Fucking Serena van der Woodsen is like fucking a dream.
As soon as he writes the words down, he feels a stab of uncomfortable guilt, but he needs to get this down on paper. It had been two weeks since Daniel Humphrey had lost his virginity to Serena, It-Girl Extraordinaire, Park Avenue Blonde Princess, his girlfriend, and he hadn't written a word since he'd – well, entered virgin territory. Except, okay, Serena was so not a virgin. And the word territory makes him supremely uncomfortable as a guy who advocates for equal rights, you know. Since he'd…well, done the deed, lost his v-card, become a man. Wow, euphemisms for this are hilarious and embarrassing. Whatever. The wording here wasn't important.
It had been Christmas, and her gold-streaked hair was like the shining star atop the bejeweled tree. Fake snowflakes swirled down towards them, pressing soft butterfly kisses on their winter-hardened skin. She pulled him down towards her and he knew – this is the moment, oh – and he silently thanks his good sense/patheticness for practicing how to put a condom on, because he does it deftly and she looks mildly impressed. Virginal and shaking, Dan sidles close to her, trying to lose himself in their kiss, and he deepens it and swirls his tongue slowly because this, he knows how to do, and he does it well. He'd wanted this forever, and the way they're doing it is entirely and impossibly perfect, but somehow the prospect of having sex with Serena is…intimidating. He feels insecure and overpowered, but Serena just giggles gently and guides him inside her and then, all logical thought is out the window.
Or so it should have been.
He feels himself slide into her, and his breath hitches, and she lets out a breathy moan – all of Serena's sounds are high-pitched and breathy, she never quite moans. It feels unbelievably good, better than he'd thought it would be; his dick is tingling and she is warm and it feels like getting a blowjob from an angel, or something equally ridiculous. But he finds that his brain is still very fully with him – he is Dan Humphrey after all, and honestly, his mind is racing a mile a minute. He thinks of e. e. cummings and how he might write about sex, and then he thinks about the potential of bawdy sex jokes in the poet's name, he thinks about rain and the sound it makes and then of his English homework, he thinks about God briefly and scolds himself for being weirdly blasphemous and it's like he can't quite concentrate on the writhing girl beneath him. Which is so weird! She is magnetically beautiful, an absolute vision, her eyes gleaming and her teeth shining and he recalls Tolkien's famous "all that is gold does not glitter," and he wants to say, wrong, hobbit-man, Serena is the most golden person he's ever met and she fucking glows. But somehow, as wonderful as everything is, Dan is focused on words, words, words – he thinks of how he would later describe his feelings during sex and how he would write them down and he comes up empty so he just keeps racking his brain and Serena looks confused and it would be really strange if he just started uttering what was going through his mind (my dad, Brooklyn, the sun, French cinema), so he repeats, like a sacred mantra, Serena, Serena, Serena, and she smiles lovingly up at him.
He came a little bit too quickly but she seemed satisfied, thank god, and later they cuddle and he relishes in the fact that kissing is still familiar and amazing and he's able to lose himself in it a little bit more.
It's been two weeks since then and well, they've been fucking a lot. They have to sneak around but fortunately neither of them are very loud so they can just kind of do it even if parents are around. It's exceptional. Dan decides very seriously that he loves sex, and almost writes it down in his diary, but that feels too silly. It's great, and he feels closer to Serena, and he's been lasting longer and she's pleased with him and they're getting along so well and he could never have imagined in a million years that he would deserve such happiness.
The only problem is – well, his brain. It's like it has diarrhea, or something. It's constantly in overload while they're having sex and he's never able to just enjoy the physicality. He'd thought that, after a while, instinct or animal lust or hormones or whatever would kick in, and he'd be able to inhabit a different space, a lust-clouded haze of dreamy sex, but it doesn't really. He thinks over and over in his head, I am making love to this girl, because he wants to be. I love her, he thinks, and he thinks it ardently, but it feels strangely off.
Making love to Serena is – wow, this sounds so harsh, and it's not even true, damnit, Dan is just doing what he always does, overthinking it, but…it's weirdly empty. She is so breathy and light and she feels like she is going to just float away, like a brightly colored balloon, spiraling upwards. Perhaps it's because he's imagined it for so long. It must be. He's put her on a pedestal and that's what's causing him to doubt her, because nobody can live up to that kind of expectation. But she's like a spark of light, effervescent and luminous, but absolutely temporary, a flashing Christmas tree that is almost ready to get dismantled and put back in the basement. Even when her hips are bucking towards him and she's grabbing at his penis and he holds her down and kisses her hard and fucks her, pumping in and out of her center, both of them saying each other's names, it feels…unreal. A dream. Distinctly not corporal, not of the body, not lasting. When he holds her it feels like she's going to flit away into thin air and it takes shoving his tongue down her throat to break through the unsavory feeling.
The words are spilling over now, his writer's block broken down like a house of cheap cards. Perhaps what had been obstructing him all this time was simple honesty, but he doesn't like this new direction he's headed. Dan wonders aloud what to do and settles on a solution quickly – aha! All he has to do is take a leaf out of Petrarch's notebook, and write a blazon for Serena. He will chart all of her features meticulously and the list will transpire only feelings of love and comfort. He starts with her hair, most obviously. Honestly, he doesn't think he can do it justice.
It's always perfect, is the thing. Even when it's not. Serena often rolls out of bed and puts on the most ostentatious and expensive outfit she can possibly bear, but sometimes she doesn't even comb her hair. And it looks amazing. Messy chic. Golden and eternal, flowing effortlessly around her in waves, a cascade of shimmer and glamour. He loves touching it, running his fingers through its infinity. It does an immaculate job of highlighting all of her features, on top of everything else. Her face…it's funny, Serena's face isn't perfect. It's not what you would really call classically beautiful, and he hadn't recognized that until he was up close and personal. Her outfits and hair and skin and legs are enough to leave you just kind of thunderstruck, so nobody actually pays attention to her countenance long enough to study it. But her eyes, although brilliantly blue, are quite small, not very expressive, and too close together. They're certainly not the doe-like full-lashed eyes that are accepted as classically pretty. Her nose lacks the necessary elegant curvature, instead it's actually a bit bulky for her face. Her lips much too thin, lacking a full pout. Her cheekbones do not stick out, her face is a bit squarish, and her jawline is strong, almost masculine.
He decides he likes – no, loves, these things about her. They make Serena human. Somehow he feels closer to her since charting her imperfections, like maybe she isn't going to flutter away on some lazy afternoon, like a breath released. And for fuck's sake, who has a perfect face anyway?
An image pops forcefully into his mind before he can truncate it. Oh god. Blair Waldorf.
He tries to impede the conclusion already halfway formed, inhibit its progress somehow, but it's already gliding through the wrinkles of his brain. He convinces himself that it's only because he's a writer, a strict and candid observer of human life, that he lets the thought slip out.
Blair Waldorf's face is perfect. This is an undeniable fact.
Her eyebrows, obviously professionally trimmed, are inevitably flawless and quirk upwards at the ends. They make her face doubly expressive, her insults more barbed, her sad expressions more heartbreaking. He's only seen it once, really, but – oh, she was stunning, donning a green dress like a beacon of pained jealousy, hair deep and brown and curly and sweet, lips pouting deliciously, eyes shining in anger. He'd thought fleetingly that if he saw her cry he might break. And forgive her. For everything.
Her eyes are warm and brown – dark mostly but with flecks of honeyed lightness, a delicate fan of eyelashes naturally curved upwards. When they widen in delight they are like pools of chocolate, and when they narrow in pain, a crème brulee with a cracked surface.
Her nose is feminine and aristocratic. Impeccably proportioned. Like a miniature ski slope ending in a tender point. He could just slide right off of it.
Her cheekbones are literally exquisite – they must have been carved, he muses, she rivals a goddess with their slender arch, and when she smiles, they pop out like columns of joy.
Her lips – fuck, her lips. They're so pink and full, her bottom one bowing out slightly more, and there's this subtle ridge in the exact middle of her bottom lip, a crease, a curl, like two hands come together in a clasp, he can't explain it, they're just…
His mind wanders and before he knows it, he's thinking about her body, her creamy, lovely skin, it must be so warm, and her pert breasts, and the shape of her ass, and good lord, her ass is perfect –
Dan shoots up out of his chair, shocked. His dick is stiffening quickly in his pants and he's just written an entire blazon about his girlfriend's best friend. The one who loathes him. He looks down in mortification, both at what he's done and what his writing has devolved into – he's actually written down on his laptop, as if part of a justifiable writing exercise, "good lord, her ass is perfect." He wants to slap himself and he desperately needs a cold shower so he thinks hard about Blair and how completely horrible she is. How she calls him a charity case and smells "pork and cheese" on his breath and how she insults his shoes and the way she turns her nose up at him – yelping, Dan realizes that this train of thought isn't helping with his boner. What the fuck? Is he turned on by Blair degrading him? The idea is atrocious. What is happening to him? Derail this train of thought! He screams at himself, and finally, he thinks about Jenny, oh, poor Jenny, what Blair did to Jenny, and the simple thought of his sister causes him to deflate, both mentally and physically.
Dan breathes deeply in recovery. This whole afternoon has been a waste, he decides vehemently. The thoughts he just had must have been part of some wild and crazy fluke, some weird adolescent tomfoolery. He deletes the entire document – the parts about Serena and of course the parts about Blair, and takes out his phone to text his girlfriend.
"I miss you." He writes, deciding to keep it simple and sweet. He knows she'll appreciate it and he feels cheerier already, imagining the small grin on her face.
As if willing the clutter in his mind away, he concentrates on one word and one word only. He says it like a sacred mantra, Serena, Serena, Serena.
