Vincent Chase’s blood ran cold. This fear was beyond the “crapping his pants” fear he had felt back in the street- it seemed like a hundred years ago now- when he’d come face to face with the first doppelganger. This was different, a thousand times worse. He wished he could crap his pants, but he wasn’t wearing pants, and his bowels felt frozen now, as if they would never move again.
He was lying under a blanket on a military-surplus cot in some kind of- basement apartment? Bunker? Torture chamber? – and he was looking at another replica of his younger self. But, the eyes. The eyes were the worst part. Like the blind guy in that Hallmark Hall of Fame movie he’d had to do when times got tough, but a thousand times more disturbing- and Turtle wasn’t here to snicker about it with and get him high back in his trailer. This was wrong; horribly wrong in some way Vince could never have described, but just knew, deep down in what was left of his soul.
The girl, Mary, looked at him. “Something wrong, honey?” Her smile did nothing to reassure Vince. “Don’t worry, it gets good in a second.”
Mary pressed another button on her remote and suddenly the Vince-double was… alive. Instantaneously, the dead eyes transformed into deep pools of sensitivity, sexuality, the seven-figure eyes of Vincent Chase, movie star.
The Vince-double turned to Mary, waiting.
“Get number two.”
He (it, whatever) walked across the room and pressed a button. Another compartment opened, just like the first. And inside was another dead-eyed Vince. The first Vince-double put its hand on the back of the neck of the second, and then they were both alive. Two Vinces. Three, if you counted the shell of a man cowering pantsless on the cot.
Mary’s mouth curled into a different kind of smile. “You ready, guys?” Both Vince-doubles smiled back at her. Cot-Vince knew that smile. They wanted her. Those bastards! Nobody got between him and a chick. He was Vincent Chase! Or at least, he was pretty sure he was.
But it was hard to be sure, with the surreal drama taking place before his eyes. Mary was sitting back in one of those spherical, padded chairs that hung from a chain on the ceiling. Vince-double #1 walked towards the second one, and then… #1 touched #2 on the shoulder, stroking him, and then lifted his tee shirt over his head.
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be happening. This had to be some kind of nightmare. But it was happening. Both Vinces were topless now, and they were kissing each other. And this was no act either; they were into it.
Mary looks over at the real Vince. “You want to get in on this?” Vince is stricken: He cannot speak, or move, or look away. “I’m just kidding. I know you’re not… up to it.” Mary’s eyes sparkle on these last words- she’s enjoying this. Then, to the doppelgangers: “All right guys, I don’t have all night. Let’s cut to the chase.”
The scene unfolds, with the two Vince-doubles doing everything Mary tells them. Everything. Vince hears a low moan from Mary as she pleasures herself, unashamed, her hand in her unbuttoned fatigues. She never touches the Vinces, she just watches- but that seems to be more than enough for her. She seems to have forgotten the “real” Vince even exists.
And then this happens: The real Vincent Chase sees his own penis. Not his penis of course- not the one he sees every morning taking a piss, when he takes the trouble to shift his now-expansive gut out of the way. No, what he sees is the penis of the duplicate-Vince who has now had his pants removed by the other one. And it is a deeply moving experience. In that moment, Vince finds his own penis beautiful. In that moment, everything floods back to him- his potential, his youth, everything he could have been, was, never became. This was the feeling he had in the street, when he saw the first double, but multiplied by a thousand. Vince feels he is in heaven and hell both at once. Here on what’s left on Earth, he can barely breathe, he feels his heart may explode at any second. He wants to give his last will and testament, to make some final statement to the press, to give some explanation of what he has done and who he has been, before it’s too late.
But he can’t move. All he can do is watch.
Ryan M. Moore 