Human Conditioning (35 page)

Gina’s eyes widened a touch,
his words melting her heart, yet she felt the dark, empty void spiralling in
the pit of her stomach still, because she knew she didn’t
have
Aiden the
way Lily had Aiden. Lily had his trust, his loyalty... his heart.
What did
she really have of him... his pity?
She closed her eyes tight and shook her
head slowly. “No, no I don’t...”

Aiden groaned. “What do you
want from me, G? It’s over between us. It’s been over for months and months...”

She clambered to her feet and
took his face in both of her hands. “Please, Aiden, please. I need you!”

“I’m married to Lily...” he replied,
his voice strained.

Gina was beside herself. Her
buzz was beginning to take effect, but she didn’t want it yet. She had a
pressing matter to address. She needed Aiden to hear what she had to say before
she succumbed to the blissfully numbing coma that the heroin would induce. Her
eyes were heavy, but she gazed at him, beseeching him to understand how much he
meant to her, how much she wanted him to be hers.

“Kiss me, Aiden, please!”

“G, stop this!” Aiden growled
hopelessly, his patience waning.

“Please, Aiden, kiss me and
tell me you want me too...”

“Stop!” he pushed her away.
“Just stop, G!”

She sobbed into her chest and
felt her world shatter around her and, not for the first time, she wondered
what else she had in her pitiful life other than Aiden that was worth fighting
for. She couldn’t bear to contemplate the answer any more than she had already.

She lifted her eyes to see
that he was troubled. His eyebrows were furrowed as if in silent agony, and his
expression provoked a twitching smile of resignation on her lips. He cared. But
it wasn’t enough. He didn’t love her. He didn’t want her. The pain of rejection
plunged her into the depths of despair. She had nothing; she had no one. Even
the prospect of having her child-molesting father back was a comforting thought
in that moment of complete clarity. She craved Aiden’s love, always had, and he
wouldn’t give it to her. She was alone, utterly alone and utterly unloved.     

“OK,” she whispered, taking a
deep breath.

Aiden’s eyes widened a
fraction in surprise at her acquiescence, but before he could say anything, she
turned and headed up the stairs to the first floor. “Where are you going?”

“I won’t be a second...”

He decided to give her a
moment. Whatever it was she was doing, he was glad that the penny had finally
dropped. Maybe now she would leave him alone and they could continue their strictly-business
relationship without all the drama and commotion of the past. He was relieved.
He cared for Gina in his own way, but he wouldn’t and couldn’t ever love her
the way he knew she loved him. He had never seen her as somebody he could make
a life with. She was too volatile, too... broken, like him. He didn’t need to
invite more darkness into his world. He craved light, and Lily was that little
ray of sunshine that, for a time, eased the pain of his past and soothed the debacle
of his present.

He sympathised with Gina. If
she needed him as much as he needed Lily, then he understood what she must be
feeling. But he could no longer carry the burden of her troubles on his
shoulders. It was about time she sorted herself out. Even as he thought this, a
nagging voice way in the back of his mind reminded him that he had been the one
to put her on the game, the one who had got her hooked on the drug that now
was, aside from him, Gina’s whole world. A louder voice, however, argued that
Gina probably would have turned out the same, maybe worse, if he hadn’t taken
her under his wing and provided for her. She was incapable of looking after
herself. She was too emotionally frail, too scatter-brained and too reckless. 

Gina had been a few minutes. Taking
a place on the couch, Aiden reached into his pocket and pulled out a small plastic
bag of white powder. He cleared a space on the cluttered coffee table and
proceeded to rack up three lines, which he snorted in succession.

 “G!” he called up to her when
she still hadn’t returned. She didn’t answer. Sighing with impatience, he got
to his feet and ascended the stairs. He could hear a low hum of music, and when
he entered the bedroom several frantic thoughts ran through his mind
simultaneously -

He recognised the song, a song
Gina had insisted on playing over and over when they used to lay together as
teenagers: Madonna’s
La Isla Bonita.
Her still body lay unresponsive on
the bed, one arm draped across the bed, the other clutching what looked like a
photograph in her hand, holding it against her chest. A pair of small scissors rested
inches away from her sliced wrist, which was seeping blood into the purple
cotton bedding.

“Fuck, G!” Aiden cried out,
running over to her body and shaking her violently.

She responded with a quiet
groan. He searched her wrists to assess the damage. Fortunately, if she had
been trying to take her life, she hadn’t done a good job of it. The blood made
her wound look worse than it was, but she would need medical attention.

He ran down the stairs and
called Dr Crow, the man to whom Kamal paid a lot of money to treat his
workforce when accidents occurred – and, more importantly, to keep his mouth
shut thereafter. 

“Close your eyes.”

“Aiden, what are you up to?”
Lily beamed at her husband beside her in the driver’s seat of his brand-new
Jaguar XJS V12. They had come off the M1 at junction 10, and were heading up
the Luton Road towards Harpenden.  

“Trust me... close them,” he urged.
He was concentrating on the road ahead, but his smile was wide and his manner
was playful and excitable. It was a version of Aiden Foster that no one else
ever
saw. It was just for Lily, and she loved that it was. Lily closed her eyes.
“Don’t peek,” he instructed seriously yet with good humour. Lily felt the car
slow down dramatically and turn left onto gravel. They moved slowly over pebbly
ground for five, ten seconds before turning right and coming to a halt. Aiden
switched off the engine. “Alright... open.”

Lily blinked and stared
through the passenger window at a beautiful detached house made of light brick,
and dark wooden beams. The house was huge, with eight large windows on the
second floor, stretching to the left and the right of the car. The large wooden
front door was directly opposite them.

Gazing at the love of his
life, Aiden put his hand over hers. He took in her beauty and, as usual, she
left him breathless. Lily had always had the power to weaken him. She had been
the only person to do so. He couldn’t imagine ever letting her go again. He had
an innate need to possess her, so strong that he could actually feel it
stirring inside of him. She was and always had been his. No one and nothing
could ever come between them again. If he lost her, all hell would break loose.
He would go crazy for sure. 

“You’re stunning, d’you know
that?”

Lily turned to the man she had
doted on ever since she was thirteen, her expression a mixture of excitement
and confusion about the house he had brought her to. She wondered if he had
bought it, but she didn’t want to assume. Maybe he was merely showing it to her.

Aiden grinned, reading her
bemused expression. “It’s ours,” he announced.

“Really?” Her soft voice hit
an octave higher than usual; a familiar sign that she was thrilled.

“We’ve been married a few months
now, and I know it’s taken longer than we’d both have liked, but now my new
deal is up and running, my business partner Kamal thought we should have our
own place. It’s just a loan. I’ll have to pay him back, but... it’s all bought
and paid for.” Lily unclipped her seat belt and threw herself at him. “Blimey,
babe!” he laughed.

She gave him a long, fervent
kiss. “Thank you. It’s perfect,” she whispered against his lips, her eyes
sparkling with affection. The intensity of her love and passion for the man
before her was utterly overwhelming. No one should need and love a person as
much as she needed and loved Aiden Foster. Like a flame without oxygen, she
just couldn’t survive without him. “I love you.”

“I love you too, darlin’...
more than you know.” 

Aiden drew her close and kissed
her passionately, slipping his tongue into her mouth. The familiar tremor of
exhilaration coursed through Lily’s entire body as he pulled her into his hard
body, but all too soon he pulled back, leaving her wanting. With his arms
wrapped tightly around her, so that their noses were nearly touching, he asked,
“Ready to see our new home?”

Lily breathed heavily in his
arms, reeling from their closeness in the confines of the Jaguar. She
whispered, “I’ve been ready since the day I first saw you. Do you remember?” She
smiled gingerly, gazing into his twinkling blue eyes.

“Yes,” he replied quietly and seductively,
and she felt his hands slowly trace down her back. “Outside your form room...
if I remember rightly.”

“Yes!” Lily’s breath hitched as
his hands found her backside, pulling her closer so that she was practically straddling
the gear stick.

He whispered at her ear, “I
fell in love with you in that moment too.” Lily closed her eyes and relished the
sensation of his hands and lips. He kissed her earlobe, adding, “Now... let’s
go and take a look around the house before we christen the driver’s seat of my
new car.” She felt his grin against her flesh and it sent electric shivers down
her spine and to the place she longed for him to be.

Despite her insatiable desire,
she surrendered and, peeling herself out of his embrace, she scrambled out of
the car. She waited for Aiden then followed him up the gravel driveway,
watching him intently from behind as he pulled out a set of keys and unlocked
the front door.

As she stepped into the large
hallway of their new home, Aiden closed the door and took the tops of her arms.
“Happy?”

She nodded, a timid smile visible
on her flushed face. Her desire for him was palpable. Aiden raised an eyebrow and
stepped back. Raising a hand to his face, he tapped his fingers on his chin and
smirked at her. She glanced up at him through the strands of hair that fell
naturally over her face. “What is it?” she asked coyly.

He raised his eyebrow higher. “I
know that expression, Mrs Foster.”

Lily gulped. Her mouth was
bone dry all of a sudden. He stepped into her, obliging her to step back against
the wall, and one of his hands crept around the back of her neck and beneath
her silky hair, the other tracing the material of her summer dress by her thigh.
Lily blinked up at him. Caged beneath his large body, her breath hitched with anticipation.
He gazed down at her, his hand stilling at her hip. Leaving it there, he bent
down and, ever so slowly, began to leave trailing kisses from her chin and up
her jaw. “Welcome to your new home, Mrs Foster,” he whispered, biting her lobe
gently as his hand began to move again, taking the hem of her dress.

Lily let out a quiet groan,
her sex pulsing at the sensation of his teeth at her earlobe. With one swift
move, his hand was beneath the material of her dress and tracing the silk of
her knickers. She could bear the torture no longer. She needed his lips. Gripping
his hair, she pulled him down to her and immediately his tongue entered her
mouth with fervour. She felt hands snake around her behind and, suddenly, he
lifted her into his arms.

She wrapped her legs around him and he took off with her
towards the stairs. She let out an excitable squeal as he sprinted up the wide
staircase with her in his arms, as if she were a small child, and locating the
master bedroom, he padded over to the king-size bed then laid her upon it and crawled
above her.   

“You furnished the place too?”
she whispered breathlessly, realising, even in her lustful fluster, that the
room was equipped with not only a bed, but bedside cabinets and two double
wardrobes opposite the bed, all in matching oak.

Aiden smiled, knowing that a
part of her would be disappointed that she wouldn’t have the chance to decorate
it herself. “Only a few of the necessities... the rest is in your hands, Mrs Foster.”
He winked impishly, and the gesture urged her to lose herself in him once more.
Taking his face between her palms, she pulled him into another long kiss. But Aiden
pulled back and she whimpered in disapproval. “I wanna show you something,” he
said, and leaning over to the set of drawers next to the bed, he opened the top
drawer and pulled out a box that Lily recognised immediately.

She frowned, her arousal
fading instantly, as if the power cord to her libido had just been unplugged.
“Is that my pill?”

Aiden nodded. “I don’t want
you taking these anymore, alright?”

Still frowning, Lily tried to
take the box from him. She was suddenly embarrassed, as if Aiden had discovered
a big secret that he shouldn’t know. Of course, he knew she was on the pill: they
had had an enormous amount of sex with no protection and she hadn’t fallen
pregnant. But all that sort of stuff was never discussed – not with her family,
not with Aiden. It was
private,
and she would have liked it to remain
that way.

Holding himself above her,
Aiden pulled the box out of her reach. “Have my baby. Make lots of babies with
me!” he laughed.

Lily was suddenly irritated. “Stop
it, Aiden. You’re embarrassing me!”

He flung the object of her
embarrassment across the room and fell above her, his arms either side of her
head. Gazing down at her, he said, “I mean it. Start a family with me.”

Lily stared up at him in
astonishment.
He wanted to start this now?
She wasn’t sure what she felt
about that. Of course, she wanted to start a family with her husband at some
point,
but so soon
? They’d only been married a few months! “It’s a
little soon, Aiden,” she muttered quietly.