The guys had totally forgotten their “revered ladies,” so enchanted were they by the notion they were the best there ever was. The ladies, for their partâCharlotte could see Crissy and Nicole and, right here, Gloria slumped back in their chairs, gloriously bored and casting knowing glances at one another, trapped, as they were, in this hot tub of sentimentality. But Hoyt, still on his feet, clapping, looked down at Charlotte and gave her a big winkâand the loving smile! She felt like leaping up and giving him a kiss on the mouth right in the middle of this supreme moment of male bonding.
They began to take their seats again, all but I.P. He stood by his chair, lurching slightly as if from a psychomotor malfunction, the glass of red wine in his hand sloshing about so perilously it was hard to keep your eyes off it. He was eagerly trying to get Vance's attention. Somebody else at another table was tapping his glass, primed to make a toast. I.P. began lurching and shouting, “Vance! Yo! Hey, Vance!”
Vance ignored him at first, but then gave in, saying, “Okay, I.P. Mr. I.P. has the floor.”
I.P. hoisted his sloshing glass up almost to lip level and said in a bellowing voice, “I just want to sayâI just want to say ⦔
He appeared to blank out. He was still holding the glass aloft, but his eyes seemed to be fixed on ⦠nothing ⦠somewhere in the middle distance.
Julian began applauding. “Well said, Ipper!
Next!”
I.P. wasn't having it. Still louder he shouted, “I just wanna say ⦠I just wanna say ⦔
“Then just fucking say it!” yelled Julian. “Youâ” He didn't complete his characterization.
Laughter and whistles.
“I JUST WANNA SAY ⦠this place is the fucking greatest place, the fucking best house on campus, and I just wanna thank all you guys for such a fuckin' amazing time this year, and that fuckin' goes for you, too, \/anceâyou're the fuckin' greatest ⦠uh ⦔ I.P. blanked out again. He couldn't seem to remember Vance's title at Saint Ray.
“Bullshitter?” suggested Boo-man.
Laughter, applause, catcalls.
I.P. had his mouth open, ready to say more, but an unbelievably loud whistle came from a table beyond Vance's.
“Yo! Hey, yo!” It was Harrison, who was on his feet, pumping his fist straight up and down. He was so drunk and was punching the air so hard that he seemed about to dislocate his shoulder.
Laughter ⦠which Harrison interpreted as encouragement. He beamed a smile and declaimed, “I just wanna say one thing, but like ⦠that's the most important thing, and I just wanna say, this frat gets the hottest fucking chicks on campus!”
Convulsive laughter, sarcastic whoops and howls.
“Good job
,
Harrison!”
â¦
“Real smooth
,
baby!” ⦠“It's Don Juan!” ⦠“From now on you gotta play with a helmet
,
dawg!”
âinsinuating that Harrison suffered too many head injuries playing lacrosseâand the guys began looking around at the girls to see how they took that one. Crissy, sitting next to Vance, was doubled over and laughing so hard she finally held her own head, her palms over her temple.
Harrison, taking it all at face value, assuming they were laughing
with
him, grinned foolishly and tried to lean on the shoulder of his dateâwho was seatedâto steady himself, but he overshot his target and fell into the edge of the table. When he righted himself, he continued to smile foolishly and aimlessly at everyone, then sat down on his chair with a thud.
More toasts ⦠each more incoherently reaching for superlatives than the one before. The event was rapidly falling to pieces. Charlotte drank some more wine.
Dinner was over, and the D.J. got the music going in the dance section
out in the atrium itself. The guys stood around the edges telling each other outrageously funny but mainly loud things. It was that time of the evening â¦
Three girls ventured out onto the middle of the floor and began to dance, facing inward toward one another, as if they were in a circle, shaking their fannies and letting the boys get an eyeful. It struck Charlotte as oddly like the school dance she went to at Alleghany High. A group of girls on the dance floor by themselves, waiting for the boys to work up their nerve ⦠two of them Nicole and Gloria! Nicole was the perfect blonde, and Gloria was the perfect brunette, exotic, provocative ⦠dark ⦠the dark lady ⦠with lips that curved like a bow and promised ⦠God knew what. Then Julian went out to join them ⦠and then I.P. came floundering out, screaming, “I need someâ” and clamping his hand over his mouth as if to prevent himself from announcing what he wanted ⦠or said he wanted. Somehow Charlotte just couldn't match up I.P. and Gloria. But she could see Julian and Gloria, and obviously Julian could, too, because he kept flashing looks at her as they jerked and hopped onto the middle of the dance floor, three girls and two guys making a clumsy effort to dance hip-hop style. Now lots of couples were out on the floorâand the guys all paired off with their dates and beganâit looked like â¦
grindingâ
even I.P., with his wide hips and his perfect brunette date.
The next thing Charlotte knew, Hoyt was pressing his palm into the middle of her back and steering her toward the dance floor and saying, “Let's dance, babe.” He said the “babe” with a smile that ended with his lips slightly pursed in the way that indicates, “What I just said is merely a cue for something much more profound.” Charlotte felt as if the music were filling the atrium of the hotel with a fine, drizzling haze that crackled with electricity, and Hoyt was firmly pushing her onto the dance floor with a look that just â¦
melted
her. She glanced up for a momentâthe world! The world was up there on the lobby floor, where there was a railing, and peopleâold people, people forty years old at leastâwere leaning against the railing and looking down at all of them, as if from a balcony. How sad they must feel, cut off from youth, from beautyâfrom a love like Hoyt'sâand how fascinated they must be, and how enviousâand Hoyt pulled her close to him until her torso was flat against hisâshe had
never
been so physically close to a man's body beforeâand Hoyt began movingâ
âand she could feel the bone of her mons pubis pressed against his and she realized they were
grinding
, which she wouldn't do at the Saint Ray party that time, but she didn't even
know
Hoyt then. There was Julian with
Nicole, and he didn't just press his mons pubis against hers, he kept thrusting it thrusting it thrusting it thrusting it, which was grossâbut he wanted her, and just think what it must mean to have someone as handsome and cool as Julian wanting you that much!
Hoyt had both of his hands on her back, and she had her hands on his shoulders, and he slid his hands lower on her back, and now he was
really
pulling her pelvic saddle up against his, because below his mons pubis there was definitely ⦠definitely ⦠but it didn't really mean what it really meantâit just showed that he
wanted
her, madly, just the way Julian wanted Nicoleâso that he was now totally in her thrallâso much so that he moved one hand still lower until it was right on top of her buttocksâ
âand now he was moving her buttocks back and forth with that hand, holding her still closer, until she could also feel her crotch rolling back and forth over ⦠over â¦
She didn't so much think about it as give way to it without calling it anything. She glanced about.
Every
Saint Ray, everyone was doing it. They were sweating. She could see
creeks
of sweat running down Julian's face as he undertook the task of keeping Nicole's crotch locked to his. All over the floorâblack tuxedosâgrinding groinsâblack-and-white Holstein bulls doing it ⦠It made Charlotte smile, because now she was on the
inside
. She knew they weren't bulls at all, but vulnerable males. Poor I.P.! Poor Vance! He had seemed so sure of himself, standing up in a martial pose and declaiming stentoriouslyâand all the while he lived whipped by a woman, by Crissy. Some of the Saint Rays were thrusting their montes pubisâwho in this room would know the plural of mons pubis ⦠other than ⦠Charlotte Simmons?âthrusting them so hard into their dates, the girls were practically lifted off the floor. Boo-man was grunting inside of his coat of fatâ
Ungh! Ungh! Ungh! Ungh!
Charlotte started laughing.
“What's ⦠fuh-ney?” Hoyt was working so hard, holding her body flat against him with one hand and manipulating her buttocks with the other, his very words came out like grunts.
That made her laugh even harder.
“Whunh? Whunh?” said Hoyt.
“You don't see it? Black-tie Holstein bullsâ” She realized she wasn't making any senseâbut it was so funny. “Black
-tie
black-and-white Holstein bullsӉwhich threw her into a regular convulsion of mirth.
Hoyt's response was to remove his hand from hers, up in the conventional ballroom-dancing position, and place it on her buttocks, so that he now had both hands on her buttocks. He began pulling her buttocks and her entire pelvic saddle in toward his groin with all his strength, until his breathing became stertorous and he was exhaling little grunts himself. He was getting so carried away, intoxicated by her, Charlotte Simmons!âshe tilted her head back and took a look at his face. He had his eyes closed. His entire beingâthe coolest being of all the cool beings at Dupontâwas now consumed by his desire for herâCharlotte Simmons! Then he slid one hand up to the small of her back and, keeping her body up against his, brought the other hand up and slipped it under her long hair at the back of her neck, cocked his headâand went in for the kiss, the tonsil-hockey kiss, not just pressing his lips upon hers but
devouring
themâand he thrust his tongue inside her mouth. It practically choked her but at the same time gave her the delicious feeling that he had overpowered her, and her entire
self
now consisted of his tongue inside her mouth and the oscillating groin jointâalthough now she began to feel the presence of his belt buckleâwhy such a big metal belt buckle?âfelt like the lump of metal had torn straight through her thin dressâshe was overwhelmed. This kiss seemed to last forever. He took his hand away from the back of her head and began sliding it up and down her body, first along the side, down to her ilial crest, and up to her armpit and then more toward her abdomen down to the gully that ran from her ilial crest to her crotch and then up to her breast, which he cupped from the side, outside her dress, drawing it closer to him. When he withdrew his hard-munching lips and his behemoth tongue, she felt dizzy, and the scene broke up into slices and flakesâthe black-tie Holstein bulls rutting rutting rutting ruttingâa flash of I.P. rutting rutting not with but against Gloria, whose face was as calm as a statue's, whose eyes were directed forty-five degrees from I.P.'s panting mouthâa slice of Vance rutting rutting rutting with his lips an inch away from Crissy's ear, no longer maestro of the Saint Ray's, now Crissy's whipped whipped whipped whipped
whipped
boyâwhile Hoyt's adventurous hand slid from the channel and onto the delta of Venus, as Anaïs Nin called itâand she
wanted
Hoyt's hands there, wanted him holding her up against him, wanted him to choke her with that big rolled salami of a tongue, wanted
them
to see it, the Crissys, Hillarys, all the
âey
snobsâjust get an eyeful of a cool guyâthe coolestâfalling in loveâshe wanted to keep moving like this eternally, dancing, lovingâin this deliriously
dizzy spin in the dark as light reflected white off the faces of the old people up on the balcony consumed by envy and regrets.
Everyâwhat?âhalf hour?âsaline-depleted, sweating, she and Hoyt would sit down at one of the tables on the edge of the dance floor and have some more drinks. One thing she had come to realize about wine: it tasted so good. Wasn't like vodka at all, and even if you were dizzy, as she was, with the roar of the bottom of a waterfall inside your head, it didn't make you any dizzier, the waterfall didn't roar any louder, it just kept you so
alive
to your body and unashamed of your love, proud of it, in fact, and she had overcome all the shyness of a little girl from 2,500 feet up a mountain.
Vance and Crissy sat down at the table and ordered tequilas from a little colonel. Vance was sweating so much, his collar was wet and wrinkled. Even the perfect Crissy's face was flushed, and she didn't look so disdainful. And the first thing Vance said was not to Hoyt but to
her
âby
name
!
“Charlotte, you ever had a date with a shit-faced Hell's Angel before?” He nodded toward Hoyt.
She didn't feel mousy and at a loss for words at all! “He's not a Hell's Angel, he's a black-tie Holstein!”
Vance and Crissy looked blank at first. But then they turned toward one another and arched their eyebrows and pulled funny oh-I-get-it faces.
Vance said to Hoyt, “Hoyto, and thatâwhatever the fuck it isâisâfuckingâthat.”
The three of themâVance, Crissy, and Hoytâlaughed, but without looking at her. Charlotte couldn't help but smile.
Beam
, in fact. They
got
it! She had a wit that snuck up on people andâ
gotcha!
All the while, Hoyt never took his hand off her. Every now and then, while he and Vance were talking, Hoyt would reach way over and wrap his hand around her shoulder and pull her toward himâpractically pull her whole chair over!âand lean way over toward her and, from out of nowhere, apropos of nothing, say to Vance and Crissy, “Is this girl cute or what?” He always said the same thing, so she took to pulling her head away and looking at him crossly in a fake way, as if to say, “Why are you always so mischievous?”