Something he should never have done

Orlando regretted his action the second he had said anything to Viggo. He regretted it even more the minute the door to the house closed behind him and he was standing on the step, 2 rucksacks in his hands, facing a future without the person he loved more than life itself.

What had he done?!

The pain was actually physical.  Absolutely everything hurt. Oh god, if this was how he felt, what was Viggo going through? All Orlando wanted to do was open the door and rush back into Viggo’s arms and tell him it had all been a stupid fuck up and he was never leaving.  But … but he knew he couldn’t.

‘Christ I am such an evil bastard,’ he thought.  ‘Putting my career ahead of that wonderful, beautiful man.’

Viggo had done what he always promised Orlando he would, he had let him go with dignity and love and his wish for Orlando’s happiness.  Oh God … shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!!!

Orlando trudged to his car, opened the door and threw the bags on the passenger seat.  He sat for a while, trying to stem the flow of tears enough to see to drive.  Eventually he just started the engine anyway, he didn’t really care if he crashed the car right now – oblivion would ease the pain.

The Orlando Bloom machine that now ruled his life had rented an apartment for him in LA so he drove there. It wasn’t home – but let’s face it, he had just walked out of the best home he had ever had. It was just somewhere to go.  Somewhere to go to curl up and die from this god awful, self inflicted pain.

God he hated this fucking apartment. It was all modern chrome and glass and shiny surfaces – he had always preferred the cluttered, woody homeliness of Viggo’s Beach house. The rucksacks got thrown once more, this time into a corner where they toppled into a forlorn heap.

Orlando flung himself onto the modern leather sofa and cried huge, gulping sobs.

Ten minutes later his phone rang.  He ignored it.  He knew who it would be anyway. Robin called on average every half an hour.  Her need to control everything he did bordered on obsession.  Between her and Marilyn, his L. A. agent and Kate he hardly got a minute’s peace.  And all he wanted now was peace. Peace to try and deal with the enormity of what he had just done.  The tears intensified. Orlando curled into a ball trying to block out the pain and the damn phone which was now ringing again.

Half an hour later the phone had rung no less than five separate times.  When it started for the sixth time he answered it – still crying, but needing to get rid of whoever it was.  As he expected it was Robin.

“Orlando, why have you been ignoring my calls? I’ve told you a thousand times, NEVER ignore my calls. I don’t do this to have my calls ignored.  I expect to be answered regardless of whatever it is you are doing, unless you are actually acting, you know that.”

Orlando didn’t reply.  He had heard this a million times before.

“Now, I’ve arranged for you and Kate to attend the opening of a new club tonight.  Be ready at seven sharp I’ll send a car.”

Orlando gulped.  God he did not want to go out tonight at all.

“Got that, Orlando?” Robin went on. “Orlando? Have you got that? Seven- o- clock, sharp.”

Orlando took a deep breath “I don’t think I can.”

There was a pause. “Seven – o - clock, Orlando.” Robin said again.

“No Robin, not tonight.  I don’t want to go anywhere tonight.  Please!”

Robin sighed.  “How many times, Orlando? How many times do I have to tell you? It’s not about what YOU WANT to do.  It’s about what you have to do.”

“Robin, I do everything else.  Why can’t I just have tonight to myself?” Orlando’s voice was shaking with the effort not to sob down the phone.

“Because it doesn’t work that way with me, Orlando.  The day I took you on I took ownership and control. You do as I say. Are you sick or something?”

“Not exactly sick, no.”  Heartsick yes.

“Then there’s no reason good enough that you can’t go.”

Suddenly a little of the spunky London clubber who had taken Legolas Greenleaf and made a long blond wig and pointed ears sexy surfaced in Orlando.

“Sorry Robin, but to me there is and I am not going out tonight.”

“Orlando there is not – I will have no argument on this. You will be ready at seven.  Nothing that happens to you is more important than the things that I organise for you.”

The blatant selfishness of her words finally caused Orlando to snap.

“For fucks sake, Robin.  I just broke up with Viggo and all I want to do right now is die. I am not going out to some poxy club tonight just because you say so. You bloody stupid, insensitive cow.”

Orlando heard Robin’s screams of fury as he shut off the phone.  He then committed total sacrilege by switching it off before hurling it across the room.  It smashed on the far wall leaving a dent in the pristine new paintwork.  That minor explosion drained the last of his reserves and he crumpled to the floor in a heap the sobs coming in huge tortured gasps, the tears soaking the front of his shirt.

He must have sat on the floor a long time because it was dark when he heard a key turn in the door.

He looked up just as Robin and one of her hired goons swept into the room. Robin’s face said everything.  She was closely followed by Marilyn.  Oh god, his agent and his publicist.  Orlando knew he was dead but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to move.

“Don’t you ever, ever hang up on me again, Orlando,” was Robin’s opening salvo.  “I will not tolerate it ever.  I will ignore your insult as the product of your obviously overwrought state, but I will NOT tolerate being hung up on.  Now,” she gazed down at him.  “You will go out tonight with Kate who is beautiful and sweet and female and understands how important all I do is and you will smile and have the courtesy to at least aim at some sort of professionalism.  Now go get ready.”

Orlando couldn’t move but Robin was unperturbed she signalled to the goon who simply hauled Orlando to his feet, looking at Robin for instructions.

“Bathroom” she said. “Get him in the shower.”

Suddenly Orlando realised that she intended for the goon to shower him if necessary and that was just a tad too much.  He shook off the arm which had relaxed a little.

“I’ll go myself.”  He muttered.

“Finally, some sense!” Robin almost smiled.

It was only when he was in the shower that the fact that 3 people had walked uninvited into what was supposed to be his home and verbally and physically assaulted him – well almost -  really dawned on Orlando. Bloody hell, he was a fool.  How had things gotten to this?  How had things gotten so fucked up that he let himself be taken over to this extent by a bunch of parasites? All he ever wanted to be was an actor.  None of his actor friends seemed to go through this.  Well not strictly true. Lij had similar problems occasionally, but not to this extent. God, how he hated his high cheek bones and too pretty face.  That’s what this was about, being the latest so called heart throb. He didn’t want to be a heart throb, he just wanted to be a working actor and he just wanted … Viggo!

The tears started up again as soon as he thought of Viggo. It took him a while to get them under control.

Orlando got out of the shower and plodded into the bedroom, which to his relief was empty – but someone had laid out clothes for him.  He felt like deliberately throwing the laid out clothes in a heap on the floor and wearing something of his own choice but he really couldn’t do with the arguments right now. He needed to think.  If he couldn’t cry, he could use the time to think and now, he needed to think very hard indeed.

Orlando’s thoughts.

The music was bone shatteringly loud.  It vibrated through Orlando’s body as he danced.  He felt awful dancing after what he had done that day. But, at least if he was on the dance floor he looked more like his normal self and it kept him out of Robin and Marilyn’s clutches. Actually the decibel level was quite useful.  It made it nigh on impossible to talk, which meant that Orlando could just drift along with his thoughts, while his body moved with its natural grace and rhythm.

He needed to think about his own life. Thinking about Viggo caused immediate tears and more of that physical pain, so Orlando had decided to grieve for his relationship later in private. Right now he had to consider his life and what a mess he had allowed it to get into.

The reason was obvious.  He wanted to work.  Like many actors Orlando simply got more and more paranoid when there didn’t seem to be any projects firmly in the pipeline, or already underway.  No matter how good the reviews, or how ‘hot’ the magazines said he was, Orlando knew that he still had a lot to learn about acting and he had tried to make choices that would build that learning curve and be good career moves. He was very aware that it could all go so terribly wrong and that the work could vanish overnight.  Part of that ‘going wrong thing’ was the reason his ‘advisors’ wanted to get rid of Viggo. No matter how much he had pleaded that he and Vig would just keep it quiet.  During and after the Troy filming he had suffered almost a year of constant nagging and arguments about his relationship with Viggo.  About how it could ruin everything. But now Orlando had to ask:’ruin everything’ for whom? Him, yes.  But he had made money and could easily live on what was in the bank for a long time and if he had Viggo, what did it matter?  He loved acting yes, but he was beginning to realise that maybe he loved Viggo more.  Much more.  Now it was obvious. The only people he and Viggo could really ruin things for were the people telling him this shit.  The people making their money off him.  It sounded awful really.  They were only doing their jobs after all.  Doing what he had ‘asked’ them to do, but the bottom line was he knew that ‘he’ paid for everything.  And now he was paying with more than just money.  Now he was paying with his life.

 ‘Bloody hell, you drama queen, Bloom.’ 

But in a twisted way it was true.  Robin had said she owned him and in a way she did.  Jesus! What an unholy fucking mess!

OK, that had stated the problem. Now the question was how did he solve it and get out of this whole shit heap and into a position where …

Oh no … going too fast there, Bloom. Concentrate on the issue at hand.  Get the life thing sorted out first. But the tumbling spiral of thoughts had triggered a memory and an idea.

Bean had said of Viggo in the interview on the Fellowship DVD, that Viggo was ‘a man who believed in the truth in everything he did.’ Bean was right.  That was exactly how Vig was. In his acting, in his art, in his photography and in his poetry Viggo always sought the truth and usually found it. And Johnny he had told him to be true to himself in what he did and not think about the money or the rest of the shit. And there it was.  That was what Orlando had lost. He had lost ‘his’ truth. Lost his true self.  Lost himself somewhere in all the shit and hype that was Hollywood. The real Orlando Bloom had gone missing. Would the ‘real’ Orlando Bloom please stand up?

He needed to get ‘his’ life back under ‘his’ control.  What had begun as folk advising him on how to go about this whole celebrity thing had turned rapidly into handing them control of his life and them being more than happy to take it.

Hmm it wasn’t going to be easy.  Things had gone a long way too far in many ways but now he was determined.  It was tragic that it had taken something like today to make him realise how bad things had gotten.  But…

Kate was tugging at his arm. Oh, it was time to go. He turned on the automatic smile as they left the club and the flashbulbs popped.  Orlando didn’t speak on the journey home but Kate was kinda used to that.

The next day.

Orlando hadn’t really slept. He had lain in the big bed in his apartment and cried. Longing only for Viggo!  Longing for Viggo’s comforting arms. Longing for Viggo’s warmth and strength. Longing for Viggo’s steady presence. Longing for the security that was Viggo. But somewhere in all that longing he had made some decisions and choices.

It was late the next day when he finally crawled out of his bed and into his kitchen.  He needed a drink of something and he needed to make some calls. He needed a lawyer, but there were 2 calls he needed to make before he set about the practical issues.  The practical issues could be done the next day.

Firstly he needed a friend.  He wasn’t going to be able to do this alone so he called Lij and arranged to meet him.  Apologising first for his recent distance, but confident that Lij would understand. His confidence was rewarded, Lij agreed to meet him in an out of the way place for a drink later.  Orlando didn’t dare invite him to the apartment.

The second call was going to be much more difficult. He needed to make sure that Viggo was going to be ok and the best person to talk to on that score was Bean. Bean was his mate, always had been, but he was Viggo’s best mate and Orlando wasn’t entirely sure how Bean would react to him, but he needed to make sure that someone would look after Viggo.

He dialled the number for Bean in London.  The phone rang but no one answered. So Orlando dialled the mobile number and prayed he wasn’t gonna be interrupting anything too personal.

The phone was answered on the second ring.

“Hello.”

“Beanie its Orlando.”  The tears started almost immediately again but Orlando kept going.  He had to do this.  He had to be sure about Viggo.

“Listen, I don’t know if you’ve spoken to Viggo yet but if you haven’t could you call him?”

“Orlando,” Bean tried to interject. But Orlando had to keep talking.

“Look, I did something totally stupid and evil yesterday, Sean.  I broke up with him and…”

“Orlando…”

“I need someone to make sure that he is ok and….”

“Orlando…”

“You were the only person I could think of.  Would you call him please…please Sean?”

“Orlando luv, for crying out loud, hush a minute and let me talk.”

Oh God Beanie was gonna kill him.

“It’s ok I’m here.”

“What?”  Orlando had difficulty understanding.

“I’m here, in L. A., with Viggo now. He called me last night and I flew over.

“Oh Sean!” Was all Orlando could whisper.

“I’ll look after him Orlando.”

Orlando breathed in raggedly.

“Thanks Sean.” He whispered.  “I had to make sure…”

“It’s ok luv,… and Orlando?”

“Mmm?”

“You take care of yourself too, luv.”

“Yeah.”

Orlando shut off the phone and lay back on the bed.  He curled himself into a tight ball and wept again.

It was only when he was getting ready to go and meet Lij that he realised he hadn’t heard from Robin or anyone from the ‘OB machine’ all day.

(TBC)