Life in Prince Charming's Palace

perhaps the true love of phil’s life was alcohol. lady liquor got first dibs on his reproductive anatomy, or the functioning thereof, to be certain.
she also ruled his other bodily functions pretty thoroughly—imagine for a moment how fun it would be to share a twin-sized mattress with a man who consistently drank himself into unconsciousness and lost control of his bladder forthwith. I don’t have to imagine that feeling—I know it like some people know lottery tickets.
after wakin up covered in someone elses’ malodorous bodily fluids, damp, chilled and depressedly disgusted, I’d have to try and rouse phil from his comalike slumber, to see if I could convince him to at least change his jeans if not take a shower…..then, I’d have to go to sleep someplace—since generally all the real estate available on our apartment floor was being filled by sleeping freeloading partiers, my only option was likely a return to the twin-mattress-cum-leachfield from whence I had shudderingly sprung forth.
if I had successfully awakened phil, I’d guide him like one guides a demented senior citizen, holding his elbow and supporting his back slightly, gingerly avoiding small obstacles, thru the apartment, to the closet-sized bathroom. I’d gently unbutton his stinking, piss-drenched pants, ease them off as he sat uncomprehending on the covered toilet, squinting in the bright white fluorescence of the bathroom light. I’d remove his shoes(phil went to bed fully clothed most nights) and peel off his soaking-wet, nearly-disintegrated, worn-for-weeks tee-shirt. these, I’d toss into the mountainous “dirty laundry” pile(by dirty, I mean, “biohazard, filth-encrusted”)upon which pothead arthur would be blissfully aslumber, undisturbed by the gently thumping arrival of the latest additions to his questionable collection of bedding.
I had to keep an eye on phil as I did this, for he would still be mentally absent from his body, and likely to keel sideways off of the toilet, which would put him either in the bathtub or cracking his skull against the sink depending on which side he favored. naked and wet, he’d be shivering in the drafty air that slipped into the bathroom beneath its other door, which led to the backyard. “you had an accident” I’d say to him if he looked questioningly at me, although I knew he didn’t really hear me.
I’d towel him off and try to enlist his assistance in my efforts to re-dress him in dry threads—these sometimes took great effort on my part just to uncover in our disastrously unkempt apartment. once phil was acceptably covered once more, I’d sit him back on the toilet for a moment so I could go to the other room and flip over the mattress. we never used sheets, so it wasn’t much trouble transferring the bedding from one side to the other, if it hadn’t been caught in the crossfire of the “incident”, of course. I’d scrounge up as many big scratchy grey “disaster blankets”(standard homeless-charity-van fare) as I could, pile them near the mattress, and go retrieve my still-absent boyfriend.
slowly, carefully, I’d guide him back to the bed and help him to resume his horizontal orientation. I’d cover him snugly and go back to the bathroom to care for my own needs and remove my damp clothing. I’d shower and wonder if there was anything left in the house that would help me to rediscover sleep. sometimes, I’d put on something revealing after my shower; paint my face with makeup so I could go out to find my own comforts in a world where the man I cared for never even woke up to notice it, because he had drank all the booze in the house.