PD.001 — Parkinson: Community Property Regime.

Nobuyoshi Araki. Unauthorized bondage. The neck tied. The left arm immobilized at my side as if it weren't mine. An inert leg. The back searching for an impossible posture, twisted to find a few inches of peace. Thus I awake. A framing I did not choose, difficult to manage, and which, unfortunately, I cannot undo either.

And her by my side, of course, because this bitch won't get out of this bed: she's there when I close my eyes and she's still there when I open them, breathing down my neck.

Today you are staying home

Last night she was already harboring resentment. We argued before going to sleep and I ended up on the couch—or she kicked me out of the bed, depending on who tells the story. That's why she wakes up affectionate today, which is when she gets the worst. She stretched at half-past three in the morning, threw her arm over me—the left one, mine, which doesn't even resist anymore—and whispered in my ear: today you're staying home with me. And the worst part is she's right. Because today my body belongs more to her than to me.

The apartment

It started at the neck. She came close, whispered something I didn't understand, and kissed it slowly. And there she stayed, without letting go of me: pain, tension, everything rigid. I have a lump in my throat, it's hard to swallow. She keeps me on a short leash, the way you tie up a dog or whatever you consider your property, and she pulls hard. I had to take two strong painkillers and an anti-anxiety pill just to endure him breathing down my neck. She won't even let me turn my head to look the other way.

Then she went for my left hand. She took it without asking, shoved it into her cunt finger by finger and left it inside me, curled into a claw, holding onto her and never to me again. She won't give it back when I ask for it. She leaves it sweaty, damp. My thumb is the one I have the least control over, rigid and doing its own thing: trembling all on its own, all the time, typing messages to her behind my back. My own thumb, cheating on me right to my face. If at least my dick got like that, hard and trembling, someone else would enjoy it. But I don't dare cheat on this chick.

My legs don't even bother to hide it anymore. One won't stay still. The other is just an extra, sitting there for decoration, except for the foot, which dances all night long on its own with the dyskinesia, as if it had its own secret affair going on with it. And the left one I can barely feel, as if I had put it to sleep with my own hands to take it away without it protesting. And there I am in the middle, standing as best I can, acting as the third wheel in my own marriage.

The view doesn't help either: blurry, everything starting to lose definition, as if she had spit in my face so I wouldn't see her too well. I suppose that way it's easier for her to do whatever she pleases with the rest. And then there's the fatigue, the lack of strength, the exhaustion. That one I no longer know if it's mine, hers, or both of ours. Three hours of sleep in thirty. By this point I'm not even tired: I'm evicted. As if my body had decided to throw me out to make room for her. The bitch took over the whole apartment.

I still haven't left the room. I stepped out onto the terrace to get some fresh air and almost took a spill. Now even walking scares me, in my own house. I'm going very slowly, terrified: the corner of the table, the door handle, the faucet, everything becomes dangerous, everything conspiring with her, waiting its turn to do her a favor.

And not content with that, she has entered the last room: my insides, my stomach. My belly is swollen, tense, packed to the rafters. She’s fucked me up the ass until she’s left me pregnant, and with the weight even my balance is failing. She’s also been moving in her heels, her creams, her yoga mat and resistance bands—vain and in shape, the bitch—and any day now she’ll move the dog and her fucking mother in here too. And my right side aches like a piece of furniture someone dragged out of place without asking me. Her house, her rules, her pain.

It even lowered my blood pressure. Seven and a half. She drains my tank on purpose, drop by drop, so I don't even have the strength left to pack my bags. Very smart. She doesn't throw you out into the street: she leaves you without the legs to make it to the door. The floor tilts, everything lists to the side, and I no longer know if I'm falling or if the whole house is tilting to spit me out.

Cuckolded by my own body

So here I am. Cuckolded by my own body. A man who is discovering, organ by organ, room by room, that his dear and beloved wife is cheating on him with his own hands, his own legs, his own eyes, his own stomach and neck. And who today has lost the divorce suit without anyone even notifying him that it was taking place.

The windows of the head

And then there are the windows of the head. He found them open too. It doesn't come in with pain or tremors through there. It comes in with questions. What if tomorrow is the same. What if this time it doesn't let up. What if this is no longer a bad patch. It lets uncertainty in slowly, without making a sound, until suddenly the house is full of things that haven't happened yet. Fear has that bad habit: it always arrives before the facts and moves in as if it had paid the rent.

For a few hours you left my windows wide open. So that all your shit and your poison could come in. The fear. The uncertainty. So that the gale-force wind could do its job and I would start confusing what was happening today with everything that could happen tomorrow. But I managed to close them in time. Not because I had won. Nor because I was suddenly better. Simply because I understood that you already had enough with my body without me also gifting you my head. Not that room. Not yet.

A pending conversation

Congratulations. Today you kept it all. The apartment, the furniture, and the tenant. But one thing, darling, before you get fully settled: this is not a separation. It is a rough patch. You have not relented for days and today you won, I'll sign off on that. Enjoy it.

Because the day I get back even a single leg, I’m coming back. And I’m not coming to talk. I’m coming for my house. To take back the terrace and its views. The sound of the sea. A cold beer. To sit down without thinking about where I’m placing my body. To notice that my leg has stayed still just because it feels like it. To look at the screen and discover that my hand is obeying me again, that my fingers are reaching the keys I ask them to and that my thumb, for once in its fucking life, has better things to do.

And then I'll write. And maybe I won't even remember you. You, for once, keep your mouth shut. A bad day. And a pending conversation with you, hija de la grandísima puta.