Felipe is also the endearment master. In bed he slips into adoring me in Portuguese, so I have graduated from being his "lovely little darling" to being his queridinha. (Literal translation: "lovely little darling.") I've been too lazy here in Bali to try to learn Indonesian or Balinese, but suddenly Portuguese is coming easily to me. Of course I'm only learning the pillow talk, but that's a fine use of Portuguese. He says, "Darling, you're going to get sick of it. You're going to get bored of how much I touch you, and how many times a day I tell you how beautiful you are."

Try me, mister.

I'm losing days here, disappearing under his sheets, under his hands. I like the feeling of not knowing what the date is. My nice organized schedule has been blown away by the breeze. I finally do stop by to see my medicine man one afternoon after a long hiatus of no visiting. Ketut sees the truth on my face before I say a word.

"You found boyfriend in Bali," he says.

"Yes, Ketut."

"Good. Be careful not get pregnant."

"I will."

"He good man?"

"You tell me, Ketut," I said. "You read his palm. You promised that he was a good man. You said it about seven times."

"I did? When?"

"Back in June. I brought him here. He was the Brazilian man, older than me. You told me you liked him."

"Never did," he insisted, and there was nothing I could do to convince him otherwise. Sometimes Ketut loses things from his recollection, as you would, too, if you were somewhere between sixty-five and a hundred and twelve years old. Most of the time he's keen and sharp, but other times I feel like I've disturbed him out of some other plane of consciousness, out of some other universe. (A few weeks ago he said to me, completely out of nowhere, "You good friend to me, Liss. Loyal friend. Loving friend." Then he sighed, stared off into space and ad-ded mournfully, "Not like Sharon." Who the hell is Sharon? What did she do to him? When I tried asking him about it, he would give me no answer. Acted suddenly like he didn't know who I was even referring to. As if I were the one who'd brought up that thieving hussy Sharon in the first place.)

斐利贝还是个宠爱大师。他在床上不知不觉地以葡语爱慕我，因此我已从他的"可爱的小甜心"晋升为"他的queridinha"（字面翻译："可爱的小甜心"）。我来巴厘岛后很懒惰，不想学印尼语或巴厘语，突然间却轻而易举地学会了葡萄牙语。当然我只学会枕边细语，却是好用的葡语。他说："亲爱的，你会腻的。你会厌倦我的抚摸，厌倦我每天说好几次你有多美。"

考验我吧，先生。

我在这儿失去时间，我在他的被单下、他的手下消失。我喜欢不知年月的感觉。我一板一眼的时间表已随风消散。最后，过了好长一段时间，我才在某天下午去看访我的药师。赖爷在我开口说话前从我脸上看见真相。

"你在巴厘岛找到男友了。"他说。

"是的，赖爷。"

"很好，小心别怀孕。"

"我会的。"

"他人很好？"

"你告诉我吧，赖爷，"我说，"你看过他的手相。你保证过他是好男人。大概说了七次。"

"真的？哪时候？"

"六月的时候。我带他过来。他是巴西人，年纪比我大。你跟我说你喜欢他。"

"我从没说过，"他坚称，而我不管说什么他都不相信。赖爷时而忘事，就像你若介于六十五至一百一十二岁之间的话也会忘事。大半时间，他是敏锐的人，但有些时候我觉得自己干扰到他，把他从另一层意识、另一个宇宙里拉出来（他在几星期前，完全不明所以地对我说："小莉，你是我的好朋友，忠心的朋友，亲爱的朋友。"接着叹口气，凝望空中，哀戚地加上一句："不像雪伦。"谁是这见鬼的雪伦？她对他做了什么？我想问他，他却未给我任何答案。甚至突然间像是不明白我提起的人是谁，仿佛一开始是我先提起这位贼头贼脑、水性杨花的雪伦。）