bathroom, president’s hotel, athens, july 27,2005

i am right now sitting on the bathroom floor of my hotel in athens having just woken up from a lurid dream involving acid, rape, and bad education.

long-hai, kristen, and i were all taking a class on politics and the social mind. we were reading a book called dissidents about a group of young radicals trying to change society. in chapter 4 they referred to the meeting point of the group as “The Honey Pot”. coincidentally a store had just opened up downtown, also called the honey pot. i was fascinated by this and decided to go there to check it out the day before class.

the honey pot from the front looked deceptively large and also empty. but i took one step inside the door and it held only 5 small round tables radiating out from the entryway in a horseshoe shape. each table held 3 to 4 people, all of whom stared at me hungrily as i took another hesitating step over the threshold. it was dark, airless, and enclosed. in the center of the tables there stood a cauldron bubbling with honey and the man behind it could easily have been mistaken for a bear–a menacing Pooh, guarding his sweet stuff.

to him, i said, “can i have some honey?”

he dipped a tiny, but extremely long-handled spoon into the honey and held it out to me without moving from his place behind the cauldron. i opened my mouth, feeling oddly reminiscent ofthe hangover opening for the airplane.

a half hour later i was higher than anything, lying back on a hill, being raped by the bear. in my head visions of being poured and filled with honey–warm, golden, syrupy honey–were flashing past at an alarming rate. i couldn’t do anythingto stop the bear, he was the honey conduit and i, the honey vessel.

the next day i was reading a blog post by KTV about the honey pot store. she mentioned nothing about honey-ooated acid, but told that when she and 3 friends went to check it out the owner was shoving pins into a voodoo doll.

sean came into my room at this pont. he was also taking the politics class, but at a different time from us. KTV was in his class. he asked me if i had read KTV’s post and i wordlessly showed him that i was on it right then. he rambled on about how coincidental it was that this store opened up right when we reached chapter 4 of the dissidents.

“i went there yesterday too. alone. he gave me acid in my honey. and then, i think he raped me.”

sean kissed me on the forehead and told me it was going to be all right. he led me to politics class and left me wih his notes on chapter 4 and a pencil from which he broke the eraser.*

long-hai asked me if i had done all the reading and i had to say no, that i’d only read the parts on the honey pot. he looked terrified for me as the teacher was a teribly mean woman who would not hesitate to demolish any student who wasn’t prepared.

and in she walked, so speak of the devil, asking if we’d all read chapter 4. we dutifully responded yes and opened our books to the proper page. my yes must have been more fervent than the others because she called on me at once to give my impression.

i floundered. i could see long-hai and kristen eyeballing me with horrified looks of pity. and so i began to talk.

“i was very interested in the code-name the rebels gave their meeting place on the hill–‘the honey pot’. a new shop just opened downtown yesterday also called the honey pot and in the interest of literary allusion, i went to check it out. what i found was unpleasant. a giant of a man gave me honey laced with acid. another friend who went seperately that day saw him stabbing a doll with needles in a voodoo ritual. the ‘moral’ i suppse you could draw from this example in conjunctin with the books’ own ‘honey pot’ is that underneath the political cell, this group of dissidents, lies many unseen dangers and dark places that can overwhelm or even harm an outsider. or possibly someone within the group itself.”

kristen and long-hai’s faces had gone from horrified to stark terror. and everybody else in the class was silent as they turned to look at the teacher.

“those are very serious accusations you’re making. to spread vile rumors this way, i should report you to the authorities.”

i was stunned by this threat which felt like a blow against my very person. she was impugning my honor and my veracity. my reply burst from me violently, “you are a vicious harridan. why don’t you report me? go ahead. while you’re at it, make sure to tell the authorities that the proprietor raped me after he drugged me.”

tears were pouring down my face as i threw my book at her head and stormed out.

*sean, a girl tells you she got raped and you take her to class? that’s awful! show some more concern! don’t break pencils.