Dream Walker:

Pacey's Revenge

He was hoping to dream of Joey.

Correction: He was desperate to dream of Joey. She had appeared the night before, but her visit had been far from satisfying. He was hoping that this time he would have a little more control.

Although the handcuffs had been nice.

"How about a lot more control?" asked a voice.

Pacey jumped, leaping right out of his bed and onto the floor. His knees banged painfully against the boards. In the dim light, he could just make out a figure standing near the window, in a white shirt and black pants.

"Who are you?" he asked, terrified. He always locked his bedroom door before going to sleep.

The guy stepped out of the shadows and into the flimsy blue moonlight. "My name's Ryan," he said in a deep, rolling voice.

He leaned over to flick on the light, and Pacey was instantly jealous. This guy had the body of God’s original vision, the one with broad shoulders and a smooth, effortless neck that supported his lightening-quick smile and crop of lustrous black hair. The vision whose template was ruined by the invention of cellulose.

"How'd you get in here?" Pacey demanded.

Ryan shrugged. "What does it matter? I'm here to make you an offer."

"You're going to shoot me, aren't you? Look, we don't have any silver, but my mom has a really nice engagement band-"

Now Ryan appeared bored, and bored for him equaled sexy. "I'm not here to rob you. As I said before, I want to make you a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

"The kind that works in both our favors. May I sit down?"

He glided backward into a beanbag chair, suddenly making the stupid 70's accessory the most elegant piece of furniture in the world, and went on, "You see, I write dreams. Good dreams, bad dreams, I'm responsible for about three dozen people here in Capeside. Including you. Which is how you ended up with that dream about Joey last ni-"

"You know about that?" Pacey exploded. "I didn't tell anybody about that dream!"

Another bored, sensual roll of the eyes. "I was responsible for it. Well, mostly."

He paused. "Mostly?" Pacey asked. He didn't want to believe this, but the whole situation was pretty damn weird. How did this guy know about his dream if he hadn't helped create it?

"I offered to let Joey get in on the action," Ryan said casually. "I was having a little writer's block, and I thought she might enjoy writing a dream for you."

Pacey thought he was going to faint. "Joey wrote that dream?"

Ryan nodded.

"All of it, even the rotting?"

Ryan nodded again. "And I must say, she was quite startled when you began blathering on about your undying love."

Pacey blushed and got off his knees. "Yeah, well."

"I was thinking you might be interested in a little payback," Ryan suggested mildly, and when Pacey looked over, he was smoking one of those six inch cigarettes with an ivory mouthpiece attached to one end. Grey smoke filled the air around his head and then vanished, and the scent was so faint that Pacey could barely detect it five feet away.

"What kind of payback?" he asked suspiciously.

"Joey made a dream for you, now you get to make one for Joey. Fair is fair, after all."

He sat down on the edge of the bed. "Don't you have rules about revealing your existence to humans and stuff?"

Ryan rose with the grace of a ballerina, the cigarette vanishing from his hand. "Of course," he replied. "But where's the fun in following them?"

Joey opened her eyes and sniffed. The movie had ended and the television registered only snow. She must have fallen asleep, but where was Dawson?

The plaid sheets were cool, and she pulled them more tightly around herself. Hmm, smelled like Dawson.

She wondered what Pacey's sheets smelled like.

Where was Dawson, anyway? Probably pissing again, he had a bladder the size of an infant's fist.

She rolled onto her back, sheet up to her chin. Why was it so cold in here? Had she left the window open?

She sat up a little to roll and a breath of wind scampered across her back.

Her bare back.

"Ek!" She gave a tiny, tinny scream and flopped back. She was naked! How had she gotten naked? Her eyes searched the floor but she didn't see her clothes anywhere.

Take a deep breath, she thought, and lay back. So your clothes are gone. Not a big deal, you have a sheet. Just wrap yourself up, walk over to the dresser, and get one of Dawson's big sweaters. Then you can run home and put on some real clothes.

She was still very sleepy, despite being cold and naked and a little freaked. Just a minute, she promised herself. Just rest your eyes a minute and then....

Another rush of cool air rolled over her skin, and Joey's eyes flickered open. "Dawson?" she hissed, horrified.

But there was no one in the room.

Something very briefly touched her leg. Joey screamed again and scrambled off the bed, knocking her elbow on the nightstand. "Dawson?" she called out demandingly. "I know you're here. Where are you?"

She lifted the bed skirt and peered beyond, her eyes seeing nothing in the dark recesses. The sheet she had wrapped around herself slipped down, exposing her shoulders, and she felt the light brush of fingers racing along her shoulder blade.

She screamed and spun, her legs becoming tangled in the sheet and tripping so that she fell to the floor bound. Her heart was pounding frantically and she let out a miserable moan as the touch came again, this time pausing a moment on the crook of her arm.

"Who are you?" she cried. "What's going on?"

Tears sprang to her eyes as she wrastled the sheet away and climbed totteringly to her feet. No longer even caring that she was naked, she ran stumbling to the bedroom door, only to find it locked from the outside. "Mrs. Leary!" she screamed, beating her fist against the wood panel. "Dawson! Help, I'm being attacked! Dawson!"

A hand, warm and soft, came to rest on the back of her rib cage. Joey sobbed and rattled the doorknob again, kicking so hard she could feel her toe bones beginning to buckle under the force.

The hand slid down very slowly, until it was cupping the curve above her hip. "Dawson," Joey moaned again, but with less force this time. Her hair was swept away from her back and twisted together to hang down over her breasts, and now there were two hands touching her, one on her hip, the other tracing the delicate curve of her spine.

She pressed her forehead to the cool paint of the door. Her words came out as a little gasping whisper, "Who are you?"

For a moment, the motion stopped. Joey waited for an answer but none came, and she very slowly turned around.

The room was empty. Still. It had been empty all along.

Joey let out a thick sigh of relief, then inhaled sharply as she felt a touch on the back of her knee. "Oh god," she breathed, "what's happening to me?"

It seemed almost as if the empty air laughed, and with it, Joey's fear eased. Nimble fingers played a phantom piano down the back of her thigh, tickling her before reaching up to sooth the itch away. She leaned back against the door and the touch returned to her shoulders. Invisible hands outlined the curves and lifted her fevered hands to run over the perfect rounding of her arms. Joey was startled to feel a soft kiss placed on her inner elbow, and the lips trailed back to her shoulders and the hollow of her throat.

"Oh," she whispered. "Oh, jesus."

Her knees were getting weak, and her hand was tugged gently until she followed its lead and sat down on the bed. She could almost feel the touch of the hand that pressed delicately down until she lay back. The sensation of skin and warmth was there, but the shape of the hand itself seemed indistinct, more a moving sphere of caresses than anything else.

There should have been a weight above her, but there was none. Ripples played over the skin of her stomach like the rippling surface of a pond, and Joey felt her felt her entire body tighten as a single ember of warmth landed on her right nipple. The area of contact was tiny, and when she arched her back up to increase it, nothing happened. The source, whatever it was, retreated from her seeking skin.

She wanted to speak, to converse with and discover the source of what was turning out to be incredible pleasure, but the sounds her throat made were completely incoherent. Was it a floating, disembodied spirit? Was it a trick of some strange fever, causing her to hallucinate? Was she having a spiritual--or sexual?--epiphany?

It hardly mattered. The warmth spread outward, pressing down until it had began to depress her nipple into the fleshiness of her breast, and a heat like lips clasp her tightly. Joey moaned again and a hand found hers, then stretched it out above her head. First the right, then the left, and her fingers knotted together as she felt the fine nerves in her chest coming brilliantly to life.

The hands moved now, fingers and thumb, fleshy palm. All across her torso, splaying out to cover the indention around her hip bone. Everywhere the hands touched, she felt warm, and an ache had already begun at the base of her spine, a craving. One hand cradled the back of her neck, another was nudging her legs outward, and a third--there seemed to be no limit--stroked the tip of a finger over her damp, parted lips.

Jory felt herself squirming, trying to get closer to whatever was producing this, attempting to control the sensations. Her skin broke into a sweat which was smoothed away as soon as it rose by a caphony of hands and fingers and mouths. A tongue darted deftly into her belly button, piercing some depth within the heart of her, and she gasp and rose up from the mattress. The groan in the back of her throat caught and all the hands moved away suddenly, retracting. She flopped back, confused, and felt a single stroke running down the inside of her thigh.

"Oh, god," she murmured. Her knees were bent and lifted, her legs spread, and she could feel the abrupt chill on her nether regions. A cloud of warm air came over them, like a breath blow to heat onto hands. The back of bent fingers skimmed her thigh to the place where it met the curve of her ass and the fingers melted to form a hand that wrapped around her.

She had never let anyone do this to her. Not even her doctor.

Oh, she thought again, as she another cloud toasted her, why the hell did I wait so long?

She drew one arm back to cover her eyes as the mouth decended on her. Lines of brimstone lanced through her hips, all decending from a single point of concentration where sparks turned to liquid and boiled slowly.

Joey heard herself moan, loud and long. Images from the night before flashed in her mind, the way Pacey had looked in that thong, with that huge bulge pop-tenting the red leather. Had he cried, had he really cried when she collapsed above him?

She rocked her hips up, aching. "Yes," she whispered, "yes, keep going, don't stop, oh god."

Had he really said he loved her?

"Oh yes, a little more, oh Pacey, jesus-"

Instantly, the mouth or tongue or whatever was doing such incredible things to her darker territory, froze. Joey waited a moment, feeling the desperation building up inside her, and she lifted her arm and peered down over the wide, desert-like expanse of her pale stomach.

Pacey met her eyes, lifting his head from between her legs.

His expression was hard to read. Somewhere between wonder and devastation.

But it didn't hold a candle to what Joey was feeling.

Before she had any real time to react, the edges of her vision turned blurry and bright, and a dazzle came over her eyes as if she had suddenly stepped into the path of a sweeping light house's lamp.

"Joey!"

Her eyes snapped open. "What? Pacey?"

"Pacey?" Dawson asked, and she turned her head to look at him. They were in his bed, covered with a plaid comforter, and the television was off. Joey's hands snapped about beneath the blankets, quickly making sure she was dressed.

"What?" she asked again.

Dawson lifted an eyebrow, quizzical yet bemused. "You were moaning and calling out."

Oh shit. "Calling out for who?"

"You went through a directory of saints and most of the Hindu gods. What exactly was Pacey doing to get canonized?"

"Nothing," she snapped. "I was just talking in my sleep, it doesn't mean anything."

"Sure it doesn't," he said wickedly.

She rolled to face away from him and pointed out dourly, "This is why we're too old for sleep-overs, Dawson."

Pacey did some sort of crash landing when the dream broke up. He wasn't sure how it happened, but he was tumbling back into his bed, his own bed, before he even had time to...well, finish things.

When he looked up, Ryan was standing back in the corner where he'd first appeared. "What happened?" Pacey demanded.

"You ran out of time. There's a limit on how long these things can run, you know. It's important to keep them short."

"Why didn't you tell me that before we got started?"

Ryan shrugged. "How was I to know what you had in mind? Interesting dream, though. Very diabolical, psychologically disturbing, devilishly erotic, and yet strangely tender."

"Glad you approve," Pacey grumbled, still annoyed.

"I'll be going then," Ryan told him. "Sweet dreams."

Pacey was about to ask if they would be seeing each other again, but when he lifted his head, Ryan had vanished.

To be continued….

Will Dawson realize something is going on? How will he react to Joey and Pacey together? Will Pacey have the courage to approach Joey during their waking hours? Find out in the next installment of Dream Walker: