True, the updating of this fic is un-speedy for someone who (due it being 1 day 'til her exam results get here and her being a gibbering wreck!) divides her time between her laptop and hibernation. And I refuse to acknowledge writer's block. So I confess. I spent time listening to Britney Spears and making nonsensical Bettany-themed Motivational Posters instead - and check out Rahalia's as well! Link is (plus the usual w w w part)

-

I've noticed you around.

Umm...I find you very attractive!

Would you, um, would you...would you go to bed with me?

- Complete lyrics of 'Would You', by Touch & Go

-

Many things in this world are white, such as spaghetti carbonara, pillows, and certain vaguely icky bodily fluids.

However. Silas was only ever described in terms of the beautiful ones (Italian marble, moonlight etc), because frankly, describing him as 'as white as a large plate of porridge' just wasn't romantic- although it might appeal if you were feeling peckish.

Amaria looked down at his snoozy lily-white form, and strangely found herself feeling very virtuous for 'looking beyond' Silas ''horrific'' exterior and finding a beautiful man inside.

And this was very odd, because there were probably blind, deaf, Sumatran lepers with an IQ of 3 who could have pointed out that Silas was NOT, in fact, a droolingly hideous freak of nature, but a sexy, screamingly handsome man rendered in uber-cool shades of ice white instead of pink. To identify Silas as anything other than six foot three of searingly hot walking sex, you would have to be a) clinically insane or b) A Mary-Sue.

Oh God, thought Silas as he woke up after the little nap, his vision entirely filled by the top-heavy hourglass of Amaria's figure. It hadn't been just a nightmare.

She trilled brightly at him.

'Wakey wakey, chocolate cakey! Your coffee's on the tray'

'Oh. Weren't there any cups?'

'Duh?' gawped Amaria, temporarily fazed. Cutesy jokes and witty comebacks were supposed to be her territory. She recovered.

'Guess you must be hungry'

'Mademoiselle, I...'

'Amaria will do'

'Will do what, I wonder?' muttered Silas miserably.

'Heh-heh - wouldn't you like to know?' Amaria cackled, waggling her skimpy eyebrows, suggesting underfed caterpillars mating on her forehead.

'Not really...' Silas stared at the floor in despair.

'I made bunny cookies!' she pranced, ghastly in her cheerfulness. Silas frowned. Did she not realise he was a monk?

'That is very kind. But, should you not have noticed, I am actually an Opus Dei numenary...' he watched Amaria's eyes screw up - words of over 3 syllables upset her. Silas simplified:

'...a monk. The religious order only permits eating simple food'

Amaria pouted childishly, 'But I iced the whiskers and everything!'

'I can't eat things made of bunny!'

'Who says?'

'God does'

'Tchah! What-eva! And he just rules the world, does he?'

Silas counted to ten under his breath, and punched a cushion.

'Yes, Amaria, God rules the world, the universe and everything in it, including you,' he said, adding mentally 'and oh, man, he's taken to moving in REALLY mysterious ways just lately...'.

'Ok...,' Amaria sighed, deflated, 'Well, if I see about something suitable to eat, will you go upstairs and shower and stop bleeding all over the upholstery? Of course, I'll have to put that robe in the washing machi...'

Silas, ten steps ahead of her lustfully see-through dribblings, decided to keep his dignity intact. Whisking the throw off of the back of the couch, he swathed it modestly about his elegant form, and limped slowly upstairs in the proud fashion that befitted his dignified self - a living Renaissance-era painting with perfectly-swathed drapes framing his tapered limbs. He turned to throw her his mangled and bloody robes.

They landed squarely on her head.

-

Let's just re-iterate, thought the naked Silas as he turned the hot water on.

True, many sinners would be delighted to find this purple barbie-doll chasing after them with such enthusiasm. But this is ME:

I've been conditioned by Opus Dei for 12 years plus to abhor all women as physically repulsive.

Before that, hairy European men and a rather porcine jailer did terrible, terrible things with root vegetables to me in a French prison when they got a little lonely at night. For 12 years.

Before that, I scraped an existence in doorways and alleys with a bunch of hookers and street urchins, so-called because they're just the kind of spiky people you wouldn't want to step on. 'Affection' basically went as far as being generous enough to share your syringe.

And before THAT, my childhood consisted of his father playing football with my mother's head, being hated and scorned by...well, everyone, and the only little girl in the playground who was ever nice to me being dragged off by her mamma with a 'Nice little girls don't talk to inbred freaks, Hortense!'

'Catalogue of woes' would be a understatement!

I would not consider self-pity. God has a plan for me, and he has kept me safe all this time. And I'm going straight back to the Opus Dei centre to think on what it is, when all this claptrap is over!

Oh, alright.

If I did think about it for just a second:

Maybe, with several years of intensive therapy and a few courses of medication, I might, if she was very unthreatening and didn't make any sudden movements, be able to give a member of the female sex a peck on the cheek, without flinching. If ever I was to...fraternise...with someone (barring being out-of-my mind for some reason) (Note to Self: Rohypnol in my coffee Oh Dear) , it should probably be a trained psychologist with a lot of time on her hands and a LOT of love to give, not a Ribena-haired bimbo with two watermelons down her top. I suspect she may even have Childhood Angst. But that's really not helpful, seeing as I've got enough for both of us and more! And before any little voices in my head point it out, yes, lust comes to me - just not over Amaria the Human Toothpick. Maybe someone really cuddly...all tawny and golden-haired with freckles and huge-beautiful brown eyes, definitely all soft and cuddly and with really...ANYHOO.

But I didn't just think that last paragraph. Even though God can see inside my head.

Dammit, where's a Discipline when you need one!

I love icy-cold water, don't you? It's so...icy-cold.

Note to Self: Buy pocket-size travel Discipline.

-

Right, thought Silas as Amaria came up the stairs, you want to play games, yes? You want to have me break all my vows, and sin just because you reckon albino skin tastes like custard! Well, two can play that game! You don't care about me, you just want to get into my robes - and beleive me, I can make you regret it!

Amaria turned the corner, and her jaw dropped.

Silas.

She was confronted by the sight of him; wet, dripping, naked bar a very small black towel slung low about his strong hips.

He re-adjusted the towel, barely covering his pert albino arse though it was, undoing it temporarily to re-knot it, throwing her achingly teasing peekaboos of taut white flesh. Droplets of water caressed across his fine shoulders and slid wetly, unhurriedly, pleasurably down the length of his glorious body, hardening his nipples provocatively and pouring themselves ecstatically into allsorts of delicious hollows and crevices. He arched his pale frame slowly, rolling his head gracefully back and stretched luxuriously. His lips pounted faintly, his hipbones jutted teasingly, and his angel-blue eyes looked right at Amaria.Women would have wept for him. Nuns would have thrown themselves at him. Michelangelo's 'David' would have turned green with envy and thrown rocks at him. He. Was. Gorgeous.

Through the white fog in her rapidly-melting brain, Amaria wondered why the theme tune to the Diet coke advert appeared to be playing.

Silas, smiling sexily, shook the water energetically from his ambrosia hair, his taut muscles rippling under his white-hot-like skin, his long, lithe, luscious limbs practically purring at her. He hooked one thumb about the waist of his towel.

'Bonjour,' he said simply, 'Are these your eyeballs?'

'Mhnaaaaaaah,' choked Amaria, stunned, accepting and quickly replacing them.

'Oh, but I had better go get dressed. I'm making everything wet!' said Silas innocently.

'Gnmaaaaaah,' Amaria wailed once again, her melted brain slowly oozing out of her ears. Wordlessly, she watched him saunter slinkily back in the doorway, looking back over his shoulder with the faintest of smiles.

His towel was in disarray. He put one foot inside the doorway, sighed, and cheekily whipped it right off (the towel, not the door).

Amaria, faint with lust, panted asthmatically and allowed thoughts to seep back into her testosterone-saturated brain. Taking it as an invitation, she followed the naked Silas back into his room, slinking up to him with a breathy sigh of 'Oh Silas, I...!'

There was a pause.

'You...what?' he squinted at her.

'Dunno, that's all I got. I think you were supposed to kiss me at that point, and then make passionate love to me fourteen times in a row'

Silas visibly recoiled in horror, covering his nude self embarrasedly with a larger towel, and suddenly he looked mortified beyond reason.

Amaria cringed in terror as he condemned her, his guttral accents quaking with righteous anger.

'Kiss...? K...KISS?' he wailed in revolted outrage,'but it is forbidden to me...Opus Dei,I...I thought you understood...you can't...we can't,' he stammered, lower lip trembling. He looked as though he were about to scream, kill someone, or possibly attempt both.

'But you...but...' Amaria whined, confused beyond all reason and wholly embarrased.

'But...?' Silas howled miserably,'it's not an act...I'm an emotional maelstrom! A shattered, sexless wreck! A one-man Radiohead album!'

'Oh, I see. Oh, Silas, I'm sorry! Please forgive me!' she cried, distraught, boucing backwards out of the door and hurriedly slamming it.

'Leave me alone...please, please just don't touch me. It's a sin...a sin. I can't bear it,' Silas whimpered, stuffing a pale fist into his mouth to keep from giggling.

'I...look, I really am sorry,' her voice issued through the timbers of the door, utterly subdued,'I'll just...go downstairs now'.

The footsteps pattered mournfully away.

Heh-heh, went the tiny part of his brain that still remembered what 'fun' was.

---

With much grateful thanks for supportful and cheering reviews: Shy FX ( :D No, no, of course you didn't offend me, my dear. 'Tis quite alright, I don't mind. Proper misunderstanding. All is well!), Aljinon (excellent suggestion re feelings...but I've possibly got a different and twistful ending in mind), xlawa, BelleEve, adeline7g/Serina, Malaysian Gal, Elaine, Kelly Tolkein.

51 reviews. Good God. I'm so very pleasantly stunned.