Chapter 3: Bare
The movie was French. Of course it was French. Jordan should have known the moment Genesis pulled it from her bag — an actual physical DVD, the cover worn at the edges, the title in elegant serif font above a black-and-white still of two people staring at each other across a café table.
"It's about desire," she'd said, settling into the couch with a bowl of popcorn in her lap. "Real desire. Not the Hollywood version."
"Which Hollywood version?"
"The one where everyone's attractive and everything works out and nobody has to sit in the discomfort of wanting something they can't name."
Jordan had paused at that. Filed it away. He was always filing things away.
"Okay," he said. "I'm listening."
Now, forty-seven minutes in, he was trying very hard to keep listening.
The film was beautiful. He could admit that. The cinematography was all shadows and cigarette smoke, the dialogue sparse and loaded, the silences stretching long enough to make him uncomfortable. But the plot — if you could call it that — hinged on a series of decisions so baffling that Jordan couldn't stop his brain from picking them apart.
"He could just tell her," he said.
"Tell her what?"
"That he wants her. Instead of staring at her for twenty minutes and then walking into the sea."
Genesis threw a piece of popcorn at him.
"You're missing the point."
"I'm not missing the point. I'm questioning the logic."
"The logic isn't the point."
"Everything is logic. Even the absence of logic is a logical choice."
She threw another piece of popcorn. It bounced off his forehead.
"You're impossible," she said.
"I've been told."
On screen, the woman was smoking a cigarette and staring at a wall. The man was standing outside her window in the rain. Nothing was happening. Everything was happening.
Genesis had curled her feet under her, her shoulder pressed against his, the warmth of her body bleeding through the thin fabric of his sweatshirt. She was wearing her own clothes now — jeans and a soft grey sweater that hung off one shoulder. She smelled like her own shampoo. She looked like she belonged here.
She'd come back at seven, just like she said she would. Knocked on his door even though she had every right to just walk in. Kissed him hello like it was the most natural thing in the world. Then she'd kicked off her shoes, taken over his kitchen counter with her bag, and informed him that tonight was movie night.
"You're going to fall asleep," Jordan said.
"I'm not going to fall asleep."
"You always fall asleep during movies."
"How would you know that?"
"I've watched you. During movie nights. Before."
She turned to look at him. That look. The one that said you're ridiculous and I love it.
"You really have been paying attention," she said.
"To you? Always."
Something shifted in her expression. Softened. Then her hand found his thigh, and she leaned in, and the movie kept playing — some scene with rain and cigarettes and existential despair — and she kissed him.
It started slow. Gentle. The kind of kiss that could have lasted all night and been enough. But then her tongue brushed against his, and her hand slid higher on his thigh, and Jordan forgot about the movie entirely.
"Genesis," he murmured against her mouth.
"Shh."
"I'm not—"
She climbed into his lap.
Just like that. One moment she was beside him, the next she was straddling him, knees pressing into the cushions, her weight settling against his hips. Her hands were on his chest, pushing him back against the couch, and her mouth was on his again — harder this time, hungrier.
"This was your plan all along," he said between kisses.
"What plan?"
"The movie. Getting me relaxed. Then—"
"You think I have a plan?"
"I think you always have a plan."
She laughed against his mouth. Ground her hips down against his growing erection. Jordan groaned.
"Maybe I do," she said. "Maybe I've been thinking about this all day."
"About what?"
"About you. About fucking you on this couch while a French film plays in the background." She bit his lower lip. "About taking my time with you."
Jordan's hands found her hips. Gripped them. He could feel the heat of her through her jeans, the shape of her cunt pressing against his cock. His brain was short-circuiting — desire and disbelief and the faint, distant awareness that the movie was still playing, that some character was having a breakdown in a parking lot, that none of it mattered.
"You're wearing too many clothes," he said.
"So are you."
They undressed each other in stops and starts. Her sweater came off first — she pulled it over her head and tossed it somewhere, and Jordan barely got a glimpse of her breasts in a simple black bra before she was tugging at his shirt. He helped her, yanking it over his head, and then her mouth was on his neck, teeth grazing his collarbone, and his hands were fumbling with the clasp of her bra.
It took him three tries. She laughed. He ignored her.
The bra came loose, and she pulled it off, and there they were — her nipples hard and dark against her pale skin, the curve of her breasts catching the flickering light from the TV. Jordan leaned forward, took one nipple in his mouth, and Genesis gasped.
"Fuck," she whispered. "Your mouth."
He sucked harder. She moaned, her hips grinding against him, and he could feel how wet she was already, soaking through the denim. His cock was straining against his zipper, aching for release, but he couldn't stop touching her.
"Jeans," she said. "Off. Now."
They worked together to get them off — awkward, clumsy, both of them laughing as she nearly fell off the couch trying to peel them down her legs. But then they were gone, her panties too, and she was naked in his lap, and Jordan had to pause for a moment just to look at her.
She was beautiful. Not in a movie way. Not in a filtered, perfect way. In a real way. Her hair was a mess from his hands. Her lips were swollen from kissing him. There was a faint red mark on her collarbone where he'd sucked too hard, and her stomach curved softly when she breathed, and there was a small scar on her left knee from falling off a bike when she was eight.
He knew that because he'd asked her about it. He'd asked her everything.
"You're staring," she said.
"I'm admiring."
"Same thing."
"Not the same. Admiring implies—"
She kissed him to shut him up.
Then she reached between them. Unbuttoned his jeans. Pulled his cock free — hard and aching and already leaking — and wrapped her hand around it. Jordan's head fell back against the couch.
"Condom," he managed.
"In my bag."
"Where's your bag?"
"I don't know."
"Genesis—"
"I'll find it."
She found it. Or rather, she stood up, walked naked across the living room, fished through her bag, and returned with a foil packet that she tore open with her teeth. Jordan watched the whole thing with a kind of dazed wonder. The way the light caught the curve of her ass. The way she smirked at him when she caught him looking.
"See something you like?" she asked.
"Get back here."
She got back. Rolled the condom on. Straddled him again. And then she sank down onto his cock, and Jordan forgot how to breathe.
"Oh fuck," she whispered. "Oh fuck, Jordan—"
He couldn't speak. Couldn't think. She was so hot inside, so wet, so impossibly tight, and she was moving — slow at first, rocking her hips, taking him deeper with every pass. He gripped her ass, his fingers digging into the soft flesh, and she moaned and sped up.
The movie played on. Somewhere, someone was crying. Maybe in the film. Maybe in the room. Jordan couldn't tell.
Genesis's hands were on his chest, her nails raking lines down his skin. She was riding him like she'd been doing it for years, like she knew exactly what she wanted and exactly how to take it. Her tits bounced with every thrust, and Jordan watched them, mesmerized, unable to look away.
"You feel so good," she said. "God, you feel so good inside me."
"You feel—" He couldn't finish. Couldn't find the words.
"I know."
She leaned down. Kissed him. Her tongue swept into his mouth, and he tasted popcorn and her and something sweeter underneath. Her hips never stopped moving. Never stopped taking him.
Then she reached down.
Jordan didn't realise what she was doing until he felt her fingers on his cock, touching the base of the condom, rolling it up.
"Genesis—"
She peeled it off. Just like that. Pulled it free and tossed it onto the floor, where it landed in a sticky smear of lubricant and latex.
"Genesis, what the fuck—"
But she was already sinking back down onto him. Bare. Wet. Hot. So much hotter without the condom, so much tighter, and Jordan's brain went offline entirely.
"I'm on the pill," she said. "I want to feel all of you."
"Are you—"
"I trust you." She kissed him. Hard. "I want this. I want to feel you come inside me."
He should have stopped. Should have said something responsible, something logical, something that made sense. But she was moving again, riding him bare, and he could feel every inch of her — every ridge, every texture, the tight flutter of her cunt around his cock — and he couldn't think. Couldn't argue. Couldn't do anything except grip her ass and fuck up into her.
"Yes," she gasped. "Fuck me. Fuck me just like that."
He did. He fucked her with everything he had, thrusting up into her, matching her rhythm. The couch springs groaned beneath them. The movie soundtrack swelled and faded. And Genesis kept moving, kept taking him, kept whispering his name like a prayer.
"I'm close," he said. "I'm so close—"
"Don't stop."
"I need to—"
"Inside." Her legs locked around his waist. "I want to feel it inside."
"Genesis—"
"Do it. Please. Come inside me."
He tried to pull out. Some last shred of logic tried to assert itself, tried to convince him that this was a bad idea, that he should be careful, that there would be consequences. But Genesis said please, and her legs tightened around him, and her cunt clenched around his cock, and Jordan surrendered.
He came buried to the hilt.
The orgasm was white-hot and endless, rolling through him in wave after wave. He felt himself pulse inside her, felt her gasp and shudder against him, felt the hot rush of his own come filling her up. She rode him through it. Kept riding him even as he shook with oversensitivity, her hips grinding slow and deliberate, milking every last drop.
"That's it," she whispered. "That's it. I feel you. I feel all of you."
Jordan couldn't speak. His entire body was buzzing. His hands had gone slack on her hips. His head was thrown back against the couch, his throat exposed, and he was completely and utterly undone.
Genesis kissed his neck. Soft. Sweet. The opposite of everything they'd just done.
"I've wanted that," she said, "since the orchard."
He blinked at her. "What?"
"The orchard. Apple picking. You were explaining the different types of apples, and you got this look on your face — this intense, focused look, like apples were the most important thing in the world — and I thought, I want him to look at me like that." She sat up, her hands on his chest, her body still connected to his. "And then I thought, I want him inside me. No barriers. No protection. Just him."
"You didn't say anything."
"I was waiting."
"For what?"
"For you to catch up." She smiled. That smile. "You're very slow sometimes."
"I'm deliberate."
"You're slow."
He laughed. It came out breathless and broken. "I love you."
"I know."
"Say it back."
She leaned down. Kissed him. Long and slow and tender, her body settling against his like it belonged there.
"I love you too," she said. "Now hold me. The movie's almost over."
They didn't watch the movie. They lay tangled on the couch, Genesis curled against his chest, his come still leaking out of her, the condom lying forgotten on the floor. The credits rolled. The screen went black. The room settled into darkness, lit only by the glow of the laptop and the streetlights bleeding through the blinds.
Jordan's fingers traced lazy patterns on Genesis's back. His mind was quiet for once. No overthinking. No analysis. Just her.
"We should clean up," he said eventually.
"Don't want to."
"You're going to get a UTI."
"We'll shower in the morning."
"You said that last time."
"Last time worked out fine."
He couldn't argue with that.
She shifted, tilted her head up to look at him. Her eyes were soft. Her face was open. She looked like she was about to say something important, and Jordan braced himself for it — braced for the fear, the doubt, the existential spiral that usually followed moments of vulnerability.
But she just said, "I'm glad you asked me to go apple picking."
"Me too."
"I'm glad you wrote all those creepy notebook entries."
"Thanks."
"I'm glad you're here."
"You're on top of me."
"Same thing."
He kissed her forehead. She closed her eyes. And for a long time, they just breathed together in the dark.
The laptop battery eventually died. The room went fully black. Somewhere outside, a car passed, its headlights sweeping across the ceiling like a lighthouse beam. Jordan's hand settled on Genesis's waist. Her breathing slowed. Her body went heavy against his.
She was asleep.
He should sleep too. He knew that. But he kept thinking about what she'd said — I've wanted that since the orchard — and how long she'd been waiting. How long they'd both been waiting. Months of dancing around each other. Months of missed signals and half-confessions and the careful construction of plausible deniability.
All of it for this.
She shifted in her sleep. Mumbled something. Her hand found his chest and rested there, fingers curled loosely over his heart.
Jordan closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, he'd write a new entry in his notebook. Something about the couch. Something about the way the light hit her face. Something about the word inside, and how it meant something different now.
But tonight, he just held her.
That was enough.
That was enough.
The weeks after didn't announce themselves. They simply arrived, one morning at a time, until Jordan looked up and realised a month had passed without him noticing.
September bled into October. The leaves outside his window went from green to gold to a wet brown mush that stuck to the soles of his shoes. He bought a second mug for coffee. Then a third. Genesis started leaving things behind — a hairbrush, a charger, a paperback she was reading for a seminar she kept skipping.
He didn't ask her to move in. Neither did she. It just happened, the way water finds the lowest point in a room.
Her lease was up in November. Her roommate was moving to Portland with a boyfriend nobody liked. Genesis mentioned it casually, one night, while she was eating takeout on his couch in nothing but his T-shirt.
"Looks like I need a new place," she said.
Jordan's heart did something complicated.
"You could stay here," he said. The words came out before he could overthink them. That was new.
She looked at him. Chewed. Swallowed.
"With my cat?"
"I like your cat."
"You've met my cat twice."
"I'm an optimist."
She laughed. That laugh. The one that had started all of this, months ago, when he'd told a terrible joke about Kierkegaard walking into a bar.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay?"
"Okay, I'll move in."
He kissed her. The takeout went cold. Neither of them cared.
The cat arrived three days later.
Her name was Diane. She was grey and fat and deeply suspicious of Jordan, which he respected. She spent the first week hiding under his bed, emerging only at night to eat his plants and stare at him while he slept.
"She'll warm up to you," Genesis promised.
"She's plotting my death."
"She's a cat. That's how they show love."
Diane eventually claimed the windowsill as her throne. She watched the street below with the detached disdain of a minor deity. Occasionally, she allowed Jordan to touch her. He took this as a sign of progress.
The apartment changed. It became theirs.
Genesis hung prints on the walls — art history stuff, mostly, things Jordan didn't understand but liked looking at. She filled the kitchen with spices he couldn't pronounce and a cast-iron pan that weighed more than Diane. She bought a rug that clashed with the couch and refused to return it.
"It's called character," she said.
"It's called clashing patterns."
"Same thing."
He learned the rhythms of her body. Not just sexually — though that too, endlessly, insatiably — but in the small ways that mattered. How she woke up slow, grumpy, needing coffee before conversation. How she hummed while she cooked, always something off-key. How she got quiet when she was thinking, her eyes going distant, her fingers tapping against her thigh.
He learned that she cried during documentaries about animals. That she hated the sound of people chewing. That she slept on her stomach, one arm thrown over him, her breath warm against his neck.
He wrote it all down. New notebook. Fresh pages. Diane knocked it off the counter once, and Genesis found it, and there was a whole thing, but that's a different story.
The sex didn't stop. It evolved.
They fucked on the kitchen counter. On the floor. Against the wall by the bathroom, her leg hooked over his hip, his hand clamped over her mouth so the neighbours wouldn't hear. They fucked in the shower until the hot water ran out. They fucked on the balcony at 2 a.m., city lights blurring below them, her whispers turning to steam in the cold air.
They fucked slowly, sometimes. The kind of slow that made Jordan's teeth ache. Genesis on top, moving like she had all the time in the world, her eyes locked on his. Tracing the lines of his face with her fingers. Telling him she loved him in a voice so soft he almost missed it.
They fucked rough, other times. The kind of rough that left marks. Her nails down his back. His hand in her hair. The word please on her lips, over and over, until neither of them remembered what it meant.
He learned what she liked. What made her gasp. What made her come.
She liked being held down. Not hard — just enough to feel it. His hand on her throat, not squeezing, just there. A reminder. She liked when he talked to her, dirty things, filthy things, narrated what he was doing and what he was going to do.
She liked being told she was good. That she was perfect. That she was his.
He learned to say those things without embarrassment. Without overthinking. The philosophy student in him wanted to analyse it — what does it mean to call someone yours, what are the power dynamics, what are the implications — but the man in him just wanted to watch her face when he said it.
She came harder when he did.
He learned other things too. Things about himself.
He liked when she took control. When she pushed him onto the bed and climbed on top and rode him until he couldn't see straight. When she told him what to do — don't move, don't come yet, wait for me — and he obeyed. There was something in the surrender that undid him. Something in the trust.
He liked her mouth. God, he liked her mouth. The way she looked up at him from her knees, eyes dark, lips wet, his cock sliding between them. The way she hummed when he came, swallowing, not wasting a drop.
He liked watching her touch herself. Sometimes she'd do it while he watched — spread out on the bed, fingers between her legs, telling him not to move, not to touch, just look. He'd sit there, hard and aching, and watch her come apart, and it was almost better than touching her.
Almost.
One night in December, it snowed.
The city shut down. Everything closed. They stayed inside, wrapped in blankets, watching the world go white through the window. Diane sat between them, purring, finally at peace.
Genesis was reading. Jordan was pretending to read, but really he was watching her. The way her brow furrowed when she concentrated. The way she bit her lip.
"What?" she said, without looking up.
"Nothing."
"You're staring."
"I'm admiring."
She looked up. That smile.
"Come here," she said.
He went.