Later at Night with Bob Dylan

"An Irishman is never drunk as long as - He can hold onto one blade of grass and not - Fall off the face of the earth"

In my last post, I spoke to the simple joy and pleasure that He and I shared last evening as we sat together on the sofa and listened to the music of Bob Dylan.  It was wonderful and happy and very sweet.

But, as the evening wore on, He spiraled further and further and further into the fury and frustration and despair that was so much a part of His experience as an anti-war activist in the Vietnam era.  The music reaches into some wounded place in His soul that I cannot ever heal no matter how much love and devotion I might pour into the effort.  I've seen this before, and I always know when I see the disintegration begin to happen. 

It is always fueled by alcohol.  Master is Irish, and the Irishman drinks a bit.  Rather more than a bit, if the truth be told.  He likes the taste of alcohol, and He drinks rather deliberately, and extravagantly, because He enjoys it.  He stopped drinking, entirely and on medical advice, for months after the bariatric surgery.  When the recommended period of abstinence had passed, He went back to using alcohol -- sparingly in the beginning, and then in increasing quantities.  It is not unusual, these days for Him to become quite loopy by the time we are ready to head for bed.  I am accustomed to steering Him off toward the bedroom, and making sure He is safely tucked in for the night.  Last night was different.

Last night, as Dylan screamed the coded lyrics that dragged Master back to the anti-war demonstrations of His young adulthood, He drank -- and drank -- and drank.  Eventually, He began to lose track of the clear boundary between the present and the past.  As I watched, He traveled back in time in His mind, and then He was there -- in the streets, throwing rocks at cops, believing that He would likely die, and prepared to do that as long as He took many of "them" with Him.  Soon, He was thrusting and parrying at the empty air with His knives -- fully engaged in the never-quite-past battles of His youth.

I was not part of that life, and I still am not part of it to this day.  When He goes to that place, He forgets who I am.  That's what finally happened last night -- He looked at me, bleary-eyed, and said, "We have the potential for developing a relationship... if only we had time."

That's when I decided it was time to try and maneuver Him off to bed.  I pulled the covers back, and cleared the path. I filled His drink bottle and set it on the night table, and then I went to try and get Him off the couch and to bed.  It took some real doing; lots of heavy-lifting and cajoling, but I finally manage to heave Him up on unsteady feet.  He took two steps toward the bedroom, and staggered out of my arms, falling to the floor.  He flailed around, unsure where He was, or what had happened, but still clearly afraid that "the legal people" were about to burst in and arrest Him.

I could not lift Him off the floor.  I tried to roll Him onto a blanket thinking I might be able to drag Him into the bedroom -- no dice.  I sat on the floor in front of Him, holding His face in my hands, and told Him how scared I was and how desperately I needed Him to help me help Him.  I thought about going to get T to help me with Him, but knew she had to be up early this morning to go for an important job interview.  I screamed at Him -- calling Him a drunken asshole.  And I cried.  Nothing helped.  Master remained exactly where He'd fallen -- on the floor.

Finally, I decided if I couldn't get Master into bed, maybe I could get the bed out to the living room where He was.  I went into the bedroom, stripped the linens off the mattress, and began the process of wrestling our king-size mattress out to the living room.  It flopped one way and then the other and I pushed and pulled and kicked and sweated.  It took a very long time, and I nearly gave up in frustration more than once.  But my Master was lying on the floor, and I had to do something.  Finally, I managed to drag that monster mattress out to the living room and get it into position on the floor not too far from where He lay.  I made it up with sheets, pillows and blankets, and then went to see if I could manage to somehow get Him up onto it.

It took a lot of talking and pulling and heaving, but I finally succeeded and got Him into bed.  I tugged and pulled and got Him undressed -- no easy feat, and covered Him up.  I went to turn the lights off, and just as I returned, He looked at me and said, "I need to pee."  Right. 

I'll spare you the details of that dance.  It is enough that I did get Him finally situated in bed, and settled down to sleep.  I finally peeled out of my clothes, drenched in sweat and completely out of breath, and collapsed into bed beside His unconscious form.  I didn't sleep much, worried if He'd be alright.  At 7 AM when the alarm went off, He was better, but not really good.  I tried to get Him up to go see T off to her interview, but it just wasn't going to happen.  Thank goodness, she came in to see us before she left.  Oddly, she was so focused on her upcoming interview that she didn't even notice that king-size mattress in the middle of the livingroom floor. 

I am aware of the sorts of judgements that might accrue in many quarters about all of that.  We've run into more than a few lifestyle types who have chosen not to have much to do with us because of His relationship to alcohol and my acceptance of that.  If there is one hard rule throughout the various and divergent parts of our BDSM community, it is that BDSM and alcohol don't mix.  For me, that has just never been the case.  I am His, and forever in His service.  That means that there are times when I must cope with how to care for Him and meet His needs when He is completely out of His mind drunk and completely unaware of the service I render.  That, too, is part of my slavery. 

swan