Chapter 35 Indonesian Stories (34)

"Really? When?" "In June. I brought him here. He's Brazilian, older than me. You tell me you like him." "I never said that," he insisted, and he wouldn't believe anything I said.Grandpa Lai sometimes forgets things, just like if you are between sixty-five and one hundred and twelve years old, you will also forget things.Most of the time, he's the sharp one, but there are times when I feel like I'm disturbing him, pulling him out of another layer of consciousness, another universe. (A few weeks ago, he said to me completely incomprehensibly: "Lily, you are my good friend, loyal friend, dear friend." Then sighed, stared into the sky, and added mournfully: "No Like Sharon. "Who the hell is this Sharon? What did she do to him? I wanted to ask him, but he didn't give me any answer. Even suddenly it seemed like he didn't understand who I was talking about, as if at first I was the one who first mentioned the cunning, skittish Sharon.)

"Why don't you bring your boyfriend over to let me know?" He asked now. "I brought it, Lord. Really, you told me you liked him." "Can't remember. Your boyfriend, does he have money?" "No, sir. He's not rich, but he has enough money." "Moderately rich?" the pharmacist asked for tabular details. "He has enough money." My answer seemed to annoy Grandpa Lai. "You ask this man for money, will he give it to you, or won't he?" "Master Lai, I don't want him to give me money. I've never taken money from a man."

"You spend the night with him every day?" "yes." "Very well. Does he spoil you?" "Very favored." "Very good. Are you still meditating?" Yes, I still meditate every day, slipping from Felipe's bed onto the couch and letting myself sit and be grateful for it all.Outside his balcony, the ducks croaked all the way across the rice fields and splashed in the water. (Felibe said these busy ducks in Bali always reminded him of Brazilian women strutting along the beaches of Rio: chatting loudly, interrupting each other frequently, swinging their hips confidently.) Now I am so relaxed Dive into meditation as deeply as my lover is preparing my bath.Naked in the morning sun, wrapped only in a thin blanket, I melt into grace, floating above the infinite like a small shell balanced on a spoon.

Why did my past life seem so difficult? One day I called my friend Susan in New York, and over the phone with the typical background noise of urban police cars honking, I listened to her pour out the details of her latest lovelorn.My voice was calm and peaceful, like a midnight jazz radio host, and I told her to let it go, and I said, baby, you have to understand that everything is already perfect, everything that the universe provides us with peace, harmony... Over the sound of sirens, I could almost see her rolling her eyes as she said, "That sounds like a woman who's had four orgasms today."

But after a few weeks, all the carousing got the best of me.Those sleepless nights, those days of having too much sex, my body kicked back and I got a bad bladder infection.A classic ailment of excessive sex, especially when you are no longer used to it.It struck as swiftly as any tragedy.I was walking through town one morning doing some errands when the burning pain and fever came over me.I had these infections in my frivolous youth, so I know what it is.I panicked for a moment—this kind of thing could get serious—and thought, "Thank goodness my best friend in Bali is a therapist." I ran into my sister's shop.

"I'm sick!" I said. The eldest sister took a look at me and said, "Xiao Li, you are sick because you have too much sex." I groaned and buried my face in my hands, embarrassed. She giggled and said, "You can't hide it from Eldest Sister..." I was in so much pain.Those who have been infected are well aware of the dreadful feeling; as for those who have never experienced it--make up your own analogy of pain, preferably using the word "poker" in the sentence. The eldest sister is like a senior firefighter or emergency room doctor, always calm and calm.She began methodically chopping herbs, cooking roots, wandering between the kitchen and me, giving me plate after plate of warm, brown, poison-smelling decoction, saying, "Honey, drink it up..."

Whenever a piece of medicine was being decocted, she would sit opposite me and use the opportunity to ask questions mischievously. "You are careful not to get pregnant, Lily?" "Impossible, madam. Felipe had a ligation." "Felipe had a "sterilization"?" she asked, awed by it, as if to ask, "Felipe had a villa in Tuscany?" (By the way, I felt the same .) It is very difficult to get a man to do it in Bali.Contraception has always been a woman's problem.