhere between teasing and genuinely talking to her. Which she admits is his default state. She realizes in this case the teasing tone is so she won't feel too embarrassed. It's a kindness typical of him. But she has been sitting on this back and forth in her head, a cacophony of judgment. She says, "Because my life isn't all about feeling good, maybe, or centered on how happy my vagina feels?"
Pacey says, "That's not a wild overreaction at all. Does your smutty book's heroine masturbate?"
"Yes," she says. "But she's very slutty for a pastor's daughter in Victorian England."
"You're not slutty," he says. He gets up and says, "I'm going to hit the head."
"And masturbate?" She can't look at him when she says it which is ridiculous.
He doesn't answer and she hears the door close.
She gets dressed and brushes her teeth out on the deck. Pacey brings her breakfast and they eat in silence. Then he says, "Look, we've got all this time. Seriously, let's talk about sex, baby."
She says, "Okay, you start."
"Why do you act like sex is such an apocalyptic thing?"
"I obviously don't all the time," she says.
"No, I appreciate that, really. But there are girls who aren't jumping into bed with every Tom, Rick and Larry who still have sex before they're married or have their PhDs," Pacey says.
"I just get tired of how it's all everyone talks about," Joey says.
"That's not true," Pacey says. "You get angry about it. I mean, okay, question, do you think it's awful and wrong that Andie and I had sex?"
"That's different," she says.
"So not awful and wrong," he says. "Thank you again. But if you do it, it is."
She looks out at the ocean. "I'm sorry I didn't start my sexual awakening being abused by decades older teacher so I could have the kind of wisdom you have."
"Wow," Pacey says. "Seriously? You honestly think that?"
"If I had lost my virginity at age 15 to a 35 year old teacher, you wouldn't call that wrong?"
"If *you* had," Pacey says. "It's different for girls."
"Why?"
"Do you not think it's different?"
"You act like I'm such a freak and hypocrite for not wanting to have sex all the time and you don't see how it's different for girls is a factor of that?" Part of her wants to cry. She wishes she could walk into this as easily as Andie had. But she is afraid and she is totally tired of feeling like that makes her somehow wrong.
"So society says sex is bad for women and not for guys -"
"Women get pregnant," Joey says.
"There are ways to not have that happen," he says.
"The only 100% effective birth control method is abstinence," Joey says. "Do you think Alexander was planned?"
"So this, part of this, is about not wanting to end up like Bessie?" Pacey is frowning.
"What a surprise, I don't want to be stuck in Capeside, I want to get out and I know I can't if I have a kid or something. You act like it's nothing but it's not," Joey says.
"I have never said sex is nothing," Pacey says. "That's not how I see it at all."
"It's not just fun and jollies," Joey says.
"Obviously, it's not just that to me. I couldn't even make it work with Jen as casual sex so basically I have never even had sex casually. And you'll say all these things about sex to me right now even though you clearly want to do more than chastely kiss, like, am I the villain here for wanting to have that connection with you?" He stands up and stalks over to the sail.
She rubs at her eyes. These conversations always spiral away from her. She wishes she could find clarity before she gets defensive and automatically fighting back when she doesn't need to.
She goes up to him, embraces him from behind. She says, "I love you," her forehead against the back of his head.
His left arm on top of her arms, he says, "That doesn't sound like sorry, Jo."
She smiles. "I love you for that."
"Really?"
"I love that you challenge me and don't let me just yell at you," she says. "I'm sorry my first reaction is always to attack instead of admitting I'm scared."
"I could do with less of that, you know, being attacked," he says. "I know I'm an asshole sometimes, but not all the time."
"Not even most of the time," she says. She likes talking to his back. "I never had friends like Andie or Jen until this past year, I was always one of the boys as you know, and I barely wanted to be a girl because everything is so scary. And yes, Bessie got pregnant and that seemed like a huge disaster. She would slap me if I said that to her. Maybe she would be right. And it is different for girls, everyone judges you, don't be too eager, don't be frigid, you should think about sex in exactly the right amount, which is less than a slut, less than a boy but more than some sexless child."
He turns around and kisses her. Then she is enveloped in his arms. She says, "And I think about it all the time. All the time. And part of me is yelling at the other part of me to stop thinking about it and concentrate on things that really matter and part of me is just trying to be good and I want to live up to something and I don't even know what that is." Then she is really crying.
After a few minutes, he says, "I think this talk went well."
She laughs at him like he wants.
Hours and hours later when they're in bed, she pushes his hand into her panties. She says, "I love you." She doesn't feel scared and she doesn't cry. She feels on fire and she is pretty sure she has her first orgasm ever.
She tallies it up, laying on the deck; first handjob, first orgasm, first time someone touched her under her panties. She sounds like a baby thinking of it like that. It's not like they spend all their time making out, but it's not an insignificant amount of time. They talk, he sails and gets her to help, they read. They make out.
It's been a month and as Pacey predicted, they are nearly out of cash. But he also correctly predicts that they can get jobs. "I do love being a waitress," she says to him.
"You're so good at being charming," he says with a smirk. He washes dishes.
She is already profoundly tired of seafood. And anything from a can. She leaves the books she read at Goodwill and buys another box of paperbacks. Their last night on the South Carolina coast, she waits for Pacey as he finishes up washing dishes. His partner in cleaning dishes offers her an introductory Portuguese textbook. "Look at her," Pacey says, smiling at her. "She's nearly squealing."
"I like to learn," she says.
Somewhere on the walk back to the boat, Pacey kisses her and she tastes beer. "Have you been drinking?"
"One beer," he says. "I said no to the cigarettes."
She laughs. He looks around and then presses her against the wall. He sinks slowly to his knees and then he pushes up her skirt. She says, "What are you doing?"
"Something you'll like," he says. "Try not to be too loud."
She has to bite her hand to stay quiet because she thought his fingers and his hand felt amazing but adding his mouth and his tongue and she is pretty sure she will take off like a rocket. It is so good. It is amazing and she silently thanks Miss Jacobs as loathsome and awful as she thinks that woman is because no way he learned that with Andie. Though Andie loves research and practice. She tries to piece her mind and body together again.
She is barely standing, only Pacey standing up and pressing her against the wall keeping her up. "I liked," she says.
He says, "I gathered."
She can feel how hard he is against her hip. She says, "Should I reciprocate?"
"Look, like every red blooded male, I love blowjobs, but if you don't want to, we can definitely try it some other time. We should try any other time than now because we are three blocks from the boat. Also, Andie hated doing it so we actually only did it, like twice -"
She kisses him. He tastes funny and she thinks, that is her. In his mouth. She says, "Handjob it is." He laughs and it tickles her.
He stops when Joey puts her hand down his shorts. For some reason he has her panties in his hand, she notices as he braces himself against the wall, pulling a little away from her. When she can tell he's close, she grabs the panties from his hand so he can come in them. "Fuck, that's hot," he says.
She laughs because boys are so gross but she loves him. Once Pacey is zipped up, they start walking again, holding hands. She throws the panties away in the first trash can she sees. "Why were you laughing at me?"
"I don't find your underwear at all hot and I would not want it near me like that," she says.
"It's different for boys," he says, kissing her hand.
Six weeks out, the probable middle point of their adventure, Pacey irks her. He is effortlessly better than her at learning Portuguese. He gets the grammar, his pronunciation is probably perfect and when they practice together he always does better. She says, "How are you nearly flunking out of high school?"
"Hey," he says. "I do well with pretty teachers."
"Except I'm not teaching," she says.
"Intellectual jealousy is not a good look on you, Potter," he says.
Another way Pacey is irksome is whatever fires of hell live in the boy's bowels, he stinks up the bathroom so much, nearly every day. She says, "Is something wrong with you?"
"I'm a growing boy," Pacey says.
"Something is growing in you," she says. "It does not smell pleasant."
"Soorrrry," he says like a five year old.
He is frequently irritated with her and he pouts like a toddler. She reads one of her thrift store books and mentions Dawson would love it and he spends the day acting like she is about to break up with him.