Liz Thurlow, Part Seven: Lovers

Liz had had other lovers before she was married. Several in fact, as well as two one-night stands – but she didn’t count them. They rested in her memory as sublime and secret experiences, the two delicious times she had abandoned herself in the arms of a man she would never meet again. But she never let on about it. Liz preferred to play the “seduced, then jilted” card. It sounded better in her morally upright world. And her last lover had jilted her. That is what had sent her into Bob’s embrace. Nice, safe, stable, conservative Bob would never throw her over for another woman. Certainly not once she had committed to marriage.

Twenty-five years of playing the perfect wife had left Liz nostalgic for her single days. Better to have your heart broken by a passionate man, than let it wither and shrivel for lack of emotion, that is how she thought now . . . Now that Tony Babic had awoken her dormant feelings of desire and abandon.

She loved everything about him, his deep gravelly voice with the guttural accent, his thick hair with the crinkly ends, his eyes twinkling into hers, and the smile that always played around the edge of his mouth. Most of all she loved his body, so firm and muscular, moulding around hers like a hand in a glove. She loved to trace a line from his chest to his thighs, her fingers following the dip from his hip across his pelvis. She liked to lie on her side facing him after sex, brushing her fingers across his body and stroking his thigh as he talked to her. Those thighs – so strong and defined, that was the first thing she had ever noticed. And she was still fixated on them, wrapping her legs around and pulling him in deeper as she reached her climax. He seemed to know exactly what she needed and when. It was as if their bodies could talk to each other. No fumbling or clumsy changes of position. Their love-making was a fluid melding together, just like they showed In the movies. And afterwards he held her and talked to her, weaving in strands of poetry as he told her how beautiful she was, how perfect, that she was a wonderful lover, the best he had ever known. Her affair was poetry in motion. Poetry and passion.

‘What was it about me that you saw that first day?’ Liz asked him.

‘Srce moy,’ Tony cradled her face in his hands, ‘My dear heart. Sometime encounter person, even perfect stranger, who begin interest us at first sight. Sudden, like that, all at once, before word is spoken.’

Liz nestled her face closer in to his hand, marvelled at the softness of his palm, embraced the intimacy of his touch. ‘That is so beautiful, Tony. You have a gift with words.’

‘Not me,’ Tony laughed, ‘Dostoevsky.’ He kissed the tip of her nose, ‘We studied him in school.’

‘In Russia?’

‘No Liz. In Serbia. I am Serbian.’

‘Ohhh . . . and how do you say I love you in Serbian?’

‘Volim te,’ Tony tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and cupped her chin, holding her face up towards his. Liz felt herself drowning in his eyes. ‘Volim te,’ she repeated, letting the sound of it wash over her.

‘Da. Dat’s good . . . but Liz. You don’t need to learn these words, ne? We just have good fun – good sex. It’s same for you, ne?’

Liz buried her head in his shoulder. ‘Yes. It’s Just good fun.’

 

This is the seventh part in a story building exercise for character, Liz Thurlow.

To read from part one, go here