Chapter Eleven The Doom Generation, dir. by Gregg Araki
It feels irresponsible for Eli to follow Peter back to his apartment just a few blocks away, one of Peter’s laundry bags thrown
over his shoulder.
“I can carry both,” Peter reminds Eli for the dozenth time.
“You know...” Eli grunts, readjusting the bag. Under any other circumstances, he might’ve passed it along to Peter. It’s
amazing how a man who seemingly only knows how to dress like a frat bro could own so many clothes. But Eli isn’t going to
give him the satisfaction. “I’m perfectly capable of carrying laundry. My laundromat is two whole blocks away.”
“Okay...” Peter hums. “We’re near my place, it’s just up this hill.”
“Hill?” Eli stops, readjusting the bag to get it off his back. “Why didn’t you drive?”
“Because it’s only five blocks,” Peter says, maneuvering up the street without much effort at all. “Plus, I’d have to worry
about parking. And walking is fun!”
“Says you.”
Peter beams at him as he continues up the hill.
They make it back to the apartment after Eli takes a short break on the corner. Peter unlocks the door and flips on the lights,
seemingly less embarrassed than he was the first time he showed Eli the apartment. Certainly less drunk.
Peter finally takes the bag, setting them both on his bed.
They’d folded most of the clothes at the laundromat, but there’s no doubt that the way Eli slung the bag from shoulder to shoulder has left them a little crumpled.
He follows Peter into the bedroom, picking a spot for himself on the edge of the bed because there’s literally nowhere else for him to sit other than Peter’s desk chair in the other room.
Peter huffs, pulling out a bundle of hangers from his closet. Eli takes a few for himself.
“I’ve been dying to ask. You’ve been here for four years; how can your apartment be this bare?”
Peter shrugs. “I guess I just never took the time to decorate.”
“Peter, there’s decorating, and then there’s having basic human necessities. You don’t even have a couch, or real nightstands,
or a shelf for the books you’re hiding under your bed.”
“I have a nightstand.” Peter steals a look at the IKEA table that isn’t actually a nightstand, before he hangs a few of his
shirts. A quick peek inside the closet tells Eli that he keeps his clothing organized by color. Starting with black and white
and then properly getting into the ROYGBIV. Of course, most of the closet is black and gray. “And it’s not like I’m bringing
anyone here, so... I guess I never saw the point.”
“Well, we’ll have to fix this.” Eli stands, gliding toward Peter’s closet and adding his hangers, organized accordingly. “There’s
a lot of nice antique and thrift shops in the area. And you can always order stuff from IKEA if we can’t find it there.”
Eli doesn’t realize just how close Peter is to him at the moment, a few precious inches away as he watches where Eli puts the clothing.
“You can’t invite anyone over when you don’t even have a real bed frame, Peter.”
“It’s real enough.” Peter reaches, and for a moment... just a moment , he swears, Eli thinks that maybe Peter is about to press his hand to his chin, to tilt his face up and capture him in a kiss just like the masked stranger at the club.
But he doesn’t; instead he reaches past Eli, moving one of his forest-green shirts down a few spots. “This one goes here.”
“Sorry...” Eli breathes deeply.
“Do you want to look now? For furniture?” Peter asks, stepping back toward his empty laundry bags and lining the clothes hampers
in the corner of the bedroom with them.
Eli falls forward onto the comfort of the bed. At the very least, Peter didn’t skimp on a nice mattress and duvet set. The
bed almost calls to Eli, singing some magical lullaby to pull him in. “No, I’m beat.”
“Too much dancing?” Peter asks him, staring at Eli’s shape on the bed.
“Not at all,” Eli promises. “I, uh... There was this guy?”
He says the words slowly, waiting for Peter’s reaction. Which he can’t see because the man is currently bent over face-first
in his laundry basket attaching the bag liner with Velcro.
“Oh, yeah?” Peter says, his voice calm. “Was he cute?”
Eli doesn’t know what reaction he wanted.
Bullshit , he thinks.
He wants Peter to be pissed at him, annoyed that he’d make out with another man and follow him to the bathroom in the hopes
of getting laid. If Peter gets angry enough, he might end this. Cut this all off for him, take the reins for once and decide
that he’s had enough of Eli for no real reason at all.
“Yeah, when he wasn’t wearing a mask, at least.”
“A mask ?” That’s what gets an actual response from Peter, his head whipping around.
“It was a Halloween party, remember?”
“Right, right,” Peter says, standing up straight. Eli watches him carefully as he walks to the head of the bed, taking a spot with his back against the bare wall.
“My friends wanted to go out, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could get laid or something.”
“What happened?”
Eli swallows, wondering how Peter might react if he told him the truth. At least, one of the truths. “I just wasn’t feeling
it. He didn’t want to go back to his place, he just pulled me into the bathroom.”
“Really?”
Eli nods. “It’s whatever, I can go back to my apartment and dig around in my toy box until I find something.”
“Your toy box?” Peter smiles. “Why would you call it that?”
Eli can’t hold back the cackle that escapes, holding his hand over his own mouth as tight as he can, but it doesn’t work.
“I mean, that’s what it is !”
“But it’s so...” Peter shudders. “Wrong.” The two of them laugh together, but the sound dies quickly, their gazes meeting
before Eli darts his away.
“Can I ask...” Eli rests his back on the wall. “Have you had sex with anyone since Mark?”
Peter shakes his head. “Like, I’ve masturbated, but yeah... with Mark, that’s it. Sometimes I wonder about that inexperience,
just like everything else I haven’t done before, and if I’ll know how to do it right again when the time comes.”
Eli lets his head fall against the wall. “I get it. I mean, when you think about it, sex is really weird. There’s so much
preparation that goes into something that should be so simple.”
“Right.” Peter turns away, hiding his blush.
“I mean, is sex something that you’re interested in?” Eli prompts. “You know, not everyone is; sometimes people are repulsed by just the idea of it, or totally indifferent.”
“I am interested,” Peter admits. “I get... aroused is the right word, I guess. And, like, I want to have sex with people. I’m just... I guess I’m scared, and what if I’m not good at it, you know? What if... what if
I’m bad, and it turns someone off from me? I think that’s been a whole other layer to... this.”
Peter motions to himself.
“I’ve heard so many stories about sex and being intimate with someone going wrong. And the last time I had sex, I was sixteen,
and I know it wasn’t good. Neither of us knew what we were doing.”
Eli doesn’t like how his brain goes right to how good those details will be in his articles. That’s not what this is about.
He hesitates for the briefest of moments before he decides to go for it. “You know,” Eli starts to say, “the second time I
had sex with Keith, I threw up on his dick.”
Peter turns to him in surprise. “Are you lying?”
“God, I wish I was.” Eli feels the heat along his cheeks. “I was on my knees, giving him a blowjob, and he got a little too into the face fucking, triggered my gag reflex after a bit. I’m grateful that it was just spit and slobber.”
“What did he do?”
“Made sure I was okay, apologized, and then we both just sat there on the bathroom floor and laughed about it. We watched
TV in bed after.”
“I guess that’s good.”
“Keith would never let me live it down.” Eli’s own words haunt him, and he can’t escape the bitterness that rushes through
him, even if it’s one of the happier memories he still has. “That’s important with someone you get intimate with. To be able
to laugh, to appreciate the awkwardness that can happen instead of letting it hinder the experience.”
“I guess things just seem so serious in the porn I watch.”
Eli’s ears perk up at that. “You’re watching porn? Well, now I have to see what gets your rocks off.”
Peter smiles. “Please.”
“Porn is all fake, even the kind that tries to be as real as possible. You shouldn’t judge your experiences based on other
people’s anyway, porn or otherwise.” There’s a silence that stretches, and for a moment, Eli wonders if he said the wrong
thing somehow.
“Do you... do you miss him?” Peter dares to ask him. “You don’t have to answer that question if you don’t want to.” These
words come a little hurriedly, as if Peter’s realized he’s crossed some invisible line.
Of course, he’s surprised, to say the least. He wouldn’t have expected Peter to ask such a personal question.
“No, it’s okay. It’s just... tough to answer.” Eli lets out a low, soft sigh. “I do, and it hurts to feel like I still
do.”
Eli pauses, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see Peter staring expectantly. He doesn’t say anything, though.
“He gave me seven years of himself. He gave me seven years of feeling as if I belonged, like I was wanted. He made me feel
the way no other person did. And it still hurts that it’s just gone, that I don’t have one of my best friends anymore.”
“I think that’s what scares me the most, about all of this,” Peter says, crossing his legs on the bed. “That someone could
just decide to... end it all like that. It’s scary.”
“Yeah, it is,” Eli says to him. “But, you know... that’s just a part of life. Something that you have to get used to.”
“How do you do that?” Peter asks.
Eli looks at him. “When I figure that out, I’ll let you know.”
Peter lets out a low, pitiful laugh, and Eli follows the lead to not make the situation awkward. But as the sounds die on
their lips, the silence stretches before them, neither of them clear on what to do next.