Will rolled over in the queen-sized bed, turning away from the near-stranger beside him. He rolled his eyes, restless. When he had boarded that plane to Paris the previous day, it had seemed so romantic; the guy he had been admiring from afar had just happened to be at the airport where Will had gone to reunite Grace with Nathan, and he had made a spontaneous decision to buy a ticket and follow him to France. But now, as Will listened to the irregular snores of this new lover, it didn't seem so romantic.
After five more minutes of tossing and turning under the jersey knit sheets, Will figured out what was bothering him. He slid out from the covers and silently crossed to the big picture window on the south wall of the hotel room. He pulled the brocade curtains open ever-so-slightly, just enough to allow a thin sliver of moonlight to fall across the room. The lover stirred in his sleep, then rolled onto his stomach, turning his face away from the moonlight that was streaked across his eyelids. Will didn't even care that he had disrupted him, and got down on his hands and knees to begin the quest for his boxers.
He crawled along the coarse carpeting, hands outstretched, fingers grasping for the thin cotton underpants that had been cast aside in the midst of a lustful encounter just hours before. The two men had sat next to each other on the airplane and made small talk most of the way. Will could tell right off the bat that this guy wasn't nearly as interesting as he had hoped he would be, but he was determined to make the best of it. It seemed too perfect the way things had worked out - he knew he had to find out where this could go. And so, immediately upon disembarking the 757 that had carried them across the ocean, the pair had gotten a hotel room and got right down to business.
Ah! There they are! Will fingered the soft cotton of his boxers and stood, sliding them up his legs. For some reason, the thought of being nude in bed with this guy was weirding him out. But he couldn't figure out if it was because of the guy or because of his own insecurities - if this aversion to nakedness was just one of his many quirks. Will had made a habit of dressing himself as quickly as possible after sex, leaving the ever-changing face of the person he was in bed with confused about his insecurity. He had only made one exception to this rule; there was only one partner that he had felt comfortable enough with to lay and sleep next to the entire night with nothing but the sheets separating their heated bodies.
As Will climbed back into the bed next to this new guy (who he was sure would be gone by tomorrow), he couldn't help but think of her. She had been so different than any of his other partners, besides for the obvious reason that she was a female. He had felt like sharing himself with her, his whole self, and that was something he had never experienced with any other lover. Most of the time they were just there to satisfy his sexual needs, but she was there to love him and be loved by him.
It's not that the sex with this guy hadn't been good, because it most certainly had been. But ever since Will had slept with Karen in the Virgin Islands almost one year ago, no other sexual partner could measure up. Actually, no other person could measure up. Will still hadn't had any kind of relationship since Michael, and after his short-lived but incredible affair with Karen, he was almost positive that he never would, simply for the fact that no one else on the planet could be as attuned to his soul and body as she was.
Since their tryst in the islands, Karen and Will had been on friendly terms. They were certainly much more tolerant of each other than they had been before the trip, and only they knew the real reason for their sudden friendship. They had never spoken of what had happened between them or the letter Will had sent to Karen along with the journal that detailed his innermost feelings for her, but it always hung in the air between them, thick. Not in a bad or awkward way, by any means - but in a reassuring way, a comforting way. There was a new, unspoken trust between them, one built in love and friendship.
No, no one would ever live up to Karen. No one could ever live up to Karen. But that was just a distant memory now, an improbability that had quickly turned to an impossibility now that Karen and Stan's marriage was back on solid ground. The thought elicited a heavy sigh from Will as he fluffed his pillow in aggravation. He supposed he would just have to accept it for what it was, face reality, and be grateful for the time they had spent together. They both knew and understood that they could never be together. But that didn't stop Will from cherishing the sweet memories of their days on the beach, the bonds they had formed, and the intimacy they had shared. He smiled as he finally drifted off to sleep, pretending the warm body next to him was Karen and picturing her angelic face smiling up at him from her desk in Grace's office.