Tom Wolfe - I Am Charlotte Simmons

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 some—” 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 floor—and the guys all paired off with their dates and began—it looked like…grinding—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…melted her. She glanced up for a moment—the world! The world was up there on the lobby floor, where there was a railing, and people—old people, people forty years old at least—were 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 beauty—from a love like Hoyt’s—and how fascinated they must be, and how envious—and Hoyt pulled her close to him until her torso was flat against his—she had never been so physically close to a man’s body before—and Hoyt began moving—

—and 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 gross—but 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 meant—it just showed that he wanted her, madly, just the way Julian wanted Nicole—so that he was now totally in her thrall—so much so that he moved one hand still lower until it was right on top of her buttocks—

—and 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…

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 floor—black tuxedos—grinding groins—black-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 stentoriously—and all the while he lived whipped by a woman, by Crissy. Some of the Saint Rays were thrusting their montes pubis—who in this room would know the plural of mons pubis…other than…Charlotte Simmons?—thrusting them so hard into their dates, the girls were practically lifted off the floor. Boo-man was grunting inside of his coat of fat—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 bulls—” She realized she wasn’t making any sense—but it was so funny. “Black-tie black-and-white Holstein bulls”—which 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!—she tilted her head back and took a look at his face. He had his eyes closed. His entire being—the coolest being of all the cool beings at Dupont—was now consumed by his desire for her—Charlotte 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 head—and went in for the kiss, the tonsil-hockey kiss, not just pressing his lips upon hers but devouring them—and 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 joint—although now she began to feel the presence of his belt buckle—why such a big metal belt buckle?—felt like the lump of metal had torn straight through her thin dress—she 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 flakes—the black-tie Holstein bulls rutting rutting rutting rutting—a 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 mouth—a 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 boy—while Hoyt’s adventurous hand slid from the channel and onto the delta of Venus, as Anaïs Nin called it—and 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 –ey snobs—just get an eyeful of a cool guy—the coolest—falling in love—she wanted to keep moving like this eternally, dancing, loving—in 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.