insists that he needs the computer more than she does. Adam is instantly smitten. Charlotte finds herself dealing with the sexual temptations of college life, culminating in her hooking up with Hoyt, who tells Charlotte of catching California's governor receiving oral sex from a college student. He also tells Charlotte he knows that Adam Gellin has begun investigating the incident and how, at the behest of the governor a large Wall Street firm has offered Hoyt a high-paying entry-level job in exchange for his silence. (The firm, Pierce & Pierce, is the name of the one that Sherman McCoy works for in Wolfe's earlier novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities.) Hoyt and Charlotte attend an important fraternity formal together, after which Hoyt takes full advantage of a drunken Charlotte, seducing her into giving up her virginity to him. The following morning, Charlotte is dumped by Hoyt. She is further humiliated when she returns to campus and discovers that Hoyt's seduction and rejection has been made public via two girls Charlotte had previously befriended. The two cruelly mock Charlotte, both over her poverty-stricken background, and for how she drunkenly lost her virginity. This drives Charlotte into a depression and eventually into the arms of Adam, who has wanted Charlotte for her beauty, innocence, and intellect since they first met. Charlotte finally emerges from her depression but finds that she has received terrible grades (B, B−, C−, D) for her first semester at Dupont. As Adam prepares to publish his article, his world collides with Jojo Johanssen's when a paper that Adam wrote for the athlete is accused of being plagiarized. Jojo, who treats Adam as beneath him socially, denies the plagiarism charge and protects the athletic department's perversion of the athlete/tutor program from being exposed. Jojo has begun to transform himself academically from a stereotypical "dumb jock" into a student who takes his academics seriously and even develops an interest in philosophy (partly as a result of Charlotte's influence). Jerome Quat, Jojo's professor, confronts Adam about the plagiarized paper and shows sympathy toward him in a college dominated by students obsessed with sports and sex. However, when Adam confesses to having written the paper for Jojo, the professor double-crosses him. He will sacrifice Adam in order to bring down the basketball program, which has circled the wagons to protect Jojo. This devastates Adam, who breaks down and needs Charlotte to take