Chapter Fifteen Caravaggio, dir. by Derek Jarman
“Come in, quick, please!” Peter rushes out of the door to the garage, propping open the front gate just enough for Eli to
open it himself. Eli barely has enough time to register what’s going on before he’s being led into the building.
Then again, the answer is pretty obvious when he sees Peter dressed in a skintight Spider-Man costume with his hand cupping
his crotch.
“I need your help,” he tells Eli when he finally makes it into the apartment. “Close the door.” Peter continues on to the
bathroom and Eli follows after him.
“Peter...” Eli leans against the doorframe. “You don’t have to hide your dick; I think I can figure out what’s going on
here.”
Peter eyes Eli warily before he dares to slowly remove both of his hands. Eli’s mouth goes dry at seeing just how much of Peter the costume shows off.
Not a detail left to the imagination.
“Wow, okay...”
“See?” Peter covers his groin again before Eli puts his hands around his wrists, pulling them away.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed, Peter. We’re adults here.”
Peter finally stands straight. “I thought it’d be fun, and Spider-Man seemed like an easy enough costume.”
“No, I get it.” Eli laughs to himself. “You didn’t realize that you’d need a cup? Or one of those dance belts.”
“Dance belt? What’s that?” He looks at Eli with panic and confusion. “I was told I have to dress up.”
“I don’t think it’s the end of the world if you don’t show up in a costume, Peter,” Eli teases, but the look that Peter gives
him tells Eli that now isn’t the time to make fun of him.
Peter hesitates. “I just wanted to be a part of the team.”
“Okay, well... there’s a simple fix here.”
“Whatever it takes.”
Eli dips out of the bathroom, going to Peter’s closet where a pair of gray sweatpants is thrown over a hanger. “You don’t
happen to have a green jacket, do you?”
“Green?” He hears Peter creep back into the bedroom. “I think I might have one. I haven’t worn it in a while, though...”
Peter stretches toward the back of the closet, and Eli takes the chance to sneak a peek at just how the costume accentuates
the cup of Peter’s ass.
“It won’t be entirely accurate, but it should at least help.”
“Since when does Spider-Man wear sweatpants?”
“You know, out of everything you’ve ever said to me, admitting that you’ve never seen Into the Spider-Verse might be the most egregious.”
Peter winces. “I’ll write it down.”
“It’s okay, we’ll fix it. But now you can still be Peter Parker, just a sadder... more desperate version.”
“So, it’s not that much of a costume, is it?” Peter laughs softly.
Eli just gives him a sad smile. Gray sweatpants might defeat the whole objective of hiding Peter’s dick, but they’re baggy
enough in the inseam that they do a decent enough job at disguising Peter’s embarrassment.
“Can I ask what you are?” Peter throws the jacket onto the bed, stepping into the sweatpants as Eli gives him some room.
“You can’t tell?” He spins around in his red nylon short-shorts that might show off a little too much of his ass, his calves costumed under bright white socks with black stripes near the top, and black Converse sneakers.
He thought that the gray shirt, stained with red food dye and the words camp crystal lake counselor across it, would be self-explanatory.
He’d even bought a plastic machete meant to fit over his head like he’d been sliced, but wearing it would mean not fitting
through most doorframes all night.
“Is that from a movie too?”
Eli nods. “Yes, but don’t worry, I won’t put you through all twelve of them.”
“Thank you.”
“So where are we going? The bowling alley in the Mission?”
“No,” Peter says, pulling his arms through the jacket. “The one in the Presidio; apparently it’s nicer?”
“Is now a good time to admit that I’m not a good bowler?”
“Only if you’re okay with me being bad at it too.”
“What was your last score?” Eli dares to ask, falling onto the bed and getting a full look at Peter in the new-ish costume.
There shouldn’t be something so attractive about gray sweatpants and a green jacket, and yet.
“Seventy-four?” Peter admits.
“I’ve got you beat,” Eli tells him. “Fifty-three.”
“So, I don’t have to try and impress you?” Peter holds out his hand, offering it to Eli.
And Eli gladly takes it. “Not tonight at least.”
***
“Fancy...” Eli says as he steps into the bowling alley, Peter right behind him. He’s heard of this place before, when he, Patricia, and Rose wanted to go bowling one night. They took one look at the hourly rate of two hundred dollars and stuck with bowling on Patricia’s Wii.
It’s a fairly small bowling alley, with only a dozen lanes. There’s the counter where you exchange your shoes, and even a
little area filled with claw games. The real draw seems to be the other half of the building where the adjoining bar is packed
with people dressed in their own costumes; celebrating, shouting, watching some game on one of the huge televisions mounted
to the wall.
“Do you know who we’re looking for?” Eli asks.
“Uh...” Peter shoves his keys into his jacket. “Actually...”
“You don’t know what your coworkers look like, do you?”
“I’d recognize their profile pictures on Slack,” Peter admits. “But it can’t be that hard to find them.” He walks right up
to the front desk. “Excuse me? Is the party for the Zelus company here?”
“I think so,” the woman—dressed in goggles, blue overalls, and a yellow sweater—says, checking her computer. “Yep! They’re
lanes one through four. What size are you guys?”
With their shoes exchanged, Eli trails behind Peter as they walk toward the reserved lanes.
“You at least know Francine, right?”
“Yeah, yeah... she’ll recognize me.”
“And she’s here tonight...” Eli pauses. “Right?”
“Yes! I think...”
And as if on cue, from the large group of three dozen people gathered at the first four lanes, a tall blonde woman dressed
in what Eli can only describe as very normal clothes beams brightly when she sees Peter inching closer.
“Oh my God! Peter!”
The woman stands up from the table where she’s been nursing a Pepsi cup, racing over to wrap Peter in a tight hug, her arms
thrown over his shoulders.
“Hey, Francine.” He hugs her back, the smile clear on his face.
“I was so worried that you were going to bail again.”
“Yeah, well... I’m trying this new thing,” he says.
“We’re calling it socializing,” Eli adds.
“Oh, you’re Eli, right? Patricia’s friend?”
“That’s me.” Eli holds out his hand, but she ignores it, wrapping him in a similar hug.
“Sorry, I’m a hugger!” she says with a smile when Eli makes a surprised noise.
“That’s okay!” Eli tells her.
“We haven’t been here for long, come on.” She takes Peter by the hand. “Everyone’s been dying to meet you, officially, of
course. You too, Eli, Peter’s been talking all about you.”
Eli gives Peter a sly look.
To their credit, his coworkers are all excited to see Peter, a few of them meeting him for the first time, which is hilarious
given how long he’s worked at Zelus. He’s forced to make the rounds, which means that Eli is right there beside him, holding
Peter’s hand through it all as he’s introduced as “Peter’s friend” over and over again.
“Oh! Spider-Man!” one of his coworkers, a man named Daniel, exclaims at Peter’s costume.
Peter looks at Eli with a smile.
“Do you want a turn, Peter?” Francine asks.
“Oh, I’m okay.” He takes a seat at the tall table near the back of the lane, where different sizes and colors of bowling balls
that aren’t being used are stored.
“Come on, you can take mine,” Francine tells him. “Can’t do much worse than I already have.” One look at the screen that hangs
from the ceiling is evidence enough of that, with a Jedi Knight nearing a perfect score save for a 7-10 split, and a woman
dressed as Chappell Roan getting another strike.
“Oh, really, I, uh... I’m okay,” Peter says, rubbing at the back of his neck.
“What about you, Eli?” Francine shifts her focus, as if she’s aware of how nervous Peter is.
“Yeah, sure! I’ll go!” Eli tells her, daring to let go of Peter’s hand, though there’s that lingering touch, the kind that
tells him that Peter doesn’t actually want him to leave. Eli looks back at him, silently promising that it will be okay.
He goes to the automated ball return, selecting a ball with holes that fit his fingers before he steps up to the line in front
of the lane. Taking just a few paces back, he glides toward the lane again, letting the ball go a little too late, meaning
that it lands on the polished wooden floor with a thud before it actually begins to roll, drifting left and left and left until it sinks right into the gutter.
Eli glances back, grateful that only a few people seem to have noticed the blunder. Then there’s Peter; his gaze is focused
solely on Eli, and he’s got this precious smile on his face.
Eli takes his short stroll of shame back to the ball dispenser, waiting for the familiar neon green to make an appearance
before he tries it again. This time he’s a little more successful, managing to knock down exactly one pin before the rest
of the pins are taken down with the bar of the pinsetter.
“One’s not so bad,” Francine says as Eli joins the two of them at the tall table with the extra bowling balls. “Better than
I’ve been averaging all night.”
“Are you guys thirsty?” Peter spouts out of nowhere. “I’m thirsty, so I’m going to get drinks; do you guys want anything?”
“I’m good.” Francine grabs a near-empty cup and shakes the ice around.
Eli doesn’t want anything, so he just watches as Peter very awkwardly shuffles over toward the concessions area, joining the
short line there.
“So...” Francine sips what remains of her drink. “You’re super cute together.”
“Thanks, we’re... figuring things out,” Eli tells her, because he isn’t sure what she knows, how Peter has spoken about
them, who she thinks Eli is to Peter. “How do you know Peter? Like obviously you work at Zelus together, but how do you know him?”