i'm a bitter pill to swallow
He meets her in a club - ah, love stories these days are beautiful, right?
Serena is eighteen, barely, wearing a skimpy dress and sky-scraper heels. He feels like a perv as he watches her on the dance floor, her hips waving and moving in time to the music, the way his gaze is trained on her tits bouncing, the nipple peeking through the thin fabric of her dress.
He's twenty-two. Last year he was engaged to a business tycoons only daughter - a conservative red-head who dreamed of being a fashion designer and scheduled in time for sex. He enjoyed it at the time. He enjoys everyone at the time.
"Can I buy you a drink?" It's Serena that asks him. Pausing in the middle of a song and catching his gaze, the way his eyes follow the hemline of her skirt to her ankles. Her smile is flirtatious as she leaves her friend, hand swiping against her friend's ass.
Her arm is draped on the table of the bar. Blonde hair falling around her shoulders. He should say no. He should go home. He can see her cleavage up close from the angle she's positioned herself, the peek of thighs from underneath the material of her dress.
"If I can buy you one." He tells her instead, his smile charming and his words oozing with charisma - Carter has always been like that, charismatic and charming, panties dropping at his doorstep.
"I'm Serena." She slides onto the stool next to him. He knows who she is. Everyone knows who Serena is. Gorgeous, brilliant, mad Serena with her plump lips and infectious laugh.
"Carter." He returns.
Serena laughs, draping her hand over his arm. "Oh, I know who you are." Her voice drops an octave, her eyebrow raised. His pants feel tighter.
"We could skip the drink." Carter says, eyes flickering to her lips, to her tits pressed against her dress, to where her dress stops.
"I'd much prefer that." Serena tells him, sliding off the stool. He follows her. He doesn't know it yet but he'll end up following her everywhere, half-way across the globe.
He takes her back to his place, on the Upper West. Serena tells him stories in the cab ride over - about the time she skinny-dipped in the Mediterranean, the elephants she rode in Fiji, the boys she tongue-kissed in France, the girls she slept with in Italy.
In return he tells her about the coke he snorted in Germany, the threesome he had in Switzerland with the twin brothers, the supermodel he fucked from behind on the way to Thailand.
By the time they reach his door, they're both so heated, so ready to jump each others bones. Serena makes the first move, pushing herself up against him once they're inside; her lips immediately attaching themselves to the curve of his neck.
"I need you to fuck me." She pants, her hands reaching for his belt. He groans, head thrown back roughly against the wall.
She has his clothes off in record time, leaving him stark-naked against the wall while she's still fully dressed. His fingers pull at the straps of her dress, pushing it down off her shoulders, until it hangs around her waist. He flicks a finger at her nipple, watching as it pebbles underneath his touch, pushes her dress down farther, crawls onto his knees to press his mouth against her neatly trimmed curls.
"God - Carter." Serena whines, impatiently pushing her fingers through his hair roughly. He peels her heels off, his hands moving up to grip her thighs.
"You've got an amazing ass." He tells her, looking up at her once, to see an unimpressed stare.
"I need something." She tells him, almost frantic.
It takes them three seconds to end up on his couch, hips thrusting against each others in a need for something more. His fingers wander down her stomach until they're plunging inside of her, pumping back and forth.
"God," He whines, his voice throaty. They're not even fucking (yet) and she's still the best he's ever had, (ever will have).
In a minute she's on top of him, a condom rolled onto his dick, and her bouncing up and down on him.
He doesn't see her the next morning. If it wasn't for the note she left on his coffee table he'd think he'd have dreamed the whole night. Gone to bed with too much MDMA in his system, getting himself off.
Thanks for last night! Call me - Serena
Her number is scribbled underneath, a row of kisses next to her name. He scrunches the paper up and throws it in the bin. He's had enough commitment for a lifetime. Last night was fun - that's all it was.
In two hours time he'll pull the number from the bin, flatten it out and send her a quick text.
Hey, this is Carter. If you're up for a repeat, I'm game.
Serena is at his place in half an hour.
For the first few months that's all it is - sex. Good sex. Fantastic sex. Out of this world, mind-blowing sex.
Until Serena is at his door at 3 a.m. on a Thursday morning. He's learned a lot about Serena in the past few months - how she likes her pancakes, the names of all her friends, where she likes to go in the Summer, the time when she was 9 and Blair Waldorf pushed her out of a tree, how protective she is of her younger brother Eric, how her last relationship crashed and burned and crashed some more, how she's scared of the future and how she has no idea what she wants to do with her life.
He knows Serena. But he still doesn't expect her to come to his door in the early hours of the morning for anything other than a booty-call. He really doesn't expect her to be crying.
"He's going to marry her." Serena sobs when he opens the door. Her hair is tied up in a messy bun. Her face completely devoid of make-up. In torn jeans and a plain white T-shirt. He's never seen her like this before; he's seen her in sparkly dresses, in lace underwear and intricate corsets, in his shorts and nothing else, in body-con Alexander McQueen, in jaw-dropping gowns and dresses and leather pants. But never like this, never exposed.
For a moment he's dumbfounded, "Who?" He asks. But Serena is pushing her way inside, throwing herself against his chest. His hands find her back, rubbing soothing circles up and down, up and down.
"My - Rufus, Rufus - He's going to marry my mom." He connects Rufus to Humphrey and Humphrey to Dan and Dan to Serena's ex-boyfriend, the one currently entangled with her best friend Blair.
"Serena. I'm - I'm sorry." He says, for lack of anything else. He vaguely understands why it must hurt - Serena still had hope for a reunion between Dan and herself, for a happily-ever-after, and while dating her best friend hasn't put a damper on her dreams, his father marrying her mother has.
"You don't get it, Carter." She whimpers. Her head buried in the crook of his neck. He doesn't correct her - he doesn't get it, not until she explains it to him at least, he can have his own theories but he doesn't know.
"I still love him. Sometimes." Serena says.
"Dan?" He clarifies. Just in-case her life turns out to be more twisted and she's engaged in an illicit affair with Rufus Humphrey. It wouldn't be the first time he's been involved with a girl that was in love with her ex-boyfriends dad.
"Dan, yeah." Serena sniffles. He backs them up against the couch, draping a blanket over her shoulders.
"Is it crazy, Carter?" Serena asks, once her sobs have died down. "To still love Dan? Even - even after he's hurt me so bad? Even after we're completely over?"
"No." Carter replies instantly. "But I don't think it's good for you to still be holding on to him. You'll always love him - there's always those people you'll always love. Dan is going to be that for you. He was your first love. But, you're not in love with him now. Not the current version of Dan."
"You're very wise, Baizen." Serena says, after a beat, an awkward silence settling over them. He coughs, rubs the back of his neck, shrugs his shoulders.
"Well, yeah."
It's the first night where Serena spends the night and nothing sexual between them happens. The first night she spends where Carter is enchanted by her and not her body, but her words and her stories and her wisdom and her laugh. It's the first night where Carter knows he's got to cut this girl off or he'll never be able to escape her.
Serena calls him in the afternoon, the next day. Her voice is soft and warm on the phone.
"I was walking past that Turkish shop on the corner of my street and thought of you." Is her opening line when he picks up. He smiles, remembering their conversation from last night, how he'd talked about picking up his lunch from there every Monday.
"Stop to get any?" He asks. Serena laughs, her laugh reminds him of Summer, of sandy beaches and crystal shores; he thinks that Serena reminds everyone of that.
"No. Sadly, I think I'd rather wait until I'm with you to get it." It's the first time something in the future for them has been said by either of them, their hook-ups are never mentioned, never planned except for the quick text or call before coming over. He likes the sound of a next time, of a future, with Serena too much.
"Keep your three o'clock on Monday free, beautiful." He says, smiling as he reclines back on his couch. Serena laughs,
"Yeah, yeah. So, I was wondering if you were free tonight? I was planning to go out for dinner but I don't really feel like eating alone." Serena asks, he can hear the cars whizzing past her. He can feel his throat becoming tighter. It would be a date.
He surprises himself by saying yes.
He meets her on the pier, she already has wedges and a hot-dog waiting for him. Her smile is giddy and she's dressed down again, shorts and a plain black singlet. He feels overdressed in his black slacks and unbuttoned shirt.
"You look nice." He says, smiling gently at her.
Serena rolls her eyes. "Blair said I looked poor."
"Blair's a bitch." Carter says, shoving a chip into his mouth. Serena laughs, leaning her elbows against the railing.
"Yeah, but I love her."
"I don't see how." Carter retorts. It's no secret that he finds Blair unpleasant.
"If this is going to work between us, Carter, you might want to refrain from bitching about my best friend." Serena says, pushing her shoulder against his.
He feels lighter with Serena, like everything else in the world just fades away when he's with her.
"Yeah? What's this thing that's gonna work between us?" He asks.
Serena blushes-she blushes-taking him by total surprise, "Well. You being my boyfriend and all." She replies sheepishly.
"Last night you were crying about how much you still love Dan Humphrey." Carter replies dead-pan.
"I change my mind a lot. I'm young." Serena says, poking out her tongue. He shrugs his shoulders.
"I don't care. I like you, Serena. It doesn't have to be serious." Carter says. He's wise enough to know this isn't going to last - she's eighteen and he's twenty-two and in a few months they'll go different ways.
"You like me?" Serena teases, and he thinks she looks beautiful under moonlight.
"Yeah, beautiful. I like you."
In a year like turns to love and not lasting turns to living together. Serena is fun and spontaneous and they spend six months driving in a beat-up little car across America, jetting around Europe and spending a month lying on sandy beaches.
They have everywhere to go and nowhere to be.
He starts thinking they're going to have an eternity together - matching gold bands, gurgling babies, a private jet that will take them everywhere. He sees her in his future, but she doesn't see him.
It's their first night back in New York when it ends. Serena goes to have dinner with Blair and comes back quiet and reserved, telling him quietly that it's been fun but it's got to come to an end.
Carter wants to be able to say that he saw it coming, that he was expecting it, but he wasn't. He thought they'd have a lifetime of get away cars and hoping countries together, doing lines in bathrooms where they don't speak the language and gambling all their money away in Vegas.
He doesn't fight. Doesn't tell her all the things men do in romantic comedies. He nods his head, tells her she can take her stuff or stay there the night and he'll grab a hotel or - or, or, or - whatever she wants. And he leaves.
He finds the nearest bar and gets shit-faced drunk, fucking the first guy he sees in the men's bathrooms.
He doesn't see Serena for two years after that.
Serena is eighteen, barely, wearing a skimpy dress and sky-scraper heels. He feels like a perv as he watches her on the dance floor, her hips waving and moving in time to the music, the way his gaze is trained on her tits bouncing, the nipple peeking through the thin fabric of her dress.
He's twenty-two. Last year he was engaged to a business tycoons only daughter - a conservative red-head who dreamed of being a fashion designer and scheduled in time for sex. He enjoyed it at the time. He enjoys everyone at the time.
"Can I buy you a drink?" It's Serena that asks him. Pausing in the middle of a song and catching his gaze, the way his eyes follow the hemline of her skirt to her ankles. Her smile is flirtatious as she leaves her friend, hand swiping against her friend's ass.
Her arm is draped on the table of the bar. Blonde hair falling around her shoulders. He should say no. He should go home. He can see her cleavage up close from the angle she's positioned herself, the peek of thighs from underneath the material of her dress.
"If I can buy you one." He tells her instead, his smile charming and his words oozing with charisma - Carter has always been like that, charismatic and charming, panties dropping at his doorstep.
"I'm Serena." She slides onto the stool next to him. He knows who she is. Everyone knows who Serena is. Gorgeous, brilliant, mad Serena with her plump lips and infectious laugh.
"Carter." He returns.
Serena laughs, draping her hand over his arm. "Oh, I know who you are." Her voice drops an octave, her eyebrow raised. His pants feel tighter.
"We could skip the drink." Carter says, eyes flickering to her lips, to her tits pressed against her dress, to where her dress stops.
"I'd much prefer that." Serena tells him, sliding off the stool. He follows her. He doesn't know it yet but he'll end up following her everywhere, half-way across the globe.
He takes her back to his place, on the Upper West. Serena tells him stories in the cab ride over - about the time she skinny-dipped in the Mediterranean, the elephants she rode in Fiji, the boys she tongue-kissed in France, the girls she slept with in Italy.
In return he tells her about the coke he snorted in Germany, the threesome he had in Switzerland with the twin brothers, the supermodel he fucked from behind on the way to Thailand.
By the time they reach his door, they're both so heated, so ready to jump each others bones. Serena makes the first move, pushing herself up against him once they're inside; her lips immediately attaching themselves to the curve of his neck.
"I need you to fuck me." She pants, her hands reaching for his belt. He groans, head thrown back roughly against the wall.
She has his clothes off in record time, leaving him stark-naked against the wall while she's still fully dressed. His fingers pull at the straps of her dress, pushing it down off her shoulders, until it hangs around her waist. He flicks a finger at her nipple, watching as it pebbles underneath his touch, pushes her dress down farther, crawls onto his knees to press his mouth against her neatly trimmed curls.
"God - Carter." Serena whines, impatiently pushing her fingers through his hair roughly. He peels her heels off, his hands moving up to grip her thighs.
"You've got an amazing ass." He tells her, looking up at her once, to see an unimpressed stare.
"I need something." She tells him, almost frantic.
It takes them three seconds to end up on his couch, hips thrusting against each others in a need for something more. His fingers wander down her stomach until they're plunging inside of her, pumping back and forth.
"God," He whines, his voice throaty. They're not even fucking (yet) and she's still the best he's ever had, (ever will have).
In a minute she's on top of him, a condom rolled onto his dick, and her bouncing up and down on him.
He doesn't see her the next morning. If it wasn't for the note she left on his coffee table he'd think he'd have dreamed the whole night. Gone to bed with too much MDMA in his system, getting himself off.
Thanks for last night! Call me - Serena
Her number is scribbled underneath, a row of kisses next to her name. He scrunches the paper up and throws it in the bin. He's had enough commitment for a lifetime. Last night was fun - that's all it was.
In two hours time he'll pull the number from the bin, flatten it out and send her a quick text.
Hey, this is Carter. If you're up for a repeat, I'm game.
Serena is at his place in half an hour.
For the first few months that's all it is - sex. Good sex. Fantastic sex. Out of this world, mind-blowing sex.
Until Serena is at his door at 3 a.m. on a Thursday morning. He's learned a lot about Serena in the past few months - how she likes her pancakes, the names of all her friends, where she likes to go in the Summer, the time when she was 9 and Blair Waldorf pushed her out of a tree, how protective she is of her younger brother Eric, how her last relationship crashed and burned and crashed some more, how she's scared of the future and how she has no idea what she wants to do with her life.
He knows Serena. But he still doesn't expect her to come to his door in the early hours of the morning for anything other than a booty-call. He really doesn't expect her to be crying.
"He's going to marry her." Serena sobs when he opens the door. Her hair is tied up in a messy bun. Her face completely devoid of make-up. In torn jeans and a plain white T-shirt. He's never seen her like this before; he's seen her in sparkly dresses, in lace underwear and intricate corsets, in his shorts and nothing else, in body-con Alexander McQueen, in jaw-dropping gowns and dresses and leather pants. But never like this, never exposed.
For a moment he's dumbfounded, "Who?" He asks. But Serena is pushing her way inside, throwing herself against his chest. His hands find her back, rubbing soothing circles up and down, up and down.
"My - Rufus, Rufus - He's going to marry my mom." He connects Rufus to Humphrey and Humphrey to Dan and Dan to Serena's ex-boyfriend, the one currently entangled with her best friend Blair.
"Serena. I'm - I'm sorry." He says, for lack of anything else. He vaguely understands why it must hurt - Serena still had hope for a reunion between Dan and herself, for a happily-ever-after, and while dating her best friend hasn't put a damper on her dreams, his father marrying her mother has.
"You don't get it, Carter." She whimpers. Her head buried in the crook of his neck. He doesn't correct her - he doesn't get it, not until she explains it to him at least, he can have his own theories but he doesn't know.
"I still love him. Sometimes." Serena says.
"Dan?" He clarifies. Just in-case her life turns out to be more twisted and she's engaged in an illicit affair with Rufus Humphrey. It wouldn't be the first time he's been involved with a girl that was in love with her ex-boyfriends dad.
"Dan, yeah." Serena sniffles. He backs them up against the couch, draping a blanket over her shoulders.
"Is it crazy, Carter?" Serena asks, once her sobs have died down. "To still love Dan? Even - even after he's hurt me so bad? Even after we're completely over?"
"No." Carter replies instantly. "But I don't think it's good for you to still be holding on to him. You'll always love him - there's always those people you'll always love. Dan is going to be that for you. He was your first love. But, you're not in love with him now. Not the current version of Dan."
"You're very wise, Baizen." Serena says, after a beat, an awkward silence settling over them. He coughs, rubs the back of his neck, shrugs his shoulders.
"Well, yeah."
It's the first night where Serena spends the night and nothing sexual between them happens. The first night she spends where Carter is enchanted by her and not her body, but her words and her stories and her wisdom and her laugh. It's the first night where Carter knows he's got to cut this girl off or he'll never be able to escape her.
Serena calls him in the afternoon, the next day. Her voice is soft and warm on the phone.
"I was walking past that Turkish shop on the corner of my street and thought of you." Is her opening line when he picks up. He smiles, remembering their conversation from last night, how he'd talked about picking up his lunch from there every Monday.
"Stop to get any?" He asks. Serena laughs, her laugh reminds him of Summer, of sandy beaches and crystal shores; he thinks that Serena reminds everyone of that.
"No. Sadly, I think I'd rather wait until I'm with you to get it." It's the first time something in the future for them has been said by either of them, their hook-ups are never mentioned, never planned except for the quick text or call before coming over. He likes the sound of a next time, of a future, with Serena too much.
"Keep your three o'clock on Monday free, beautiful." He says, smiling as he reclines back on his couch. Serena laughs,
"Yeah, yeah. So, I was wondering if you were free tonight? I was planning to go out for dinner but I don't really feel like eating alone." Serena asks, he can hear the cars whizzing past her. He can feel his throat becoming tighter. It would be a date.
He surprises himself by saying yes.
He meets her on the pier, she already has wedges and a hot-dog waiting for him. Her smile is giddy and she's dressed down again, shorts and a plain black singlet. He feels overdressed in his black slacks and unbuttoned shirt.
"You look nice." He says, smiling gently at her.
Serena rolls her eyes. "Blair said I looked poor."
"Blair's a bitch." Carter says, shoving a chip into his mouth. Serena laughs, leaning her elbows against the railing.
"Yeah, but I love her."
"I don't see how." Carter retorts. It's no secret that he finds Blair unpleasant.
"If this is going to work between us, Carter, you might want to refrain from bitching about my best friend." Serena says, pushing her shoulder against his.
He feels lighter with Serena, like everything else in the world just fades away when he's with her.
"Yeah? What's this thing that's gonna work between us?" He asks.
Serena blushes-she blushes-taking him by total surprise, "Well. You being my boyfriend and all." She replies sheepishly.
"Last night you were crying about how much you still love Dan Humphrey." Carter replies dead-pan.
"I change my mind a lot. I'm young." Serena says, poking out her tongue. He shrugs his shoulders.
"I don't care. I like you, Serena. It doesn't have to be serious." Carter says. He's wise enough to know this isn't going to last - she's eighteen and he's twenty-two and in a few months they'll go different ways.
"You like me?" Serena teases, and he thinks she looks beautiful under moonlight.
"Yeah, beautiful. I like you."
In a year like turns to love and not lasting turns to living together. Serena is fun and spontaneous and they spend six months driving in a beat-up little car across America, jetting around Europe and spending a month lying on sandy beaches.
They have everywhere to go and nowhere to be.
He starts thinking they're going to have an eternity together - matching gold bands, gurgling babies, a private jet that will take them everywhere. He sees her in his future, but she doesn't see him.
It's their first night back in New York when it ends. Serena goes to have dinner with Blair and comes back quiet and reserved, telling him quietly that it's been fun but it's got to come to an end.
Carter wants to be able to say that he saw it coming, that he was expecting it, but he wasn't. He thought they'd have a lifetime of get away cars and hoping countries together, doing lines in bathrooms where they don't speak the language and gambling all their money away in Vegas.
He doesn't fight. Doesn't tell her all the things men do in romantic comedies. He nods his head, tells her she can take her stuff or stay there the night and he'll grab a hotel or - or, or, or - whatever she wants. And he leaves.
He finds the nearest bar and gets shit-faced drunk, fucking the first guy he sees in the men's bathrooms.
He doesn't see Serena for two years after that.