Crawl

Many thanks to HMAuthor for all the hard work in editing and improving this story from a previous version.

*****

"Are you calling me an alcoholic?" asked Jess.

"Are you even listening to me?" Charlene asked back. "I'm calling you an immature, clueless jerk who refuses to grow up. Yes, I know you never drink on workdays. But when I'm not with you and nagging you constantly, you just don't know when to stop. What's wrong with you?"

"I'm working on it," said Jess. "You need to give me some space."

"Just the opposite," said Charlene. "I need to get in your face. It's just pure luck that you haven't been caught DUI yet or killed somebody when you drive home. Lately, you've been so far gone that you can't even be quiet when you come home. Last night, you barely made it to bed before you passed out. It's disgusting trying to sleep next to a stinking distillery."

"I'm sorry, Charlene," he said. "But I promise you that I'm going to stop."

"Your promises are worth the paper they're not written on," she said. "Have you even made an appointment with a therapist yet?"

"No, not yet," he said.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked.

"I think I can work through this myself," he said. "I don't need a shrink."

"Well, I'm getting tired of waiting for you, Jess," she said. "I guess it's my fault. You were doing this in college, but I thought you'd grow out of it. As much as I love you, I'm not going to marry you as long as you keep binging, and I'm not going to wait much longer. If you do this one more time, I think I might be ready to move out."

"Wait a minute, Charlene," he said. "How is that going to help anything?"

"I would feel bad about not being able to help you," she said. "And I'll feel guilty when I read about your being arrested for drunk driving or imprisoned for manslaughter. But if I continue to do nothing, I'm going to feel even more guilty. I wish I knew a magic pill that would cure you, but even if I did, you probably wouldn't take it."

"Yes I would," he said.

"That's what you say now," she said. "What if I could find a pill like that and put it on the table in front of us next week and you refused to swallow it? Would you give me permission to force it down your throat?"

"I don't get it," he said. "I'm a lot stronger than you are. You can't make me do anything."

"But what if you were drunk?" she asked. "If you were drunk, you'd be helpless. I could force you to swallow that pill."

"What are we talking about?" he asked.

"We're talking about my question, which you didn't answer," she said. "If you didn't want to take the medicine that would cure your binge drinking, would you give me permission to force you to take it? Yes or no?"

"What difference does it make?" he said. "There is no medicine."

"Yes or no?" she said. "I want an answer. You know what I'm thinking right now. I'm thinking your answer is also going to be the answer to whether our relationship continues. So what is it, yes or no?"

"I guess it has to be yes," he said.

"That's not an answer," she said. "I want it simple and clear. Wait. Let me take this piece of paper and get a pen. I'm going to write down your two choices, and then I want you to read the one you choose out loud to me."

When she had finished writing, he looked at the paper a while and looked up at her. There was a steely, determined look in her eyes, so he decided he better not mess with her.

He read his answer: "'Yes, I give you permission to force me to take the medicine that will cure my binge drinking.' There, are you satisfied?"

"Not yet," she said. "I want you to cross out the other choice on the paper and sign your name below the choice you just read. Good. Now give me the paper."

"You know this isn't legal," he said. "There are no witnesses or anything."

"Yes there are," she said, "you and me. We both know you agreed. When you get into your car while you're drunk, you're not legal either. So this piece of paper is enough for me.

"If you start going to a therapist or AA meetings or you do anything to stop what you're doing, I don't need this piece of paper. But if you ever come home again like last night, I'm going to put a lot of effort into finding the medicine to cure you. You may not like it, but you're going to take it. If the first medicine doesn't work, I'll keep looking until I either find one that works or drive you away."

"I'll never leave you, Charlene," he said.

The conversation convinced Jess he had better do something. But as much as he hated to talk about his problem to Charlene, he hated to talk to anyone else even more. So he decided to solve it by himself. Charlene asked him about what he was doing a couple times, but after he told her he was handling it, she stopped asking and began encouraging him. As the weeks went by, she complimented him and told him how happy she was.

A couple of college buddies happened to have business trips that brought them to town at the same time, and they decided to stay over and get together Saturday night. Neither of them had their wives with them, Jess told Charlene.

"Do you need me to go with you?" she asked.

"No," he replied. "I'll handle it."

But he didn't. He realized later that he shouldn't have let them talk him into going to the hot singles bar so they could ogle the women. The music was loud, and they had to shout at each other and he found himself losing track of how many drinks he had. After a while, he was in his binge zone. He couldn't remember how he got home, but when he got into the house from the garage, his mind somehow focused on one thing: not to wake up Charlene when he went to bed.

After bumping into a few things and making noises, he decided it would be safer not to walk. So he got down on the floor and began to crawl. He put all his efforts into crawling slowly up the stairs without making a sound, but he was so intoxicated and tired that he was getting sleepy. As he crawled down the soft, thick carpet in the hallway that led to their bedroom, he was blinking his eyes to stay awake, but it was getting harder and harder. Finally, just outside the open bedroom door, he put his head on the carpet and passed out.

That's where he woke up the next morning. He was still wearing his clothes, so he quickly figured out what had happened. He saw the bedroom was empty and the bed was made, so he took a shower, brushed his teeth, put on some clothes and went downstairs. Charlene was in the kitchen. "I made you a sandwich for you to eat while you're watching the football games," she said. "I've got to go out." She didn't say it as if she was never coming back, he thought to himself and wondered what he should say.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. "It won't happen again."

She looked at him, but he couldn't figure out what she was thinking. Did she believe him? Did he believe himself? Why didn't she say something? Jess was scared.

After gazing at him a minute, she said, "I'll be back in time for us to go out for dinner," and then she turned and left.

Charlene didn't say anything about that night to him later or in the next few weeks, except for once. It was a remark that came out of the blue, when they were having dinner at an expensive restaurant to celebrate his birthday. He ordered two wines by the glass and no cocktail and was feeling good about himself when she asked him the question.

"When you came home drunk a couple of weeks ago, were you crawling on the floor?" she asked.

"What?" It took him a few seconds to understand what she was asking. "Uh, yes. I didn't want to wake you up, and I thought it would be quieter for me to crawl to bed. But I guess I never made it. I don't remember much about that night."

"Thanks," she said. "You answered my question." She changed the subject, and he was afraid to go back there and tell her again how sorry he was.

He hadn't been drunk for a few months and was thinking about where to take Charlene to celebrate when he got blindsided. He and Charlene were at a hockey game in his company's box. He had one martini, and her look told him he wouldn't be drinking another one. She was talking to the two other wives who were there, and he and the husbands, three executive assistants and two of their boyfriends were watching the game and talking office politics.

At the start of the second period, the wives announced they were leaving to go to a nearby mall, and if they didn't return, the men should carpool home. "Should I drive?" Charlene asked him, "and you can get a ride home." She looked at him, and he knew why she was asking the question.

"No, I'm fine," he said. He felt fine and in no danger.

But after the wives left, the other husbands ordered more drinks, and they began getting frisky with the assistants. The boyfriends didn't seem to care because they saw that their girlfriends were getting horny and figured they'd be the beneficiaries later. But the woman who came stag latched onto Jess as her temporary date.

She began flirting with him and touching him and continued to drink. She told him a couple of times that it wasn't fair that he wasn't drinking with her. He finally decided to have one more whiskey, and then the walls came down. He didn't remember much afterward, but he remembered entwining with her in the back of the company box while the others were in the window seats. Their hands were all over each other, and he was sure everyone heard her orgasms as he fingered her. She wouldn't be satisfied until her hand job made him come on his pants. It was a good thing the pants were dark. He went down the hall to the john and washed himself off but then had trouble finding the box again. She wanted him to take her home, but he wasn't too drunk to know how dangerous that would be, so he made sure she got a ride with one of the boyfriends, the one who seemed the most sober.

Once again, he didn't remember how he got home, but he remembered being scared when he walked in from the garage. And after a few bumps, he again dropped to his hands and knees and began crawling. He tried to concentrate with all his might, but he was so tired and drunk that even the first stair was too much for him. He fell into a heap in front of the staircase and hit his head on one of the stairs.

Before he fell asleep, he saw a light go on upstairs, and it scared him. He drifted off into a strange nightmare. Part of it involved his stomach and strange feelings inside of him. At the same time as he was experiencing these uncomfortable feelings, he was outside of his body like a ghost and looking at himself.

The person - himself - that he was looking at was in a bathroom - it was their downstairs bathroom - and he was expelling solids and liquids from every opening in his body. If he wasn't throwing up in the sink, he was on the toilet. Everything was streaming out of him.

There was someone else there in the dream, but he couldn't see who it was at first. After a couple of rounds of disgusting stuff pouring into the sink and toilet, he saw it was Charlene, and she was naked, and she was dragging a naked body around. She dumped the body into the shower, and then she got into the shower with it and began washing it. As she rolled it over, he saw the face of the body and screamed. The body was him. That's when he woke up.

It was light when he woke, still feeling funny inside. At first he wasn't sure if he was awake, because everything seemed strange. He was lying on his stomach, but not on the floor or the carpet. He was on some kind of plastic sheet. He was naked. And all around him were heavy ropes. They weren't tied to him, but he could feel them covering his body.

Then he realized why he was feeling funny inside. Something was pushing into his anus. He tried to move away from whatever it was, and that's when he realized he had handcuffs on.

He was able to scoot forward away from the thing at his anus, but when he tried to stand up, he couldn't get further than a squat before being stopped by the heavy ropes. They were woven together and kept him from getting free. He saw that the ropes were in a wide pattern, and he could have pulled them apart and gotten out, but the handcuffs prevented him from doing that.

He squatted for a while, but then that became tiring, and he dropped to his hands and knees. Then he heard Charlene's voice behind him.

"Stay like that, Jess," she said. He couldn't see her when he turned his head, so he tried to turn his whole body around. There wasn't enough room inside the tangled ropes, but he got a glimpse of her by twisting his body. It was enough to see that she was in the rope tunnel right behind him, and she was naked.

"What's going on, Charlene?" he asked. "Did you put these handcuffs on me?"

"Yes, Jess," she said. "You're busted. Just thank you're lucky stars that I put them on before the police did. I'm not sending you to prison."

"OK, Charlene," he said. "I get it. Now let me out of here."

"Not just yet," she said. "First say hello to Irene. Look to your left. She's the one kneeling on the floor with the video camera. She's going to be filming your medicine this morning. See this can of Crisco outside the ropes. I was stuffing it into your ass, and she was filming, waiting for you to wake up. I got nearly a third of the can inside you before you finally came to life. She recorded your expressions as you woke up and began to feel what was happening."

"I don't understand what you're doing, Charlene," he said.

"Let me explain," she said. "When I woke up and saw you passed out in the hallway upstairs a few months ago, I realized that you weren't going to be able to cure your drinking problem by yourself. Even when you held out for months, eventually you always had a relapse. Sooner or later your luck would run out, and you'd be dead in a car crash or in prison for years. That's when I started working on your medicine.

"I knew it would happen again, so I worked hard to get this ready, and I finished last week. I didn't think last night would be the night, but I knew that I'd have to give you the medicine eventually. By the way, did you know you had come on your pants?"

"I am so ashamed of that, Charlene," he said. "Will you ever forgive me? Are you going to leave me?"

"I've already forgiven you, but you better see a doctor this week to check for STDs if you didn't use a rubber," she said.

"It wasn't like that," he said. "She just used her hands."

"Good," said Charlene. "Anyway, you're forgiven, because cheating is not your problem. Alcohol is. Whatever you did, I know you wouldn't have done it if you hadn't been drunk."

"That's right," he said, "and you know what, Charlene, I'm going to call a therapist the first thing tomorrow morning. I see now that you were right. I need help to get through this. My pride is gone. Now let me out of here. I'm willing to do what you say, because I don't want to take a chance on losing you."

"That's great," said Charlene. "I'm going to help you follow through on what you just told me, and I know you keep your promises. My cure is going to help the process. And after this morning, the therapy is going to be easy for you by comparison."

"No, Charlene," he said. "This is not the way to do it. I told you I'm going to cooperate. I'm the one who needs to do this, not you. Now let me out of here."

"Not yet, Jess," she said. "Part of your problem has been that you've insisted on being in charge. And you're still doing that right now. But I'm not listening anymore. Tomorrow, you'll take ownership of your problem, but for today, I'm in charge, and you're going to take your medicine."

"But whatever you're planning, I'm not going along," he said. "You're not going to accomplish anything."

"We'll see about that," she said. "Don't forget, you gave me permission to force you to take the medicine. I have that in writing. And most important of all, I'm doing this because I love you. Otherwise I would have packed up after last night.

"I've listened to you, but now it's time for you to listen to me or else we're going to be here all day. You helped me think up this cure. The first time you came home and began crawling, I was shocked at what your boozing had turned you into. You couldn't even stand up like a man anymore. You were turning into some kind of animal. The thought came to me that eventually, you wouldn't even be able to crawl, and you'd have to move on your belly like a snake. You were like evolution going backwards.

"All these crazy thoughts ended up helping me create your medicine. Since you don't mind crawling like an animal, that's what you're going to do today. The ropes are braided loosely to form a kind of tunnel, but it's a transparent tunnel, so Irene can film everything that happens as you are crawling. As you've already found out, the ropes are anchored, so they'll give a little but not enough to let you stand up.

"You may be able to squat for a while, but I'm right behind you, and you won't squat for long, because it's easy for me to give you a little push and topple you forward. With those handcuffs keeping your arms in front of you, there's not much you can do. So what you need to do is start crawling on your hands and knees. The rope tunnel is in a circle and goes around our living room, so you'll be crawling around and around until we're done. Think of it as a horizontal hamster wheel. When you're drunk, your brain shrinks to the size of a hamster's. It's time to start crawling now, so get going, Jess."

"No, I'm not," he said. "I'm tired, and I'm just going to stretch out here under your ropes and rest until you come to your senses."

"I don't think so," she said. "I explained how the crawling was supposed to remind you how low you've gone. But I didn't tell you about the part that will remind you why you don't want to go to prison for killing someone while driving drunk. Here's how that reminder works.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"I just put a finger into your ass," she said. "It went in easily because of all the Crisco. When you're in prison, you need to be lubed up and ready at all times, because most of the guys who are bigger than you will be at least this big. Do you feel my second finger?"

"Stop it!" he yelled. "That's sick."

"I'm just getting you used to it," she said. "In prison, you better try to keep moving, because two fingers can easily turn into three, like this. If you just keep on lying there, you're going to make it easy for your cellmate.

"Oh, I see you changed your mind, and you're in a hurry now. You've turned into a big hamster. Yes, crawl as fast as you can. I'm right behind you. Why are you stopping?"

"You didn't take your fingers out" he said.

"That's right," she said, "just like in prison. The fingers are now part of Jess. They're staying in there, and you can feel how I'm moving them around inside and also slowly in and out. They're sliding through the Crisco easily. This is much easier than last night, when I had to give you two enemas and a shower while you were dead weight."

"I thought that was a dream," he said.

"Maybe for you," she said. "I also had to clean where you threw up. It wasn't a dream for me, but I wanted you all shiny clean for Irene's video. I think your insides are totally empty now. You're probably hungry. After we're done, I'll fix you a big breakfast if you want.

"Anyway, the fingers stay, so you need to start moving. Because while you're crawling, it's a little harder for me to put fingers in you, like this. Oh, that fourth one really got you going, so I'll have to talk while we crawl.

"I'm going to put as many fingers in you as I can while you're crawling, Jess. You're bigger than me, so you normally could crawl a lot faster, but the handcuffs slow you down just enough so that I can sometimes catch up to you and do this. Did you feel me push the four fingers to the second knuckle for a second? I thought so. There I did it again.