Hooking up. So now she’d really done it, hooked up. This maybe qualified as heavy hooking up—although 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 secretions—seemed like pints—now!—she couldn’t wait any longer!—she was too vulnerable—certainly he knew…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 kissed—only now he was running his tongue over her skin in sort of spirals that were looping lower and lower on her abdomen until—had his tongue just brushed the top of the hair on her mons?—now!—act! 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 tongue—ohmygod!

“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?—he was unsnapping his shorts at the waist—

“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, and—ohmygod! In her whole life she had never actually seen such a thing in such a state—although she could tell—dear Brian!—she 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 towel—but…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 fours—

“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 fours—and 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.

“But I really want to make love to you.” Oh, what a pleading warble was lodged in his throat! “I’ve wanted to make love to you from the moment I first saw you.”

“But you don’t understand—”

“I understand what I felt—and what I feel!” Quite dramatic, he was. “I came up to you as soon as I saw you at our party. I knew! There were so many—but there was only you. There is only you!”

“But you don’t understand—I’ve never—I’ve never—”

“You’re a virgin?”

Charlotte lay there, her lips parted in a stuporous way and her mind racing and racing before she finally let the damning admission out: “Yeah.”

“Well, I’ll be really slow, then,” said Hoyt. A certain smile was on his face, the reassuring buck-up, won’t-hurt-a-bit smile, not just of a physician but of a healer whose devotion to her well-being—to her joyful flight through this trial—ran deeper than the very oath of Hippocrates, “First, do no harm.”

“It’s okay. Don’t be scared. I’ve wanted this for so long. It’ll feel good. I promise.”

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?”