This is a work of fiction, very, very loosely based on the real person, Russell Crowe. I wrote it for my own entertainment, and entertainment is its only purpose. No insult or injury is intended.

This story is for readers over the age of 18 only, and contains explicit adult language and sexual references.

Twist Of Fate

…what’s meant to be will come to pass

A Quentin Finch story

by: Jackie

©2008

Chapter One

Quentin 

‘Is this finally on now? Bloody hell, I’m gonna throw the fucker out the win… No. Wait. One, two, three, four, five…  six… yeah, yeah, Kenny: here, it’s recorded for posterity. I was actually counting to ten. You didn’t think I had it in me, did you? Heh, heh, heh. Ohhh, crikey, I’m sore all over.’ Quentin stretched painfully and peered into the little camera that was mounted above the laptop screen. The fish-eye effect was rather hilarious and he grinned at himself. ‘Right. Now, where was I? Yeah. This is Quentin Finch’s video diary, first entry. Coz I can’t be arsed writing it all down. I’ve got enough writing to do with the new scenario, and my lines to learn, and the research, and all the bloody training... Fuck, I’d never have gotten into this shitty gig if I’d have known how much it was gonna hurt, doin’ the bloody wire works. I mean, it’s cool, I’m dealing with it, I’m chundering up my brekkie every time they hoist me up three storeys high and give me a bit of a twirl, I’ve got bruises all over… But I’m learning fuckin’ Kung Fu! I’m 40, I’m learning Kung Fu, and I’m getting away with it, too! Brill, innit? And I just know it’s gonna look great. The story’s great, the CGI is gonna be great, and I’ve got Kenny. He’s a veritable fountain of wisdom, is Kenny. Kenny Ho, martial arts trainer extraordinaire, philosopher and amateur psychiatrist. Kenny, who’s been teaching me that in order to reach the right state of mind I need to control my temper instead of letting it control me. I feel like the fuckin’ karate kid with Kenny, he’s coming out with all this stuff. He’s got a point though; I’m way too competitive and way too involved. Got my thumb nearly chopped off by his katana yesterday, because I’m too in the moment. I’m supposed to rise above the moment, transcend it, hover above the moment so to speak, so that I can stay cool and rational and… fuck, I dunno. It sounds really nice, and wise, and doable, the way he says it, but I get my thumb chopped off every time. Fuckin’ hell. No, but I intend to take him up on his advice though, I’m gonna keep a diary and record my progress. And I’m gonna meditate, and find my inner peace. I could actually do with a bit of inner peace; can’t remember I felt anything close to inner peace since… must be when I was at Nana, with Tazzie, last year…’

‘Quent, sweetie?’ a seductive female voice called him from the bathroom. ‘Who’s that on the phone? Are we going to the party or aren’t we?’

Quentin looked up, frowned and clicked pause. ‘I’m not on the phone. I’m recording a video diary.’ He sounded mildly annoyed. ‘I told you I’m not gonna go to that bloody party, but why don’t you go? I’m sure they’ll let you in on my invite. Just tell them I’ve got a headache. Something. That I’m pissed. Or watching the footy. Or pissed and watching the footy. That’s just the sort of thing they all expect from me anyway. Fuck it, Muriel, I’m not going, period.’

Muriel, sloshing around in the bathtub, moaned disappointedly. ‘I can’t possibly go on my own. Come on, Quent, I wanna go. You’re my boyfriend, aren’t you? You can introduce me to so many people, it’ll be really good for my career. Please?!? I’ll make it worth your while…’ This came out very, very seductive again, and Quentin remembered, grimacing, that Muriel probably gave the best blowjob in Hollywood. God, he hated living here, he always had and he always would. But he’d be damned if he was going to let it get to him, not now that he’d gotten his work permit restored and he was doing the hottest gig of the moment, and doing a hot little bit of supporting actress on the side.

He missed Oz. He missed Nana, and he actually missed Sydney as well. And he missed Tazzie, missed her most of all, missed her really painfully like, like something was chopped off. An arm, or a leg. It had been almost a year and still it felt like that, soon as he allowed his mind to wander back… He didn’t allow his mind to wander back very often; in fact, he watched his mind like a hawk. That little snippet of memory just now snuck right past his internal security guards, and he wasn’t happy about it, no, not happy at all. Thinking about Tazzie always made him morose and grumpy and... lonely… He hated himself, when he felt like that.

‘Ahh, there you are… my wonderful Aussie hunk…’ Muriel came out of the bathroom wrapped in a smallish towel and she sighed in his ear and slid in behind him. He felt her rub her tits against his back – her expensive, bionic tits, they were so fuckin’ perky that he could hang a baseball cap on one. He had, once; that’s how he knew with such certainty. It had made him laugh, but Muriel hadn’t been so amused. Well, that was to be expected; she certainly didn’t lay out all that money to obtain a pair of fake tits, use them to hook herself an A-lister and then have him hang his cap on them.

Muriel in the meantime wrapped her arms around him and slid her hands down the front of him, making it quite obvious what her intentions were.

‘Sod off, M, I’m working,’ Quentin groused.

‘What do you mean; you’re taping a video diary. How can that be working?’ she purred, and her hands dove for his cock again.

‘Kenny said I need to find inner peace for the fight scenes, yeah? It shows, on the outside; if I’m slashing the katana around like a bloody berserker, I may be going through the rehearsed moves but I won’t look like a fuckin’ Jedi, controlling the force, all right? So I’ve got to find the right frame of mind. Kenny said I need to get stuff off my chest, monitor my progression, meditate, stuff…’ Quentin trailed off. He wasn’t even sure why he took the trouble of trying to explain to Muriel what he was doing. She might be a champion when it came to going down on him, but she was thick as a tortoise shell and shallow as a dish. Sure, she looked a stunner. But she put him to sleep mentally.

‘But…’ she whined.

‘No but. Just get your kit on, go to the fuckin’ party and leave me alone long enough to get on with the job, yeah?’

‘Sheesh,’ muttered Muriel. ‘Everyone said you were tenacious and focused and determined and all that shit, but I had no idea it was gonna be this bad. You’re no fun, Finch.’

Quentin turned around to face her, a full-blown scowl on his forehead. ‘How the FUCK do you think I got to be where I am today? Huh? By WORKING HARD. Preparing. Devoting my time, going all the way. So just shut the fuck up, go to your bloody party. I’ll be able to get some work done. Tara.’ He turned his back on her and ignored her, as if she’d already left.

He felt her get off of the bed and pad over to the other room. He refused to look up and just sat there, seething, trying to figure out what had gotten him so upset.

He didn’t need to think about that at all; he knew. He knew very well. He only didn’t want to admit it.

Tazzie.

Thinking about Tazzie, his time with her, being with her at Nana… It brought it all back. His stupidity. How he’d broken up with her, all for a folly, a stupid idea that had lodged itself in his mind. How he’d struggled to get her back, especially once he’d found out she was carrying his child. How she’d miscarried, which was entirely his fault; he should have taken better care of her… how he’d managed to alienate her, trying to take over everything and driving her bonkers with his absurd hectic life. Tazzie had been the one good thing he had going for him in an ocean of confusion, and he’d messed it up classic Finch style. Stupid fucker that he was. And now, he’d just gotten something going on with Muriel and already he was slagging her off. She was getting on his nerves, true, but he’d have to learn that he would have to compromise in order to make things work. Problem was, Muriel just… wasn’t… She wasn’t…

Tazzie.

He sighed and pressed play again. ‘Right. That was Muriel, interfering. Hopefully I’ll be able to get on with this now. The thing is, I need to clear my mind in order to find that inner peace, and my mind just keeps coming back to this one person. Taryn Archer. There’s no way around it. I’ve always had my hang-ups and my... stuff, but Tazzie’s been like a sort of catalyst. She let everything fall into place, you know? She calmed me down; she made me feel whole. And now that it’s over between us, it’s like I’ve tasted the forbidden fruit, got my arse thrown out of paradise, and I’ll be running around like mad trying to compensate for what I’ve lost for the rest of my life. I need to get that stuff out the way, and then I’m sure I’ll get all the other stuff sorted as well. It’s all interconnected. So. I’m gonna… Let me see. I’m gonna tell you what happened to me the past year, since Tazzie and I split up, and I’m gonna bloody meditate and concentrate until my head falls off, and then perhaps I’ll get some grip on things.’

Quentin clicked pause again, and wiped a lock of hair off his damp forehead. He was actually sweating, and he hadn’t even started yet. These were just the prelims, he was sure there was a lot more buried inside him that he’d have to say out loud in order to get rid of it. He shook his hair back; he wore it a lot longer now, and it was a bright yellow, for his role. He looked a bloody Goldilocks, and he had a hard time getting used to it, seeing himself in the mirror every morning. Soon as he was done with this gig, and the promotional stuff was done, he’d be back to his normal light brown.

Physically, he was in better shape than ever. He was very muscled, his arms and legs looked like tree trunks from all the workouts he’d done to prepare for this part, and he felt like his chest had expanded to twice its usual size. There wasn’t much fat on him, but he looked big as a house. Mentally, he felt worse than ever, even though he’d just gotten into this thing with the lovely and more than enthusiastic Muriel. He was okay with her, once they were in bed. She put in a lot of effort to make him happy, and she succeeded quite well. It was only that she annoyed the hell out of him for the rest of the time.

Quentin knew very well that this had a lot more to do with him than with Muriel. She was fine. She was a fairly nice sheila, a passable actress, and she wanted to make a name for herself. That was all perfectly all right. He wasn’t sure that they’d ever get serious, but the way he was feeling right now, he wasn’t even able to enjoy the first stages of their relationship. Affair. Whatever it was. There was too much in the way, and all his long talks with Kenny had only confirmed that. Something had to be done, and he just knew that if he didn’t get his act together now he never would, so with the determination that had gotten him this far in life and in the motion picture industry, he applied himself to the task of cleaning out the cobwebs in his mind and finding his inner peace.

~*~

Taryn

The book party was tedious. It was just as tedious as all the other launch parties she’d ever attended, with this minute difference: this one was for her book. So she smiled, and wobbled in her high heels – she really wanted to sit down but didn’t dare to – and tried not to think about the boxes in her flat.

She was finally moving. It had taken her almost a year to find another place; she just couldn’t stay in her old flat any longer. Not after she’d been there with… She stopped herself. She was NOT going to think about him tonight. She knew it was stupid, they had only spent one night there, but it had been the last night of her life she had truly believed they had a happy future ahead of them. She had still believed that they would find a way together, and she had still been pregnant, that night.

She sighed. After she had come back from Sam’s cottage in Scotland, after she’d cried her eyes out for weeks on end because she just knew she’d found the love of her life, and with the same certainty knew that it just wasn’t going to work out; after she had mourned the loss of her unborn child… She’d come back to a flat she just couldn’t live in any more. She felt so downhearted when she was there; she couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t relax and she couldn’t write. All she thought about was… No. She wouldn’t allow his name to form in her mind.

Oh look, here was her new editor, Vincent. He did a wonderful job filling in for Maddy, her regular editor, who was on maternity leave. He also really fancied her. She felt it, and was mildly flattered – Vince was rather good-looking in a befuddled, posh, very British sort of way – but didn’t really know what to do about it. She’d just focused on finishing her second book, these last couple of months, and finding a new flat.

‘All right, Taryn?’ Vince asked her, trailing a warm hand across her back. ‘You look a little like a rabbit in headlights, if you don’t mind me saying so; shall I get you another glass of bubbly?’

‘No thanks; I really don’t like champagne very much,’ said Taryn, trying to look tough, or cool, or how was it that one should ideally try to come across? Intellectual perhaps? She frowned and wished she had a pair of glasses to hide behind.

Vincent stayed very close and he clearly hovered, looking for something to do, or say, that justified his closeness to her. ‘There’s Gerry Johnson, Waterstone’s MD,’ he suddenly blurted out, happily; ‘I’ve invited him but I wasn’t at all sure he’d come. He said he liked your first book, I read it in The Bookseller.’

‘And you just invited him?’ Taryn was amazed. It had taken some time for her life to go back to normal after the whole… adventure with – she refused to spell out his name, simply refused it – and now that it was just her again, she was just as surprised if anyone showed an interest in her because of her writing as she had been before the whole… thing had happened. After all this was still nothing compared to what had happened when, when… she suddenly had a whole army of journalists camping out in front of her flat, just because… Oh, God stop it, all right!

One thing though she still had, she mused as she watched this Mr. Johnson weave his way through the guests at the party, clearly headed in her direction. She still had her friendship with Jo. She emailed Jo almost daily, and spoke to her on the phone maybe once every two weeks. Jo was something between a mother, an older sister and a best friend, and it didn’t matter at all that she lived virtually on the other side of the world, in Australia; she felt as close to her now as she had felt when she’d stayed with her at Nana. It had been so beautiful there, the cabin, the weather, and… Taryn shook her head, to get him out of her thoughts. Tonight especially she just seemed to have the hardest time not thinking about…

Quent.

She sighed. Vincent picked up on that immediately, and quietly informed if she wanted another drink, if the champers was off? Or something to eat? Ah, here was Mr. Johnson. Taryn shook his hand and made polite conversation, knowing how important it was for the continuing success of her work to have such a powerful ally. Mr. Johnson professed he adored her first book, and had personally seen to it that every Waterstone’s was paying the proper amount of attention to her work. And he vowed he would so again, with the new book. Taryn smiled, nodded, tried to look charming and appreciative, but all the while she just wanted to… go home? No. Her flat wasn’t home. She didn’t want to be there. She didn’t know what to do, where to go, and all of a sudden, surprising herself, she turned to Vincent and softly, urgently asked: ‘Vince, will you take me away from here? Please? Please just take me home with you, I don’t think I can stand this any longer.’

Vincent was surprised as well: so surprised actually, he nearly dropped his drink. But then a slow, expectant smile spread on his face, and he guided her out of her own book party, his hand on her back. Outside, they scouted around for a taxi.

‘Can we actually do this, leave just like that?’ Taryn wondered. ‘I feel really guilty.’

‘Well, it’s not the most elegant option, but… you know, they’ll just stay on until the free drinks run out, whether we’re there or not, and besides, when you put it like… like you just put it, I’m sorry Tazzie, but I’m really not strong enough to stand up against that amount of persuasion.’ He meant it as happy banter, but the words got stuck in his throat when he caught the frozen look of horror on her face. ‘What? What is it, are you not feeling well?’

‘What did you just call me?’ Taryn said, eyes wide.

‘What? D-did I call you something, just now? Wasn’t aware that I did, uh, was…’ Vincent flopped around in his sentence Hugh Grant style, feeling something was about to go terribly wrong.

‘You called me Tazzie.’ She thought she was going to throw up; for some reason it was completely unbearable to hear Vincent say that to her.

‘I, uh, well, that is to say… I understood that… from Sam, your agent, that your, um, Australian mates called you that. I was just having a laugh, um, ha, ha? Trying to be… funny?’

‘I know who Sam is. I lived in his cottage for weeks on end. And as for being funny, well, you failed miserably, sorry to say. Please don’t call me that? Ever again? I don’t particularly like it.’ Unless your name is Quentin Finch, her mind added quietly.

‘Oh… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry; I stand corrected, completely and utterly corrected. I’ll never do it again, I promise… Taryn.’ He smiled his sweetest smile at her, gazing at her longingly through dark brown, longish hair that was about as floppy as his sentences. ‘So… are we still on?’

‘Sorry?’

His voice grew softer. ‘Do you still want to come home with me?’

Taryn thought about it. Part of her didn’t want to go home with him at all, but an even larger part of her didn’t want to go back to her flat either. That part preferred to go anywhere but home, and Vince was pleasant enough company. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so harsh on him.

‘Taxi!’ he called, and a cabbie pulled over. ‘Well?’ he softly asked, ushering her inside. Where to, milady?’

Suddenly, something inside her seemed to make up her mind for her. ‘Your place,’ she almost whispered, shortly after followed by: ‘…do you have anything decent to drink, or do we have to detour past the offy?’

Vince grinned a little sadly. ‘I think I’ll manage. You, um… need a little liquid courage to be in one room with me?’

‘Oh…’ Taryn looked worried and put her hand on Vince’s arm – he’d hit frighteningly close to home with that remark. ‘I just wanted to.., relax a little? I really don’t like these book presentation things, not even when they’re for me, and, you know, I’ve been through a bit of a rough patch, personally… I think it’s going to get better from now on though; I intend for it to be better…’

‘Is it the ex-boyfriend?’ Vincent took her hand into his and gave her another of those intent, mildly brooding looks, his hair falling into his eyes.

Taryn had made vague references to an unhappy love affair in her past before, but she’d never really told Vince any specifics. Not about the ex-boyfriend himself, nor about her own confused, painful memories. She sighed. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, it is the ex-boyfriend. For some reason, tonight, I can’t seem stop thinking about… some painful things from the past…’

In response to that, Vince pressed a small kiss to her hand, right where her thumb began. ‘He treated you so badly?’ he softly asked, his eyes hurting for her. ‘I’m there for you, you know, if you feel like talking about it…’

He really was a sweet lad, Taryn thought. She leaned against him a little, and allowed him to wrap an arm around her. They rode in silence for a little while, until Vince used the gravitational pull of a curve to reel her in a little closer. She felt him lean his cheek against her forehead, and she could almost taste how much he wanted to kiss her. Her clairsentience hadn’t disappeared over the last year; she’d just tried to ignore it. Feeling anyone’s feelings, especially feeling someone’s attraction to her, made her think about Quent all the harder. Vince shifted against her, and she felt another wave of gentle longing coming from him. Oh, he was a good lad… he just wouldn’t ever be… Shhh. Don’t even whisper his name in thought.

Taryn made up her mind, took a deep breath, turned in Vincent’s arms, lifted up her face, and closed her eyes as his lips closed over hers.

Chapter Two