One Vin, Two Vin, Red Vin, Blue Vin

From the archive: A short story by Troy Ford

Sep 02, 2024

Special mention of

’s wonderful novel The Memory of My Shadow now available in print, ebook, and audiobook:

Fans of movies like “Her” and “Ex Machina” will love this story. Fans of books like “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick and “The Silence of the Lambs” by Thomas Harris will also be intrigued.

I loved it when Ben serialized it first on Substack, and just picked up my Kindle copy to read all over again straight through. More information on his announcement.

Currently Reading: Dubliners by James Joyce

Announcing: The Books We ❤️ Club

I’m excited to share that next week I have the pleasure of presenting

Dr. Kathleen Waller

’s guest post for the inaugural edition of The Books We ❤️ Club - “Why I Love James Joyce’s Dubliners” - and so I picked up a copy while we were visiting Dublin last month. There’s still time for you to grab a copy so you can add your own reactions, insights, and ideas in next week’s Comments.

You can also read it free on Project Gutenberg.

TBW❤️C will be a regular monthly(ish) feature here at FORD KNOWS discussing the books that somehow transcend the usual reading experience to reach into our hearts and minds through a lifetime. Some of us have many—others, just one or two. Share your favorite quotes, characters, moments, and surprises in discussion with other passionate readers, and impromptu book club in the Comments section.

(And if you’d like to feature your favorite book in a future edition, DM me.)

The following is the only story I ever completed during my 34 year writer’s block, written sometime around 2004. I imagined it as one of a collection of stories tentatively titled Neurotica—but like my attempts to write novels during that fraught time, the effort fizzled, after only one entry.

One Vin, Two Vin, Red Vin, Blue Vin

by Troy Ford

It was the day Pierre went to the multiplex with Shelby for a Vin Diesel movie—they were both crazy for the bald head and gorgeous bronze skin, the tattoos and the beef. While Shelby found seats, Pierre waited in line at the concession stand, dancing from foot to foot while the teenage automatons behind the counter stand trudged through the customers in front of him.

Pierre had to pee.

He loaded up on buttered popcorn, Sour Jacks, and a large Coke, but not wanting to miss what had been advertised as an action-packed opening scene, he skipped a trip to the restroom and fast-walked to the already darkened theater.

Shelby waved from the middle of a crowded row. Pierre slithered past scrunched knees, eliciting uncomfortable squirming and grumbles of protest over having to move out of the great fat man’s way, or so he imagined. The hot embarrassment of exposing his butt so closely to their faces, wishing he’d worn a long sweater, and his fat jeans. The indignity. The shame. It couldn’t get any worse.

But it did—directly behind Shelby sat Vin Diesel. No, no, of course not—but a look-alike, with shaved head, perfect muscles, tank top, and a hunky young clone of a boyfriend half-draped across his lap. Boyfriend? Of course they were gay—Vin One had his arm curled down between Two’s thighs. And they both stared at Pierre with raised eyebrows and smirks and sidelong glances at each other as he weaved his way past knees and feet, most of the younger men jumping up so as not to get a face-full.

Embarrassment rang in his ears. Please God, don’t let me faint. He stumbled along faster, felt himself jiggling. His face burned; he started to sweat.

Shelby hissed, “Sit down, fergawdsake—it’s starting!” Pierre squeezed at last into his seat, smack dab in front of the sneering Vin clones.

The show began: an explosion, followed by a chase on water, followed by Vin For Real peeling a wetsuit down to his chiseled waist. Vin flirted with a nameless vixen, distracting her long enough to turn the tables, and still take her murderous ass to bed afterward.

Oh Lord, Vin was looking fine. Blood suddenly rushing into places, Pierre realized two things: he still had to pee, and he was squeezed so tightly into the seat that he couldn’t set his popcorn down, couldn’t take his jacket off, couldn’t even shift a little to adjust his painful predicament. Damn skinny jeans! He groaned a bit.

“What? What?” Shelby whispered, feigning concern by leaning her head slightly toward him but still watching the screen. “Are you alright?”

“I … Hold this please.” He handed her his snacks, able at least to scoot forward a bit so his junk wasn’t all jammed up. Damn Ben & Jerry!

He must get his jacket off. If he scrunched it in his lap and shoved it down a bit, he might be able to make it through the movie without needing a bathroom break. But he was still very tightly wedged into the ridiculously undersized seat. With a twist and an audible grunt, he was able to turn sideways to shrug his jacket from his shoulders and inch the sleeves down to pull it off.

Oh, why did he peek at those two again as he turned? Good God, was heat actually radiating from their porn star loins? No, it was still just the flush of embarrassment in his face. But he stole a glance anyway, pretending to fiddle longer with his jacket than needed, and so was treated to a full five second close-up of … a handjob.

Under a leather jacket draped across his lap, Vin Two had on a pair of such tattered, thread-bare jeans there was in fact barely anything holding him in. That he was wearing no underwear was immediately evident to Pierre, as was the fact that Vin One’s hand was not idly dandling in his boyfriend’s lap.

Slowly, through a bare shred of denim, Vins One and Two were getting busy—not two feet from his face!

Pierre had good reason to groan this time, twisting face forward. Now he thought he really might pass out. Now he was in actual and excruciating pain.

“What the hell?” Shelby whispered from the side of her mouth as she handed back his snacks.

There certainly was no possibility of following the movie now—every murmur, every shift of leg behind him held his rapt attention. He found himself fantasizing, listening for a moan. He tried to focus on Vin For Real on the screen, but could only think about throwing himself face first into the laps of the twin Vins behind him.

It was all too much—he really felt uncomfortably hot now—he slurped down nearly half his Coke in a single gulp, realizing too late how badly he already needed to pee. He was sweating. And dizzy. His shaking hands felt prickly and numb, and a sudden kick in the back of his seat was a direct punch to his kidneys.

More scuffling and the low buzz of activity made him look around again, and now there was no subtle fondling, but an earnest burnishing, Two’s head lolling on One’s shoulder, breathing fast. A thrill ran from Pierre’s toes to his scalp, and he shivered convulsively, now nearly bent in two.

Would he even be able to make it to the bathroom now? He felt he could barely stand if he wanted to. And in the end, it was that last big guzzle of Coke, working its way under the straining waist of his pants, that finally burst through his last defense. This was torture. He let go.

For the first time since kindergarten, Pierre wet his pants.

“Oh my God….” he groaned. People turned to stare.

“What the fuck?!” Shelby tore her eyes from the screen long enough to see Pierre collapsing upon himself in tears.

“For shame! Stop that! Shame on you! You! Over there!” Someone shouted from the end of the row.

“Over there—look!” A flashlight beam swept through the crowd, down their row, right in Pierre’s eyes as he choked back a cry and looked up toward the commotion.

“You can’t do that—you’ll have to leave,” said a young man’s quavering voice.

The light flicked across Pierre’s face and then away, long enough for Shelby to see his sniveling.

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” she cried as other patrons continued to turn and lean, trying to figure out what was happening in the dark.

Wanting only to get away, Pierre stood up, and the flashlight beam caught his face, and then swept down to reveal the soaking wet front of his pants. Shelby drew back with a gasp.

“Not him, you idiot, those two! Look! Right there!” An old man, irate, pointed and waved beside the usher until the flashlight moved slowly off Pierre and straight into the reddened faces of the Vins. Two hastily rearranged his disordered lap, while one disengaged his arm and glared toward the snitch in the aisle.

“I’m sorry, sir—you and your friend will have to leave,” squeaked the teenage usher, clearly rattled as two tall and muscular action-movie stars fumed down the row.

Pierre remained frozen as they reached the aisle, Vin One giving the teen a solid slam against the shoulder as he passed and knocked the kid flying into someone’s popcorn.

Meanwhile, Shelby had gathered her things and shoved Pierre before her toward the exit. “Move, let’s go!”

“Yeah, get the fuck out!” someone else yelled as the screen exploded again—bodies flew out of a flaming airplane, grappling over the only parachute.

Fifteen minutes and several handfuls of paper towels later, Pierre emerged from the men’s room with puffy red eyes, and his jacket tied in front of his pants.

“What a mess,” Shelby remarked, seated on a bench in the lobby.

“You have no idea,” he replied, noticing the little sniff she gave as he dropped down beside her.

But she always could call him on his shit. “I know what happened! You were too embarrassed to get your fat ass up out of that chair in front of those two studs, and so you sat there until you couldn’t hold it anymore, and had to cause a ruckus and get us kicked out.” Close enough. “But why did they leave?”

“I don’t know. Shelby?”

“What?”

“I’m thinking of joining a gym.”

“Hallelujah, me too. Hey, Pierre—”

“What?”

“Peeeee-erre?”

“Oh, fuck off.”