Lydia Perović

“Her thighs felt slippery and her bottom could easily slide against the lining of her dress. Outside, her silken folds remained undisturbed. There was a woman on the stage straddling a cello, swaying herself behind it. Playing the cello or viola da gamba seemed to Martha at that moment to be about something else entirely than creating a sequence of sounds. “Yes, very much,” she said to Jeanne who shared her enthusiasm for the type of wine being served. The evening went on, the conversations picked up where they were abandoned, but Martha’s physical excitement persisted like a drone that only she could hear. When there was no release, her body went on elated. She must not look at Petra. When her breast accidentally touched the edge of the table, she moved her chair further back. Edges were risky, air was safe. How could they fail to see how searing she is inside? Maybe nobody saw anything because she blinded them. This propelled her through the evening and late into the night and still further on the ride back home.”
― Lydia Perovic, Incidental Music

“We were silly girls then. We thought only D. M. Thomas’s The White Hotel and Hélène Cixous and Anaïs Nin’s Delta of Venus managed to match our state of excitement. We were at it all the time. You were my first woman, as you probably don’t remember.” “I know that, don’t be cruel.” Martha stopped the car at the Parliament Street light and for a moment the only sound heard was the signal light ticking. “We had a private double entendre about the Bright Street cul-de-sac.”
― Lydia Perovic, Incidental Music