《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 100 (239):運動過度
But all the fun and games caught up with me after a few weeks. After all those nights of not sleeping and all those days of too much lovemaking, my body struck back and I got attacked by a nasty infection in my bladder. A typical affliction of the overly sexed, especially likely to strike when you're not used to being overly sexed anymore. It came up as fast as any tragedy can strike. I was walking through town one morning doing some chores when suddenly I was buckled over with burning pain and fever. I'd had these infections before, during my wayward youth, so I knew what it was. I panicked for a moment—these things can be awful—but then thought, "Thank God my best friend in Bali is a healer," and I ran into Wayan's shop.
"I'm sick!" I said.
She took one look at me and said, "You sick from making too much sex, Liz."
I groaned, buried my face in my hands, embarrassed.
She chuckled, said, "You can't keep secrets from Wayan . . ."
I was in godawful pain. Anyone who's ever had this infection knows the dreadful feeling; anyone who hasn't experienced this specific suffering—well, just make up your own torturous metaphor, preferably using the term "fire poker" someplace in the sentence.
Wayan, like a veteran firefighter or an ER surgeon, never moves fast. She methodically started chopping some herbs, boiling some roots, wandering back and forth between her kitchen and me, bringing me one warm, brown, toxic-tasting concoction after another, saying, "Drink, honey . . ."
Whenever the next batch boiled, she would sit across from me, giving me sly, dirty looks and using the opportunity to get nosy.
"You careful not to get pregnant, Liz?"
"Not possible, Wayan. Felipe has a vasectomy."
"Felipe has a vasectomy?" she asked, in as much awe as if she were asking, "Felipe has a villa in Tuscany?" (I feel the same way about it, by the way.) "Very difficult in Bali to get a man to do this. Always the woman problem, birth control."
(Although it is true that the Indonesian birth rates are down lately due to a brilliant recent birth control incentive program: the government promised a new motorcycle to every man who would volunteer to come in for a vasectomy . . . though I hate to think the guys had to ride their new bikes home the same day.)
可是在幾個禮拜後，所有的尋歡作樂使我自食其果。那些不眠之夜，那些做太多愛的日子，使我的身體開始反撲，我的膀胱嚴重感染。一種過度性愛的典型病症，尤其在你不再習慣過度性愛的時候，更易遭受侵襲。它就像任何悲劇般迅速來襲。某天早上我走過鎮上辦理雜務，灼痛與發燒突然襲來。我在輕狂的年輕時代曾有過這些感染，因此知道是怎麼回事。我驚恐片刻——這種事很可能變得很嚴重——而後心想："謝天謝地，我在巴厘島最好的朋友是位治療師。"於是跑進大姐的店裏。
"我生了病！"我說。
大姐看了我一眼，說："小莉，你生病，因爲做太多愛。"
我呻吟，把臉埋在手中，很不好意思。
她咯咯笑說："你瞞不了大姐……"
我痛得要命。感染過的人都很清楚這種可怕的感覺；至於未曾體驗過這種痛苦的人——請構想你自己的痛苦比喻，最好在句子裏使用"撥火棍"這詞兒。
大姐就像資深消防員或急診室醫師，總是從從容容的。她開始有條不紊地切藥草，煮根莖，遊走於廚房和我之間，給我一帖又一帖溫熱、棕色、味道有如毒藥的煎藥，說："親愛的，喝了吧……"
每逢一帖藥正在煎煮時，她便坐在我對面，神情淘氣地利用機會追問。
"你小心不要懷孕吧，小莉？"
"不可能，大姐。斐利貝做了結紮。"
"斐利貝做了"結紮"？"她問道，對此敬畏三分，彷彿問的是，"斐利貝在托斯卡納有棟別墅？"（順便一提，我也有相同的感覺。）在巴厘島要男人做這件事非常困難。避孕向來是女人的問題。
（印尼生育率近來的確有下降趨勢，源於最近實施的一套避孕獎勵計劃：政府答應提供一部新機車給每一位自願動結紮手術的男人……儘管我可不敢想象這些男人必須在"手術同一天"騎新機車回家。）
