Sometimes there are flashbacks that come roaring into your mind at the most odd of times.  Like now. 

 I suppose it isn’t all that big of a surprise that I have no idea who the guy who took me home to his Berkley Victorian with him, smoked some hashish with and then pulled back a gorgeous Oriental rug to reveal a hidden door was.

Maybe he looked like this....  

Yes, there in the middle of the living room, or was it a bedroom....well it doesn’t matter really, the point is there was a fucking trap door in the hardwood floor.  Sure it was concealed; by an intricate patterned, passionate red, soft where it wasn’t threadbare rug...but a trap door in the floor?

Funny I can remember the rug, but this man’s face—not a clue.  His hands were not the sort of hands I usually notice either.  I’m a hand freak I guess.  I like big hands on men.  Actually the guy I do remember, who had the most incredibly large hands, was not so coincidently, tall too.  His name was Snowman.  I kid you not.  He was about eight feet tall.  Look, from the perspective of being five foot one-ish, anything over 5’8” is tall.

Snowman and I were attracted immediately.  I was his Barbie and he my Gulliver.  I love crawling over a man, a man with some hair on his chest...but I digress.  Suffice it to say my night in the opium den was not with Snowman.  Dammit.

So when the “secret” door in the floor beckoned to me, I had already smoked two pipes of hash.  (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  Besides, it is true.)  When Whatshisname opened it, using the small hole in the metal covering my mouth was agog.

  He wanted me to go in this hole, this dark hole?  I remember his baggy brown pants with his well-worn leather sandals swinging over the edge and him dropping into the black hole in the floor.  Then a light came on and I could see a mattress with one of those ubiquitous Pier One-style, brown Indian bedspreads thrown  over it.  There were a couple of throw pillows and his voice sounded almost melodic as Whatshisname said, “Eyyyy babe, come join me.”  His hand reached up to me.  An odd image flashed through my mind, and I hesitate a second.

I grabbed hold of his hand and hopped down to join him.   I could see it was a very tiny room.  Even I had to sit down to maneuver as he lowered the door and we were sealed in the secret room.  He had it all set up, a small radio, and a candle.  In the middle was a blue glass Huka, it’s flaccid, red velvet wrapped tubes hanging off of the sides of the main bowl.  I knew immediately we would be here awhile.  The faint smell of Hash was everywhere.

I watched as he lit the candle, to see if it would be snuffed out, a sure indication of lack of oxygen, but no, it barely even flickered.  He handled me a can of Coke.  “Thanks, my mouth is very dry.”  We laughed, of course it was.  I watched as the tubes of the Huka seemed to move on their own.  Groovy man.

I think I remember hearing Ravi Shankar , either on the radio, or more likely a tape player, some of the events are understandably fuzzy.   Whatever, it set the mood  to watch Whatshisname remove his shirt and get comfortable.  I slipped off my gladiator sandals and lay back as he fiddled around with the Huka.

The sound of the water bubbling when he finally got the process going was really loud, amplified by the confining space.  We smoked more hash.   We talked.  I found out his name really was Whatshisname.  He made me laugh uncontrollably, the kind of laugh that had me coughing, then crying and finally getting horny.

I do remember us groping each other, but beyond this, not a thing.  I have no idea if we had sex, though I am sure we did, though we could have easily just drifted off on some flight of fancy about how a nipple felt, or the hair on his chest or how he could or could not get it up.  I do remember being uber sensual, and writhing around, feeling the nuances of the velvet embroidered pillows.  Each thread seemed to hold a special feel, the blue were cool, the green were soft, but the gold was the best, slightly rough against the skin I ran my nipples back and forth and alternately, Whatshisname would suck them, and I know we both would drift off into our own worlds, not caring if we did anything else at the moment.   

 I do know it was very easy to lose track of time in the hole, and he got lost in mine I am sure...at some point.    I only know because when we finally decided to emerge, we thought the night had past, but indeed it had been longer, much longer.  My various body parts were sore, and very red.  As I weakly climbed naked out of the hole I was aware of daylight, that and a cat staring at me.  Whatshisname threw my clothes and sandals and up to me.

  Once we got dressed we realized we were very hungry.  “Let’s go to IHop”, he said.  I didn’t argue.  We climbed into his hippy van and took off.  I was trying to figure out where in Berkley we were, and finally recognized College Ave. where I left my car after work last night.  Now it was coming back to me, I was at work, bartending.  It was a Friday night and Whatshisname had been sitting in one of the rockers circling the fireplace.  All night he had stared at me and I stared back.  It was an eye-contact-sealing-the-deal made over a couple of hours.  He did have gorgeous eyes, the bedroom kind of eyes.  He probably had facial hair.   We knew we were extremely attracted to each other,  so inevitably we ended up together, going to his house and down into the unique hole-in-the-floor room, which would culminate with a huge pancake breakfast.  Little did we know it was Sunday afternoon, until we saw the line of people waiting to get in.  We were hungry enough to wait.

I wish I hadn’t though, because Whatshisname managed to throw-up in his plate.  I lost my appetite and walked out.  No wonder his actual name/face is blanked out in perpetuity.   Fortunately my car was still where I had parked it.  I decided I would never climb into a hidden hole in the floor again...by choice.