Human Conditioning (31 page)

He finally gave her a face-splitting
smile and all his guardedness melted away with it. Lily returned his smile and
attempted to overlook the effect that his smile still had on her. He had
remembered rightly about her obsession, and this made her heart swell with
affection. His reference to the ill-fated pair didn’t escape her thoughts as
she considered her own star-crossed affair with the man before her.

She was taking a risk tonight.
She was already seeing somebody else, someone she had met at college, and she had
heard things about Aiden and his illicit businesses. Yet the entire time she
had been getting an education under her belt and ruthlessly sleeping with another
man she didn’t at all care for, she had always planned to return to Aiden, although
in her heart of hearts she knew he was no good for her.

“I bet you passed everything
with flying colours,” he announced warmly, bringing her out of her reverie.

Lily shrugged. She had received top marks without even
trying, but it had been of no consequence to her, and she hesitated at first,
then explained why. “My heart wasn’t entirely in it,” she said, her pale blue
eyes meeting Aiden’s eyes of deep ocean blue. “I’d left my heart elsewhere...”

Aiden gazed down at her pretty
face, then took in the rest of her. She was still the Lily he had known and adored,
but now she had grown into a beautiful woman. Her shape had developed,
enhancing her curves in all the right places from her medium-sized breasts to
her womanly hips. Her face had lost the roundness of an adolescent, and her
features were now pronounced, her high cheek bones prominent beneath the modest
amount of blusher she had applied. Her eyes, still beautifully blue and round, were
emphasised by the application of light pink eyeshadow and thick black mascara. 

The attraction was still there
– that deep pull in the pit of his stomach, making him want to grab her and
touch her all over. But his melting heart suddenly grew cold at her next
question. “Do you still see Gina?”

He puffed a breath of smoke in
frustration. “What d’you have to go and ask me that for?” Lily looked away from
him and stared up the street as tears pricked her eyes. She understood him well
enough to know that his reluctance to answer her meant that he did still see
the girl he had chosen over her. “Fuck, Lils,” he muttered, flicking his second
cigarette onto the road then running a hand over his face.

There were so many things Lily
wanted to say, so many things she’d planned to say, but all her words were trapped
at the back of her throat as her mind whirled at the possibility that Aiden was
still seeing Gina regularly, the possibility that they may be a real item now.

The hurt was overwhelming.
What
had she expected, really?
She had wanted him to say ‘no’ – no, he hadn’t
seen Gina for a long time, and no, their relationship had been a phase. He
hadn’t really known what he was doing and he’d made a mistake choosing Gina
over her. But he wasn’t saying anything!

Aiden put his head into his
hands and rubbed his face in frustration.
What did she want him to say?
She
turned up out of the blue expecting... what? He wanted to see her again. He
wanted to tell her that despite all the other women he’d been with he’d never
forgotten her. He wanted her to know that Gina had never meant anything to
him. 

He wanted to tell her the
truth of why he had left her and he wondered now whether that was, in fact, the
best thing to do: get the truth out in the open once and for all; tell her that
he’d chosen to end their relationship, despite his love for her, because
getting out of Carlton estate and becoming someone had meant more to him than
she did. That being with a Filth’s daughter would not have allowed him to do
what he’d had to do, do the only thing he’d known how to do: to earn a good
living and make a name for himself. 

How could he have stayed with
her and pursued his chosen career? It wouldn’t have worked. He was bound to
have got a tug. He’d
had
to give her up. It was either her or making
something of himself, and he’d chosen the latter without a second’s thought.
But he’d loved the bones of her then and seeing her again only made him realise
how much he still did... and so he dared to wondered now – now that they were
adults, now that he was well established, well protected and truly embedded
into the life he’d chosen – whether something could finally happen between
them.

But where would he start?
There were things he could
never
tell her, things that he’d not even
told Reggie, and he trusted Reggie more than anyone in the world. But if he
could just give her a brief truth and explain to her the reason for his choice
not to keep her...

“I have to go...” Lily said in
a choked whisper, and, mustering all her strength, she turned away from him.

“Look!” Aiden took her arm
gently. “I was a crook, your parents are Filth... what was I supposed to do?”

 “
Filth
?”

“Gina wasn’t a liability...”
he murmured uncertainly.

Lily stared at him in
disbelief. “A
liability
?”

He sighed and ran a hand over
his face once more. “It’s complicated, alright?”

“No, it isn’t, Aiden. You
chose Gina despite your feelings for me, because you’d rather earn a quick buck
thieving than get off your arse and do something of significance with your
life, like actually doing your GCSEs instead of getting stoned... and going to
college, getting a decent education, so you could get a good
legitimate
job!”

“People like me don’t get
fucking
good jobs!” Aiden growled. “You don’t know what it’s like coming from
this
shithole!” He gestured around him, exasperated.

“Oh yeah, of course... poor
little Aiden... like
no one
ever makes a success of themselves unless
they’ve been brought up with a silver spoon up their backside!”

“What do you know, eh?” he
spat viciously. “Has your dad ever spent money that was meant to buy food for
that week, so you fucking starve instead? Has he ever kicked the living shit
out of you
just because he felt like it
?”

“So you turn to a life of
crime just to show how disappointed you are with the world?”

“You know what, love?” Aiden
sneered. “Why don’t you go back to your open fireplaces and fucking silverware
and I’ll get back to the real world.” He lit himself yet another cigarette and
toked on it, his expression impassive but his eyes smouldering.

Lily shook her head. “I was
wrong to come here...”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

The finality of his words hit
her like a freight train. She stared at his handsome face and was, once again,
reminded of how bloody stubborn he was. But she couldn’t deny her feelings. She
still adored him, however wrong he was for her. She gulped down the flood of
tears that was soon to come and said, finally, “’Bye Aiden, and good luck,” and
at that she turned and walked quickly up the road.

Aiden stared after her,
feeling the huge pull of Lily Summers once more. Yet, like before, his belief
that she didn’t belong in his world persuaded him to let her go. The door to
the pub opened and the hollered countdown inside told Aiden that it was seconds
to midnight. Reggie came bustling out into the cold with a pint of Abbot Ale in
his hand, unperturbed that he was to miss the imminent tumult of celebration. “What’s
going on?” he asked, frowning with concern.

Continuing to stare up the road
despite the fact that Lily had disappeared, Aiden replied, “Nothing, mate,
nothing... just an old friend come to say hello...”

Reggie nodded. “Well, now that
we’re alone...” he said. He hesitated, then announced, “I was informed earlier
tonight about something that I think we need to discuss, about the KKKs... I
didn’t want to bring it up earlier as we were celebrating...”

Aiden had turned to face
Reggie to see that his eyes betrayed an anxiousness that he rarely glimpsed in
his vivacious friend. “What is it?” he asked gravely. 

When Aiden initially became
aware of the dark car that crawled into the street and headed in their
direction, he thought nothing of it, but as the black BMW pulled up at the kerb
beside them with a distinct rev of its sports engine, it took just seconds for him
to register the end of a sawed-off shotgun poking out of the top of the
blacked-out window. Instinctively, he grabbed Reggie’s arm and made to run
inside.

When the gun went off,
Reggie’s body was forced backwards. Aiden threw himself onto the floor as a
round of gunfire penetrated his ears then, with a shriek, the BMW skidded away
and out of sight just as the crowd inside the pub came to the end of
Auld
Lang Syne
.

Aiden made his way home in a
daze. He travelled on autopilot and didn’t quite know how far he’d come until
he began ascending the stone stairs up to his flat. He didn’t notice Lily
standing outside his door until he was directly in front of her.

“Aiden, I...” She was about to
apologise when she noticed his pained expression. “What’s the matter?”

Just her comforting voice
brought a stream of tears to his eyes. He roughly pulled out his keys from his
trouser pocket and burst into the flat. He charged into his living room and
Lily followed him in. The room was minimalistic with a black leather sofa
lining one wall, a glass coffee table in the centre, a state-of-the-art
television, CD player and a modern, artistic drinks cabinet in the shape of a
cylinder. The walls were cream and the carpet was a royal red.

Aiden paced the floor, holding
his palms over his eyes and making strained whimpering sounds as if he was
trying his utmost not to wail. Lily stood at the door not knowing what to do,
when all of a sudden he spun round, his hands clenched into fists, and
bellowed, “
It stinks of fucking piss in ’ere
!
Fucking shithole, the
lot of it
!” and, swinging his fists, he began to punch the far wall, over
and over, crying, “
Fucking piece of fucking, shitty, cunting
...
!
”

Lily raced to his side and
grabbed his face with her hands, avoiding his fists and pulling him round to
face her. “Aiden, it’s OK, I’m here... I’m here!”

Tears streamed down his cheeks
and, wrapping his arms around her waist, he bawled. He never cried. Even when
his dad used to kick the living shit out of him, he’d forced himself not to
shed one tear for the bastard, but he couldn’t stop now. He just needed to let
out what was tearing him up inside. 

Reggie had died instantly. The
first shot had touched his heart, the second finishing him off for good. People
inside the pub who had heard the shots had rushed out onto the street to find
Aiden draped over Reggie’s still, bloodied body, shaking him and demanding that
he wake up. An ambulance had eventually taken Reggie’s body away, his face
covered by a blanket. Aiden had then fled as Connor had jumped into the
ambulance with his cousin.

“It’s OK, it’s OK,” Lily
whispered calmly, over and over, as he told her what had happened. She ran her
long, painted fingernails through his thick, dark hair, leaving light kisses on
the side of his neck.

He revelled in her sweet,
soothing gesture. When he was calm, tears pooling in his eyes, he pulled away
slightly to find Lily’s lips brushing his cheek, then his nose, then their lips
were hovering over one another’s. In the silence, they both felt their own
longing as acutely as if their whole being relied on each other’s touch.
Aiden’s large hand took the back of Lily’s head and, finally, he pulled her
face towards his and slipped his tongue into her mouth. 

Lily knew it was wrong. She
shouldn’t have gone there. She shouldn’t have followed him in. She should not
be kissing him. They were from two different worlds. They were doomed to fail.
But when his lips found her neck and his hands found her breasts, she could do
nothing but submit.

She loved Aiden Foster. She’d
fallen in love with him the moment she’d seen him. She had loved him even when
she had been told he had betrayed her, and she had loved him all the more
during the wasted years that she had not been able to see his face every day.

Aiden’s lips lingered at Lily’s breasts. They were both
naked, sprawled across Aiden’s bed. As his lips found her mouth, Lily felt the
hardness of his manhood brush against the inside of her leg. She inhaled deeply
and waited anxiously. She was so nervous.
Why was she nervous?

Aiden eased himself inside
her. She gasped, and his lips immediately found hers, remaining there as he
began to penetrate her, little by little, making her wait – seducing her. She
responded by kissing him deeper, pressing herself against him. She let out a
small cry. “I want you!” she begged against his lips.

He thrust inside her, slowly
he pulled back out, then immediately thrust inside her again, letting out a
loud groan as he pulled back out once more. “You feel so good, Lily,” he murmured,
his blue eyes gazing at her. He buried himself deep inside her again, and then
again, and in the heat of his passion, he wrenched one of her legs upwards and
thrust harder, deeper. “Fuck, Lils!”

Lily felt the first waves of an
orgasm deep within her, and the deeper he thrust the more pleasure she felt. She
bit her lip and breathed heavily as he moved faster inside her. Aiden could feel
his impending release, and he could tell by the tension in Lily’s body – the
way she arched her back and pressed her pelvis against him – that she was close
to climaxing too, but both held on, enjoying the feel of each other: the heat, the
wetness, the thrill of feeling the other’s flesh against their own at last. Pushing
both of her legs upwards, Aiden proceeded to thrust purposefully, now
determined to drive Lily onwards and upwards.