“Come on,” Chuck said, flicking off the TV. “We could take a hot tub first. That’ll make you feel better.”
“No,” Serena insisted.
“Fine,” Chuck said angrily. He stood up. “There’s water on the table. Put your boots on, I’ll help you get a cab.”
Serena pulled on her boots and stared at the cold rain falling outside the hotel room window.
“It’s raining,” she said, taking a sip of the water.
Chuck handed her a scarf, his trademark blue cashmere, monogrammed with the letters C.B. “Wrap it around your head,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.”
Serena took the scarf and followed Chuck out to the elevator. They rode down in silence. Serena knew Chuck was disappointed that she was leaving, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t wait to get out into the fresh air and into her own bed.
A cab pulled up, the Remi brothers’ poster in the box on the cab’s roof. Serena thought it looked like a close-up photograph of lips puckered into a kiss.
“What’s that? Mars?” Chuck joked, pointing to it. He glanced at Serena without a trace of humor in his eyes. “No, it’s your anus!”
Serena blinked at him. She couldn’t tell if Chuck trying to be funny or if that’s what he actually thought the picture was.
Chuck held the cab door open for her, and she slid into the back seat.
“Thanks, Chuck,” she said sweetly, “I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Whatever,” Chuck said. He leaned into the cab and pressed Serena against the seat. “What’s your problem anyway?” he hissed. “You’ve been fucking Nate Archibald since tenth grade, and I’m sure you did just about every guy at boarding school, and in France, too. What, are you like, too good to give me some?”
Serena stared directly into Chuck’s eyes, seeing him as he really was for the first time. He’d always been hard to like, but she’d never actually hated him before.
“That’s okay, I wouldn’t want to do it with you anyway,” Chuck sneered. “I hear you have diseases.”
“Get away from me,” Serena hissed, putting her hands on his chest and shoving him away. She slammed the cab door shut in his face, and gave the driver her address.
As the cab pulled away, Serena hugged herself, staring straight ahead through the rain-spattered windshield. When the taxi stopped at a light on the corner of Broadway and Spring, she opened the door, leaned out, and threw up into the gutter.
That will teach her not to drink on an empty stomach.
Chuck’s scarf swung from her neck and dangled in the puddle of pink vomit on the pavement. Serena pulled the scarf off, wiped her mouth on it, and stuffed it into her bag.
“Gross,” she said, slamming the cab door closed again.
“Tissue, miss?” the cab driver offered, passing a box of Kleenex back to her.
Serena pulled one from the box and wiped her mouth with it. “Thanks,” she said.
Then she sat back in the seat and closed her eyes, grateful, as always, for the kindness of strangers.
“What about a condom or something?” Blair murmured, gaping at Nate’s hard-on. It looked like it was going to take over the world.
She had managed to get all of his clothes off, and now they were lying down on her bed on top of the covers. They’d been fooling around for almost an hour. On the stereo, the Jennifer Lopez song “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” was playing, and Blair was getting hotter and hotter. She reached for Nate’s hand and licked his fingers, sucking greedily on the tip of each one. She had a feeling sex was going to be even better than food.
Nate rolled onto his back while Blair sucked his fingers. He had been so uptight about seeing Blair that he hadn’t eaten dinner, and now he was feeling hungry. Maybe when he went home he’d pick up a burrito from the Mexican place on Lexington Avenue. That’s what he wanted, a chicken and black bean burrito with extra guacamole.
Blair bit down hard on his pinky.
“Ow,” Nate said, his hard-on deflating as if it had been pricked with a pin. He sat up and ran his hands through his hair. “I can’t do this,” he muttered under his breath.
“What?” Blair said, sitting up too. “What’s wrong?” Her heart fell. This wasn’t in the script. Nate was ruining a perfect moment.
Clumsily, Nate took Blair’s hand and looked into her eyes for the first time all night. “I have to tell you something,” he said. “I can’t do this without you knowing. I feel like an asshole.”
Blair could tell by the look in Nate’s eyes that the moment wasn’t just ruined, it was killed. “What?” she said softly.
Nate reached down and gathered up the edges of the quilt. He draped one end around Blair’s shoulders and wrapped the other end around his waist. It didn’t seem right to talk about this when they were both so naked. He took Blair’s hand again.
“Remember the summer before last when you were away in Scotland, at your aunt’s wedding?” Nate began.
Blair nodded.
“It was so friggin’ hot that summer. I was in the city with my Dad, just hanging out while he went to some meetings and stuff. I got bored, so I called Serena in Ridgefield, and she came down.” Nate noticed Blair’s back stiffen when he mentioned Serena’s name. She removed her hand from his and crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes suddenly distrustful.
“We had some drinks and sat out in the garden. It was so hot, Serena started splashing around in the fountain, and then she started splashing me. And I guess I got kind of carried away. I mean—” Nate fumbled. He remembered what Cyrus had told him about girls liking surprises. Well, Blair was about to be very surprised, and he didn’t think she was going to like it one bit.
“And what?” Blair demanded. “What happened?”
“We kissed,” Nate said. He took a deep breath and held it. He couldn’t just leave it at that. He blew the breath out. “And then we had sex.”
Blair threw the quilt off her shoulders and stood up. “I knew it!” she shouted. “Who hasn’t had sex with Serena? That nasty, slutty bitch!”
“I’m sorry, Blair. But it wasn’t like, planned or anything,” Nate said. “It just happened. And it was only that one time, promise. I just didn’t want you to think this was my first time, when it wasn’t. I had to tell you.”
Blair stomped into her bathroom and snatched her pink satin bathrobe off its hook. She put it on, cinching the belt tight. “Get the fuck out of here, Nate,” she said, angry tears sluicing her cheeks. “I can’t even look at you. You’re pathetic.”
“Blair—” Nate pleaded. For a split second he tried to think of something charming to say. He could usually think of something, but nothing came.
Blair slammed the bathroom door shut in his face.
Nate stood up and pulled on his boxers. Kitty Minky poked her head out from under the bed and stared at him accusingly, her golden cat eyes glowing eerily in the dark. Nate grabbed his jeans, shirt, and shoes and headed for the front door. He could hardly wait for that burrito.
The front door closed with a hollow bang, but Blair remained locked in the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror glaring at her tear-stained reflection. The tube of Serena’s lip gloss was still lying on the sink where she had left it. Blair picked it up with trembling fingers. Gash, it was called. What an ugly name. Of course Serena could wear lip gloss with ugly names, and tights with holes in them, and dirty old shoes, and never cut her hair, and still get the boy. Blair grunted at the irony of it all and opened her bathroom window, tossing the lip gloss out into the night and waiting to hear it land on the pavement below. But she couldn’t hear a thing.
Her head was too full of the new movie she was working on. The movie in which the fabulous Serena van der Woodsen was run over by a bus with her stupid picture plastered to the side of it and was horribly maimed. Her old friend Blair would take time out from her busy life with her doting husband, Nate, to feed Elephant Girl Serena mashed pears and tell her all about the parties she and Nate had been to. Serena would grunt and
fart in response, but charitable Blair wouldn’t mind. It was the least she could do. Everyone would call her Saint Blair, and she would win awards for her golden heart.
will s & n hook up again?
Just before midnight, the taxi pulled up at 994 Fifth Avenue. Across the street, the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art were deserted, glowing eerily white in the light of the streetlamps. Serena stepped out of the cab and waved to Roland, the old night doorman, who was dozing just inside the lobby. The door to the apartment building opened, but it wasn’t Roland who opened it. It was Nate.
“Nate!” Serena squealed, genuinely surprised. “Hey, could you loan me five bucks? I haven’t got enough cash. Usually the doorman helps me out, but I guess he’s asleep.”
Nate pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and gave some to the taxi driver. He put his finger to his lips and crept up to the front door of the building. Then he knocked loudly on the glass door. “Hello?” he shouted.
“Oh, Nate,” Serena laughed. “You are so mean!”
Roland snapped his eyes open and nearly fell off his chair. Then he opened the door for them, and Serena and Nate ran inside and rode the elevator up to Serena’s apartment.
Serena led the way to her room and sat down heavily on the bed. “Did you get my message?” she yawned at Nate, pulling off her boots. “I thought you’d come out tonight.”
“I couldn’t,” Nate said. He picked up the little glass ballerina perched on top of Serena’s mahogany jewelry chest. She had the tiniest toes, like little pinpoints. He’d forgotten about her.
“Well, it wasn’t worth it anyway,” Serena sighed. She lay down on the bed. “I am so tired,” she said. She patted the bed next to her and slid over to give Nate room. “Come lie down and tell me a bedtime story?”
Nate put the ballerina down and swallowed. Breathing in the scent of Serena’s room with Serena in it made his heart hurt. He lay down next to her, their bodies touching. Nate put his arm around Serena and she kissed his cheek, snuggling in close.
“I was just over at Blair’s,” Nate said.
But Serena didn’t answer. She was breathing steadily. Maybe she was already asleep.
Nate lay still, with his eyes open wide, his mind racing. He wondered if he and Blair were officially broken up now. He wondered if he kissed Serena right now, full on the lips and told her he loved her, how she’d respond. He wondered if he’d just gone ahead and had sex with Blair if everything would have been all right.
Nate cast his eyes around the room, taking in all the familiar well-loved objects that he’d grown up seeing and forgotten all about. The kilt-wearing teddy bear from Scotland that sat aristocratically on Serena’s little dressing table. The big mahogany armoire with its drawers half open and all her clothes spilling out of it. The little brown burn mark he’d made in ninth grade on the white canopy hanging from her bed.
On the floor by the door was Serena’s red velvet bag. The contents had spilled out of it. A blue pack of Gauloise cigarettes. A twenty-dollar bill. An Amex card. And a navy blue scarf with the letters C.B. stitched on it in gold.
Why had she needed to borrow money from him when she had twenty dollars with her? Nate wondered. And what the hell was she doing with Chuck Bass’s scarf?
Nate turned over on his side and Serena moaned softly as her head rolled back on the pillow. He studied her critically. She was so beautiful and sexy and trusting, and so full of surprises. It was hard to believe she was actually for real.
Serena reached up and put her arms around Nate’s neck, pulling him toward her.
“Come on,” she murmured, her eyes still closed. “Sleep with me.”
Nate’s whole body tensed. He didn’t know if Serena meant just go to sleep or sleep with her, but he was definitely aroused. Any boy in his right mind would be, which is exactly what turned Nate off.
There was something so careless about the way Serena had said it. Nate suddenly had no trouble imagining her doing the things he’d heard she’d done. With Serena, anything was possible.
A glitter of silver caught his eye. It was the tiny silver box Serena kept on her bedside table, full of her baby teeth. Every time he came over, Nate used to open up the velvet-lined box to see if all the teeth were still there. But not this time. From the look of things, Serena wasn’t the same little girl who’d lost all those teeth.
Nate pulled away from her and stood up. He snatched up Chuck’s scarf and tossed it on the bed, not noticing that it was streaked with vomit. And then, without even looking at Serena again, he left, slamming the door behind him.
Chicken.
At the sound of the door closing Serena opened her eyes and breathed in the scent of her own barf. Gagging, she threw the covers back and ran to the bathroom. She clutched the rim of her white porcelain sink and heaved into it, her sides hurting with the effort. Nothing came out. Serena turned on the shower as hot as it would go and pulled her clammy Pucci dress over her head, dropping it on the floor. All she needed was a good hot shower and a little exfoliant.
Tomorrow she’d be good as new.
Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.
hey people!
THE VIRGIN ISSUE
Can you believe N? He was thisclose to getting a nice slice of B pie, if you know what I mean. I guess we’re supposed to admire his self-control, his ability to keep the old hot dog in the bun. But I bet B really wouldn’t have minded too much if N had just kept his mouth shut and got on with it instead of getting all moral on her and telling her all about his time with S. I mean, who’s B going to lose it to now?
I was wrong about boys. I always thought they’d do anything to bag a virgin. I mean, I thought N would like the idea that B has never done it. But he doesn’t seem to care about that at all. All it does is make having sex with her this huge thing that he can’t deal with without smoking a big fattie and downing half a bottle of JD. So disappointing.
Not that he was too quick to jump S’s bones either, and we all know she’s no virgin.
Maybe N just has high moral standards.
Ooh, that makes me like him even more.
Your E-mail
Hey gossip girl,
i saw S go upstairs with some dude at the Tribeca Star. she was wasted. i was kind of tempted to knock on the door and see if there was a party going on or s/t, but i chickened out. i just wanted your advice. do you think she’d do me? i mean, she looks pretty easy.
—Coop
Dear Coop,
If you’re the type of guy who has to ask, then probably not. S may be a ho, but she has excellent taste.
—GG
Sightings
Just one: N at the burrito place on Lexington, chatting up the cute girl behind the counter. She gave him extra guacamole for free. Yeah, I bet she did.
You know you love me,
westsiders go bonkers for barneys
“Dan,” Jenny whispered, poking at her brother’s chest. “Wake up.”
Dan flung his hand over his eyes and kicked at his sheets. “Go away. It’s Saturday,” he mumbled.
“Please get up,” Jenny whined. She sat down on the bed, poking him repeatedly until he removed his arm to glare at her.
“What’s your problem?” Dan said. “Leave me alone.”
“No,” Jenny insisted. “We have to go shopping.”
“Right,” Dan said. He rolled over, turning his head toward the wall.
“Please, Dan. I have to get a dress for the party on Friday and you have to help me. Dad gave me his credit card. He said you could get a tux, too.” Jenny giggled. “Since we’re turning out to be the type of spoiled rotten kids that will need tuxes and dresses and all that crap.”
Dan rolled over. “I’m not going to that party,” he said.
“Shut up. Yes you are. You’re going and you’re going to meet Serena and dance with her. I’ll introduce you. She’s totally cool,” Jenny
burbled happily.
“No,” Dan said stubbornly.
“Well, you can at least help me pick out a dress,” Jenny pouted. “Because I’m going. And I want to look nice.”
“Can’t Dad go with you?” Dan asked.
“Yeah, right. I said I wanted to look nice,” Jenny scoffed. “You know what Dad told me? He said, ‘Go to Sears, it’s the proletarian department store.’ Whatever that means. I don’t even know where Sears is, if it even exists anymore. Anyway, I want to go to Barneys. I can’t believe I’ve never even been there. I bet people like Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf go there, like, every day.”
Dan sat up and yawned loudly. Jenny was all dressed and ready to go, with her curly hair pulled back into a ponytail. She even had her jacket and shoes on. She looked so cute and eager, it was kind of hard to say no.
“You’re such a pain in my ass,” Dan said, standing up and stumbling toward the bathroom.
“You know you love me,” Jenny called after him.
As far as Dan was concerned, Barneys was full of assholes, down to the dude who opened the door for him, smiling in the cheesiest way possible. But Jenny loved it, and even though she had never been there, she seemed to know everything about the place. She knew not to bother with the lower floors, which were full of designer clothes she could never afford, and headed straight to the top floor Co-op. And when the elevator doors rolled open, she felt like she had died and gone to heaven. There were so many beautiful dresses hanging on the racks it made her salivate to look at them. She wanted to try them all on, but of course she couldn’t.
When you’re a 34D, you’re kind of limited. And you definitely need help.
“Dan, will you go ask that woman to help me find this in my size,” Jenny whispered, fingering a purple velvet empire-waist sheath with beaded straps. She pulled out the price tag. Six hundred bucks.