Then they'd go back onto the dance floor and Hoyt would press her body against his and fondle ⦠that and that and them and those and this ⦠and he would overpower her with more tongue insertions.
The entire atrium was slowly turning clockwise. Then it stopped and began turning slowly counterclockwise. The flashes and slices came faster. The D.J. switched to a slow number, “Dear Mama” by Tupac Shakur. Charlotte
remained pasted up against Hoyt, who was still visiting those and them and that and that, when she thought she heard someone wretching convulsively, a girl, if she had to guess, over near the privet-hedge entryway to this section. The putrid smell of vomit came wafting by but soon dissipated, probably thanks to the fact that there was no ceiling, unless you counted the skylight thirty stories above. Then came the familiar bracing smell of a mop bucket full of ammonia ⦠Charlotte was in a ⦠delirium ⦠but a
perfect
delirium ⦠and the perfection made her realize that she was superior to every other girl on the floorâbeing, as she was, Charlotte Simmonsâand what she thought and what she felt physically had never been in more perfect accord as Hoyt's body became a part of her central nervous system.
Tupac Shakur was still plaintively adoring his momma when Hoyt whispered in her ear, “Want to go upstairs?”
“But I'm not tired yet. What time is it?”
“Ohhh ⦠twelve-thirty. I'm not tired, either. Let's just go up for a sec, before Julian and Nicole get there.”
Charlotte knew what he was getting at, but there was also the fact that she wanted to hook up, without going all the way, of course. She wanted to please him, to run her hands through his hair, make him smile the way he smiled at her all night, but more intensely and ecstatically, have him eager for her, like an animal. That was what made her â¦
thrill
inside. He was a beautiful animal at the peak of his rude animal health. And yet she could always control him. “All the way”âthat was exactly what she wanted him to want! To know that this beautiful animal named Hoytâthe coolest and sleekest and most beautiful animal, the elite animal of the elite Dupontâto know that she had reduced his world to a single obsessive thingâwanting
Charlotte Simmons
! That was what
she
wanted! He was the animal, and she was the hunted. He was in love with her. That she knew. He lusted for her. That she knew. To see his love and his lust and his very mind, for that matter, turned white-hot and forged into a single super-concentrated alloyâwhose shape
she
would determineâthat was all she wanted!
She followed him into the elevator.
T
hey were alone in the elevator. Hoyt didn't even wait for the doors to close before he started kissing Charlotte, pushing her up against the back wall, caressing her breasts, pressing his body against hers from chest to groin. She kissed him back in a spirited fashion and felt cool doing it, let her body go limp against the wall, wrapped her arms around his neck, allowed him to do whatever he wanted with his hands.
In no time at all, the elevator came to a stop. It was the lobby floor. The door opened, and a yahoo of drunken frat-boy noises welled up from the courtyard below. Hoyt had Charlotte flattened against the elevator's back wall. The fact that his lust was now on display upon the most public floor of the Hyatt Ambassador Hotel didn't hold him back for so much as an instant. So obsessed was he by his animal quest, he kept his hands cupped about her buttocks rutrutrutrutramming his mons pubis into hers. A man and a woman in their forties or fifties started to enter the elevator. Charlotte looked right into their faces. She smiled, hoping to assure them that this was not at all what it looked likeâshe and Hoyt just happened to be young and aliveâbut the couple wheeled about and retreated into the lobby, where the adolescent ululations of drunken Dupont students enveloped them all over again. Then the door closed, and the college-boy yawp vanished. The elevator was
heading up. The known world consisted of Hoyt, his head buried in her hair, his mouth kissing her neck, his groin bucking and grinding, and him going from grunt to groan and back to grunt
ungh ungh ungh ungh
â
They reached their floor, and Hoyt intertwined his fingers and hers and led her down the hall. His hand was so
hot
. He looked at her only once. It was his loving smileâbut nervous this time. He didn't say a word.
As soon as they entered the room, he threw the door latch into the locked slant so hard it was like a gunshot, and he closed some sort of metal hasp up higher on the door. Without a word, just a lot of passionate
ohhhhunghs
, he started kissing her again and cupping her buttocks and pulling her toward himâ
ohhhhhhunghâ
and then he entwined his legs in hers, as if otherwise she might go away, while he struggled out of his tuxedo jacket with a lot of twisting and thrashing about. His face was red, his shirt was dark in the armpits, clouds of odor rose, but his chest swelled out, and it was manly, and once he got the jacket off, inside out, he began maneuvering the entwined legs to walk her backward to the bed. She felt the edge of the bed touch the back of her dress. Hoyt reached down, lifting her dress up on one side, feeling about for her underwear, and now she could feel the bed on her bare thighs. She pushed his hand away with a sharp thrust, only to find herself falling back on the bed, with him on top of her. He said nothing, and neither did she. She was excited, a bit frightened, but more than anything else curious. What exactly would he do now? He put one thigh between her thighs, practically smothered her with the heft of his body, and began kissing her again. He kissed her lips and then stuck his big tongue
waaay
down her throat until she thought she was going to gag, and then he began kissing her upper chest, where the cleavage was. She was afraid he might try to move lower, but instead he began kissing her shoulder, and then he began trying to pull the dress down and off that shoulder. She gave his wrist a good whack with the heel of her free hand, and all of a sudden he was halfway on his back. She hadn't hit him that hardâand she realized that he had rolled himself over, keeping his leg between hers, however, and was now practically ripping his black bow tie off and unbuttoning his shirt and wriggling for all he was worth, getting out of it, and then going to work on his T-shirt, which got caught upside down and inside out on his head. With a mighty thrash and jerk he tore it off his skull. Neither of them said a word. She was amazed how well defined his abdominal muscles were. In the course of all this struggling, with his shoulders sinking into the bedspread, his abdominal muscles contracted and writhed and contracted some more. Amazing! She
knew he worked out at the gym, but he seemed so slothful about everything, it had always seemed to herâbut he hadn't been slothful about his abs! He was wonderful all over again!âand she couldn't help running her fingers over his wonderful abs and lingering in the crevices between the units, which must have driven him wild, because with another
ohhhhungh
he rolled on top of her, flattening her entire body into the bedcovers and the mattress. He started lifting her dress up slowly and methodically, all the while kissing her mouth, her neck, her shoulder, her chest, only lower down this time, and then he returned to her neckâoh God!âit sent shivers through her body when he kissed her neck that way, and she wasn't going to stop him quite yet as he kept edging, edging, edging the dress up her body, because she
wanted
his hands on her, the way they were now as the dress slipped up, up, up as high as her breastsâwhere they stoppedâand he embraced her around the chest, awkwardlyâwhat was this all about, these two little fists he was making under her back? He was
unhooking her bra
! Was
this
what men did?âand pulling the straps out from under her and slipping the bra
and
her dress up, up, over her headâthe
feeling
as his hands slid over her areolae and her nipplesâshe found herselfâjust so!âfound herself! ânaked except for her white cotton panties. Time to say somethingâbut Hoyt's bare chest and awesome abs were coming down on her to meet hers, and she wanted this, the feel of his skin on hers, which was not all
that
serious because he still had on his tuxedo pants and shoes, but even through the pants she was aware of how swollen his groin was. He started moving rhythmically on top of her, and she was so physically titilatedâhow
wet
she was all of a sudden!âand she arched her back so that it would titillate her more, and she wondered what she was supposed to do in this situationâmaybe lift her loins up to meet his coming down?âgo in the same rhythm so they moved together in a kind of dance?âthank God he still had his pants on, but should she say something
now
, before he had notions of going any furtherâor should she wait a little longer, so as not to destroy what she had now, which was his entire life, his entire being, his entire soulâbut she didn't know about the soul, how it figured inâ
He rolled off her! He sat beside her but not looking at her, his back arched, his hands reaching down to his feetâhe was taking his shoes off! And now he was leaning back and unzipping his pants and leaning forward slipping them over his hips and abandoning them on the floorâand was
this
the point at which she should say something, just so he would be straight about the limits? Yes, it probably was, and so she started to sayâbut
the
smile
!âhe was straight above her now, supporting his weight with his arms, the heels of his hands pressing down on the bed on either side of her shouldersâsmiling his smile of ⦠love!âand she had her lips parted, about to sayâbut how could she say it at precisely this moment when his
smileâ
and only his plaid boxer shorts remainedânot that she could seeâbut the contour of it forcing the plaid way outâno mistaking itâand she became very conscious of her bare breasts, which she couldn't very well clap her hands over and be Miss Modesty all of a suddenâsince that would be so little-girlish. He was bringing that smile down closer and closer to her face. She thought he was going to kiss her on the mouth, but instead he kissed her neck, nuzzling away with his lips. Ohmygod! She went from being dizzy to being deliriously dizzy. His smile! His kissing her neck! She couldn't very wellâalthough she shouldânot at this moment, howeverânot even as he lowered his mouth and began kissing her upper chest and then stuck out his tongue and then massaged her skin with his lips. And now he was on her right breastâright on it!âdoing the same things with his tongue and his lipsâand then the left breastâthe same thingâwas this what men did? And then he moved lower, down the midline on her upper abdomen, down to her belly button, which he stuck his tongue into brieflyâwas
this
something that men did?âand down, downâuntil there was no more when and if about it. Now she had to speak up. Suppose he wentâbut surely men didn't do
that
âand he didn't. Instead his tongue veered off to the side and worked its way down the gulley from her ilial crest down to where her panties began. He put a forefinger under the elastic at the top on this side and slowly ran it across her lower belly just above the level of the mons veneris to
that
side, where he used the forefinger to pull the panties down over her hips and low upon her buttocks, and then he put his other forefinger under the elastic and slowly slid it back toward
this
side, but the latitude was much lower now, and his finger slid slowly through the hair on her mons veneris and not a shiver but a tremor ran through herâa muscle in her lower abdomen actually convulsedâand inside herâand ohmygod she felt so
wetâ
and he pulled the panties down below the buttocks on this sideâshe was just
flowing
outâshe didn't even know that
existed
!âas he pulled the panties down over her thighs and knees and then all the way
off
her, and now she was stark-naked, and he was still kissing her lower abdomen where it was so soft and unprotected and then swirling his big old tongue aroundâ
Hooking up. So now she'd really done it,
hooked up
. This maybe qualified
as
heavy
hooking upâalthough not
really
heavy, since they were still on first base, or maybe on the way to second, even though it was heavy, it was just an experience, an experiment, and Laurie's words sailed, verbatim, through her brain: “College is the only time in your life when you can really
experiment
,” even though Laurie had gone all the way ⦠So congested down there ⦠so sensitive ⦠so many warm secretionsâseemed like pintsâ
now!
âshe couldn't wait any longer!âshe was too vulnerableâcertainly he
knew â¦
but now it
was
time to make
sure
he knew the limits. She lifted her head so that she could look at him. She was staring right at the top of his head and could see his thick, thatchy hair bobbing ever so slightly as he kissed and licked and licked and kissedâonly now he was running his tongue over her skin in sort of spirals that were looping lower and lower on her abdomen untilâhad his tongue just brushed the top of the hair on her mons?â
now!âact!
She summoned up her will and tried to give his head a jolt with the heels of both her hands, but lying flat like this on a soft bed, she couldn't get the leverage she wanted and it certainly was a mild jolt, if it was a jolt at all, and he acted as if she were
signaling
him to slide his head down a few inches farther and his mouth and his tongueâohmygod!
“Hoyt!” She said it sharply.
He immediately stopped and rose up, supporting himself on the bed with the full length of his arms, and he looked down at her with his most wonderful look of love, only the nervous version, which was all right because he did know the limits and he was stopping voluntarily. In fact, he slid back down the bed and completely off it. She let out her breath. But what?âhe was unsnapping his shorts at the waistâ
“Hoyt?”
“Yeah?”
Obviously his mind was not on what she was saying, because he was looking down and stepping out of one leg of the shorts and then the other, andâohmygod! In her whole life she had never actually seen such a thing in such a stateâalthough she could tellâdear Brian!âshe had only seen her little brothers' when they were smaller and her father's once when he stepped about a foot out of the outdoor shower looking for a towelâbut â¦
that
⦠ball-peen hammer ⦠it looked like a heavy
ball-peen hammer
! ⦠a ball-peen hammer with a translucent sheath over it, and now his knees were on the bed and he was crawling toward her on all foursâ
“Hoyt!”
“Whuh.”
It wasn't even a question! It was a grunt half turned into a word. Words didn't register with him any longer.
On all foursâand he kept crawling. Did he actually expect her to sleep with him?
Sleep with
was the actual phrase that blipped through her brain, and in the next instant the absurdity hit her.
Sleep
with? Ball-peen hammer? She was naked. He was naked.
“Hoyt!”
“What?”
Charlotte smiled nervously and said, “I don't know about this.” She was so hoarse all of a sudden.
“It's okay,” he said. “I have something.” Whereupon he reached over to the bedside table and took a condom out of his wallet and held it up in the air for a moment.
See
?
“Uhhh ⦠I don't mean that. I mean I don't know if we should do this.” Very hoarse. Couldn't even
make
herself smile any longer. Hoyt's arms had already crawled as far as the midpoint of her thighs. He already
loomed
over her ⦠a hulk with a big ball-peen hammer ⦠But he stopped. He looked as if he had been poleaxed at the base of the skull. He looked stunned ⦠and beyond stunned, devastated.