Tom Wolfe - I Am Charlotte Simmons

That smile! The problem of protocol was overwhelming. What would it look like if she said no—now? What would it look like—after letting him go this far? Would it look like—was this what people do at a formal, the way Mimi said? Would he feel hurt, and after hurt, angry, and call her a teasing bitch? Did she dare become known as the teasing bitch who lets a guy get worked up, worked up, worked up, and lies there naked as a jaybird, legs parted, and then waves a finger and says no-no-no-oh? Ohmygod what would that look like—would that bury Charlotte Simmons for good? Dead in the ground at Dupont with Loser and Prude and Tease on her headstone? She, Charlotte Simmons, who could have had it all! He’s so ardent! Wants to make love—he loves me!—

:::::::A terrible undertow of the Doubts::::::But I can’t do this:::::::

—but, popping up again, her spirits said, Maybe he does love me! Maybe we’ll be a couple after this—wait’ll Mimi and Bettina—and Beverly—hear about it—I’ll be the one with experience—I’ll no longer be the one who has to hop around like a mouse when people talk about all this—

::::::trying not to look at him::::::the condom, the ball-peen hammer::::::the undertow again::::::the Doubts

::::::more time::::::can’t think spinning like this!::::::Look, Hoyt::::::just wait a second, okay?::::::::::

Before she could murmur “Look” or “Okay” or “Wait” or anything else, he thrust the ball-peen hammer right into her—and it went nowhere. He thrust again, with a grunt this time. Got nowhere. A wave of pain rose. Another thrust. Nowhere. “Ehhhhhhuhhh.” It hurt. He didn’t stop for an instant. He was as earnest as a battering ram. He thrust and broke through. She let out a yelp of pain and, more than pain, surprise, and more than pain and surprise, insult. This big thing was stuffed into her innards—her very innards!—and insult upon insult!—moving—in, out, in, out—

“Ow!” The insult, the insult!

Hoyt and the thing paused. “Are you okay?”

“Mmnnnnh,” she said, her eyes watering, wanting to say, “NO, IT’S NOT OKAY! THIS HURTS, THIS HURTS, THIS HURTS, THIS HURTS”—but he kept moving in, out, in, out to THIS HURTS, THIS HURTS. Animal grunts, animal grunts. She looked at his face, blearily, her eyes were watering so. His eyes were closed. He was sweating, groaning, biting his lower lip. She couldn’t tell him to stop, couldn’t even tell him to slow down, because…because that look of rapture on his face was what she wanted, was what she had wanted from the beginning, and what she did not want to go away. She was at this moment all that life could hold or mean for him. He was…Charlotte Simmons’s, down to the last molecule.

His pace started to quicken. Rut rut rut rut rut her body shook shook shook shook shook and bounced bounced bounced bounced bounced from his jolt jolt jolt jolt jolt his eyes tightened his face turned red and scrunched scrunched scrunched scrunched scrunched his teeth clenched clenched clenched clenched clenched from deep in his throat a grunt grunt grunt grunt grunt until finally he let out a loud, prolonged moan and slowly eased back off her, out of her, and lay there half on his side and half on top of her.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh,” he went, in a tone of immense satisfaction as he rolled over completely on his back. And then he said, “You okay?”

He wasn’t looking at her. His face was aimed straight up at the ceiling, and his eyes were closed. No part of his body, not even a finger or an ankle, was any longer touching her.

His eyes were still aimed at the ceiling.

Now he would hold her in his arms, curl up next to her and, in the softest, most intimate of voices, thank her, tell her it was okay, that she made him happy, that what they had just done fulfilled a great yearning of his…had brought alive for him what he had feared was an impossible dream…

Instead, he got up off the bed, went into the bathroom, and yelled out, “You need a towel?”

“No thanks,” she said in a trembling voice.

She was shaking inside. She didn’t hurt anymore, but what had happened inside her? She needed him close to her. He would return to her, tell her something wonderful had just occurred, something neither of them would ever forget, something that made any temporary pain inconsequential. He would tell her that she had been a beautiful girl when they entered this room and now she was a beautiful woman.

Hoyt came out of the bathroom and, without looking at her, immediately set about putting on his boxer shorts. As he snapped the shorts closed at the waist, he suddenly raised his head and stared at her with a puzzled frown…not at her face, however, but at her still naked loins.

“Shit, is that blood?”

Charlotte looked down and noticed that underneath her groin was a circle of blood droplets. She looked at Hoyt, but he didn’t look at her. He seemed possessed by the droplets of blood.

“Sorry,” she said quietly. “What should I do?”

“I don’t know, but if they want to make us fucking pay for it, they’ve got a big surprise coming.” He kept staring at it.

He picked his shirt up off the floor, his wad of a shirt, the one he had just wriggled out of, looked about for the T-shirt, found that on the floor at the foot of the bed—

Why was he still standing—when he should be close to her? What was he doing getting dressed? Where did he think he—they?—were going to go?

She was stark-naked and very conscious of it. She pushed herself up, swung her legs over, and sat on the edge of the bed. She felt woozy, dizzy—very dizzy now—bilious. She leaned way over to lower her head and get more blood to her brain. The contortion sort of cramped her…She brought her head back up. Hoyt, absorbed in buttoning all his buttons, pulling up his pants, and fastening his belt with the incongruously big buckle, didn’t look at her once.

She wanted to do nothing so much as lie back down on the bed, on top of her own guilty, loathsome, inexcusable blood droplets, and sink through the mattress and the floor and vanish into the fourth dimension, the fifth dimension…some dimension where no one would ever be tempted to search…She felt so horrible. She realized that her body was still very drunk. All along she had known, consciously, that she had drunk an awful lot, but only now did she admit to herself that alcohol could ever make her, Charlotte Simmons, drunk…this drunk.

So horrible, so horrible—but she couldn’t just sit there slumped naked on the edge of the bed. Her panties—a wet, crumpled little mess at the foot of the bed, but what did it matter, the filth? She put her feet through them while still sitting, but she stood up to pull them over her hips. Her head felt so heavy, there was such pain deep behind her eyes—her brains had shifted. They were piled up against the right side of her skull. She was going to pass out! She sank back to sitting position on the bed and lowered her head between her knees again. She’d just have to endure the pain. Mustn’t pass out—certainly not like this.

There was a rap on the door. “Dude, you in there? Open up, I need the room!” It was Julian.

Afraid to stand up again, Charlotte reached over and grabbed her crumpled dress and her bra from where they were mashed against the headboard. She put on the bra and unfurled the dress this way and that, searching desperately for the hem so she could slip it over her head.

To her dismay, Hoyt, who now had on shirt and pants, shoes and socks, unlatched the door, opened it, and with a grand, sweeping gesture of welcome, said, “Wuz’up, bro?” and ushered in Julian and—it wasn’t Nicole but Gloria, I.P.’s date.

The two of them flicked the briefest of glances at Charlotte but didn’t so much as nod to her. Charlotte was as mortified as she had ever been in her life. She had managed to squirm into the dress until it dropped down as far as her lap.