What Eleanor Knew

'I am referring to your dark and scheming and frankly sexually inappropriate side.'
– Eleanor Waldorf, Where The Vile Things Are.

"Get. Off."

"No."

"I can't breathe."

"You don't need to."

"I hate you!"

"Is that your leg or mine?"

Blair isn't sure which way is up and which way is right. Lying beneath the piano, staring up at its heartstrings, she feels like a cat who has finally had its back scratched, its ears fondled, its yearly ration of cream to drink in one night. She feels petted, and contented, and weak as a kitten. There is no way she is going to admit this, of course. There is no way she is going to give him the satisfaction.

Not that he hasn't already had the satisfaction, of course.

Chuck's shirt is half off like her dress is half off and his jacket is several feet away. She's disturbed to find she fell asleep curved around him like a comma and that they're still intertwined five hours later.

"Five minutes," he says smugly. It does something to her stomach to see his cheeks rough again, his hair rumpled, his eyes heavy-lidded with sleep. She used to see it every day. He used to see the bare skin around her eyes, her blank lips, her unconscious smile. "I blame myself. I got you used to a certain standard and then you were deprived of it, so it's no surprise it only took you five minutes to –"

"I will smother you with your own pants," she hisses, wadding up a handful of material like she means it. "And believe me, I will enjoy it."

"Smother me with my own pants? That's a euphemism I've never heard before."

They did things last night she hadn't done in months. They did things last night she can't remember ever having done before. The room got hotter than Hell and blacker, stickier like tar, and he made use of the polished piano lid to lay her out like a corpse and do things to her which made her come alive again. He was dead and another man had his face and not his name, and she was dead too. He did things which were a shock to the system, a jolt to the heart. In the cold light of day, such things seem impossible.

She has to find a way of making him do them again.

"I thought you would've snuck out by now." She deliberately doesn't look at him, focusing on wriggling out of her dress altogether, since it's ruined and so is she. "I was planning on waking up alone, pretending this never happened and then having a nice hot bath."

"Have I ever snuck out bed – or in this case, floor – where you're concerned?"

"Not that I can recall."

"Exactly." He takes her chin between thumb and forefinger and turns her to face him. She objects to being manipulated, and he manipulates her by even still being there. "I forgot what charming sounds you make when I'm all the way –"

She slaps him, lightly enough not to leave a mark. Her hand lingers, and a muscle in his jaw jumps in response. "I hate you."

"You've said that."

"I'm aware."

"Does that mean you don't want to go upstairs, or…"

Eleanor, who wishes she could forget the giggling and ominous silences which used to accompany Chuck Bass' visits to her home when no one was supposed to know he was there, pulls another pillow over her head. Her only child used to watch R-rated movies with her chin pulled into her chest, wearing an expression of mild disgust. Her only child used to cover herself up to the neck and down to the knee.

Now, her only child purrs like a cat, and apparently scratches like one too.

Blair Waldorf has a sexually inappropriate side, and she obviously wants to go upstairs.

Fin.