Grace loved a good reveal. The anticipation, the drama, the shock and excitement. You could make nearly anything feel spectacular if you just presented it the right way. And she had a doozy waiting for Will. Now that she had survived the self-induced horror of Manhattan's seediest adult video stores, spending more time bracing herself before she touched any surface than she did looking through the movies, scanning the most disgusting pun-filled titles, picking through tapes with degrading covers until she found the ones with her assistant's picture on them, it was starting to hit her just how ridiculous her day had become, and she knew she had a juicy story to cheer her best friend up with after spending the morning packing away his business.

She just needed to sell it.

She walked into Will's apartment and found him by the TV, wine glass in hand and looking like he had just been put through the wringer. This was perfect; this was too easy. All she needed to do was claim she had the worse day, and they would one-up each other until she could finally show him Karen Walker's acting debut and bask in the glory of his defeat. She poured herself some wine as she listened to his cater-waiter gig from hell, admittedly impressive but seriously lacking the edge her story had, courtesy of her socialite assistant cracking a whip in a latex maid's uniform. She would give it a moment. Let him think he won with the laxatives Jack slipped into his soup. Let him feel victorious for a few seconds. And then go in for the kill.

"Oh, what's this?" she asked as she pulled her copy of Next to Godliness out from inside her blouse. "Oh, yes, yes, yes! Karen actually doing work."

She saw the way Will scrunched up his face and couldn't help but grin. He had no idea what was coming. He couldn't possibly prepare himself. She was living for this. "No, no, Grace, that's not gonna do it," he insisted as she slid the tape into the VCR.

She sat down beside him on the loveseat and pushed play. "Let's just go to the videotape, shall we?"

In an instant, Karen appeared on their screen, twenty years younger but with the same diabolically scorching smirk she got whenever she knew she was in control. It was the same one that infuriated Grace every time she got the distinct impression that Karen was trying to be the worst employee in the world just for kicks, that she reveled in when she realized it was meant for someone else's misfortune, that sometimes set something off inside her that she couldn't quite pinpoint yet, but whatever it was, she knew it felt good. She didn't want to turn her gaze away from the screen-Karen did have a way of commanding your attention-but out of the corner of her eye, she could see Will's jaw start to drop and felt herself nearly matching Karen's smirk at the thought of what would come next.

She just hadn't fully realized she wasn't smirking at the thought of Will's reaction.

Grace felt the slightest spark in her core when Karen let her voice drop to its lowest register, made the most ridiculously terrible dialogue sound insanely convincing. Impossibly convincing. Like Karen wouldn't even need to finish the thought, and you would give yourself completely to her anyway. For a moment, she wondered how she could get Karen to let her voice fall like that for her, without caring to wonder why she wanted to get Karen to let her voice fall like that. How did she not notice this before, the way it seemed like Karen could string together any combination of words and seduce you with them in a heartbeat?

How did something as awkwardly vile as "dirty pig baby" sound so damn sexy when it lived in her mouth?

Karen cracked the whip on screen, making Will and Grace jump in their seats at the sound. Will's reaction had to be from the shock and horror of it all, there was no question, but Grace...she knew it was coming. There were no surprises left; she had this image of her assistant in her head for hours now, ever since she told the guy fixing her fax machine there was no way he could be a fan of Karen's work and she had to race to the nearest video store to be proven wrong. The whip shouldn't affect her like that anymore. But the second she saw it make contact, the second she heard it crisply demand attention, she felt the charge from it run throughout her body, throwing her back onto the loveseat as far as she could go. She felt her heart pounding in the aftermath, felt herself get a little high from the thrill (it couldn't be the wine, she had just gotten started on it), and immediately hoped Will couldn't tell why she jumped when he did.

It didn't feel this exhilarating when she watched it in the office. It didn't feel this sensational. And there was no fucking way she was about to admit that to him.

"Oh, I fold," Will conceded as he toasted the wine glass she had resting against her thigh. But she couldn't register his defeat, couldn't move her glass, couldn't speak; she couldn't take her eyes, her mind off of Karen. When she popped Next to Godliness into the VCR at work, she was overwhelmed by this piece of Karen's past she knew nothing about, would never have guessed in a million years, and couldn't process much of anything beyond the fact that this video was a thing that existed, a thing that Karen had secretly been carrying with her for the last twenty years. But now that the initial shock of it all had hours to wear off, Grace couldn't believe she didn't notice the way Karen moved before, like she knew exactly where she was going to go, but she was in no way going to tell you. She couldn't believe she didn't notice the way she waved that whip around like it was second nature, the way she held it in her hands like she thrived off of the weight of it. She couldn't believe this was the same woman who barely lifted a finger in the office, who slept at her desk through the mornings she actually made an appearance before ten o'clock, who only put down the nail file when she needed a refill on her drink.

Grace had to admit, she had an inkling that Karen had something like this in her. Her assistant always did have a certain air of mystery about her, like you knew she was capable of just about anything but you weren't entirely sure about the things she acts on. She just didn't fully realize the dark haired woman could do the things she was watching her do right now.

And apparently, neither could Will.

"You know, if she showed half the work ethic at the office that she does hovering over that guy, you'd be the most successful interior designer in the world?"

If that wasn't going to pull her out of the moment, his satisfied little laugh at his own question certainly was. What the hell was that about? That snide remark? She looked over at him, actively working to pry her eyes away from Karen, and saw the way his laughter distorted the disgust on his face before it started to die down. She furrowed her brow, debating whether or not she should keep biting her tongue. It was offensive, really, the way it just spilled so easily from his lips; how dare he make fun of her like that? Was this all some big joke at Karen's expense? Is that why he thought she brought the video home?

Well…wasn't it? Come on, Grace. Isn't that what you kept telling yourself? You wanted him to see it because you couldn't believe it, you couldn't even begin to describe it if you tried, and you needed to drag someone down with you, needed someone else to have this knowledge too. Who better than your best friend? Forget about the way you haven't been able to take your mind off of Karen all day. Forget about the way it made you think about those times you felt a flutter when she passed by you, when she got close enough for her gin-soaked breath to warm you and leave goosebumps on your neck in its wake. Forget about how you used to be able to toss those moments to the back of your mind and forget about them until the image of Karen tying someone to the bedpost made you wonder what it would feel like if it were your hands above your head, staring up at the flawless latex vision tightening the knot and knowing you would welcome anything she wanted to do to you.

This wasn't about that. Obviously.

This was for Will to experience, not for you to keep experiencing, to keep feeling, to keep wondering.

That's your story. So stick to it.

Grace let out the least convincing barely-there laugh in response before trying to focus her attention back on the screen. She watched as Karen pushed her latest subject onto the floor and took a moment to draw her tongue across her whip-Christ, Grace forgot that part, how could she forget that part?-and felt herself being pulled into it once again, everything around her starting to fade into the background. She followed the path Karen's tongue was taking and could start to feel a small twinge between her legs, drew in her breath in realization. Fuck, she was screwed. What made her think she could sit here like this without Will catching on to the fact that something was up? She had to get up, had to excuse herself, needed an out. But she knew that if she tried to speak now, there would be something in her voice that would immediately clue him in on everything going on inside of her.

Thankfully, Will opened a window.

"God, this is a trainwreck, I can't look away. And I am not nearly drunk enough for this, which makes it so much worse."

Yes, the wine. Grace will get the rest of the wine, give herself a moment to cool off. And then she can down another glass and power through the rest of their little movie night. Perfect plan. Thanks, Will.

"You are such a child," she muttered in annoyance of his judgment, quickly realizing she needed to cover it up with a nudge and a laugh so she wouldn't show her hand. She saw him start to rise from his seat and quickly shot him down. "I've got the wine. Keep watching your trainwreck."

"Do I have to?" he asked, his joke curling at the edges as he cringed.

She couldn't respond, just got up from the loveseat to grab the bottle of wine resting in the kitchen, before she could blow her cover completely. She steadied herself against the marble of the countertop, closed her eyes and sighed. Come on. Pull yourself together, Grace. Do you realize how insane you're acting right now? It's just Karen. Okay, so maybe it's a new side of Karen. A more intriguing side. A more dangerous side. A more thrilling side. But still. It's just Karen.

But god...was Karen ever just Karen?

She barely had a year and a half under her belt with the dark haired woman, but she could tell you story after story about how their boundaries stopped existing, if they ever existed in the first place. It seemed like every day, Karen had something to say about what she was wearing, and every day, Karen would slide the fabric of Grace's blouse between her fingers and linger there like she knew exactly what she was doing and wasn't about to hide it. She needed more than both hands to count the times Karen had touched her breasts in the office, more than both hands to count the times she felt something because of it before trying to push it to the darkest depths of her mind. There were all those times she would let her eyes ride her assistant's curves before her cheeks flushed with an embarrassment she couldn't quite figure out. The time she fell asleep on top of Karen in a tequila stupor and felt those curves underneath her as she woke up. The disastrous dinner party she had a few weeks ago to break in the new apartment, when Karen complained about the picnic she laid out and the way the place smelled like a litter box and the way her dress landed a little too closely to the I Love Lucy end of the spectrum, but the second Karen hopped onto the kitchen counter with her martini, Grace let her gaze travel up her assistant's legs and for a fleeting moment had the intense desire to be as close to Karen's lips as that drink was. And she knew there were a million other moments she wasn't even remembering right now.

If that was Karen when she was supposed to be just Karen, Grace was just plain fucked from the start. And now, with Next to Godliness in her head, she knew she was in it when she shouldn't be. All because the fax machine needed a fix. And who was the one who shoved a fabric sample in there in the first place, wholeheartedly believing that it could be sent over phone lines?

Just Karen.

Goddammit.

"Come on, what's taking you so long? Don't leave me alone with this."

Grace tried to shake it all out of her body as best as she could, got herself to a place she thought she could handle around Will, and brought the wine bottle back to the loveseat. She poured, trying to keep her eyes off of the screen even though she could still hear the way Karen's voice dipped from time to time, like this twenty-year-old vision of her knew that Grace was in deep now and felt like completely submerging her. She hid the steadying breaths she was taking in her wine glass, barely taking in Will's reaction to the rest of the video. She stayed perfectly still and perfectly silent, shifting her gaze from the TV to her Cabernet whenever she realized Karen was about to do something that would set her off. She shifted her gaze a lot. Too much, really. What was she going to do when Will looked over at her and realized she wasn't watching? There were going to be questions. And he'd expect her to have answers. And what exactly would she say? How could she explain this one? There had to be some way to weasel out of it, dodge the questions, spit out something that only appeared to be an answer, but at least it was good enough. There had to be...

The spiral her mind was riding ran out the clock. Before she knew it, the screen faded to black.

Holy shit. They made it.

"Well, I'm thoroughly scarred for life," Will sighed as he got up from the loveseat and took away the wine glasses. He set the glasses down in the kitchen sink before he squirmed. "God, I need a shower."

It took a moment for Grace to register what he said and grab the tape from the VCR. "You're calling it a night?" she asked, hastily sliding the tape back into the box before holding it to her chest.

"I guess. Although I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to sleep after that." He made his way over to his best friend and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Just lock up when you leave," he said, heading for the bathroom before taking a moment to stop. "And throw that thing away, will you?" he asked, gesturing to the video. "We've been tortured enough tonight. That's a side of Karen we never need to see again."

Are you sure about that? Grace thought before her hand raced up to her lips, convinced she had accidentally said it out loud. She watched Will disappear into the bathroom without a second thought and sighed with the relief of knowing it stayed in her head.

She wasted no time hurrying out of Will's apartment across the hall to 9A. But as much as she wanted to be alone throughout the entire movie, the realization that the silence would only amplify her thoughts nearly knocked her to the ground with its weight. This was ridiculous. This shouldn't consume her the way it has. This was going to completely destroy the dynamic she and Karen had been building since she hired the dark haired woman. And wasn't that what Karen was worried about? Isn't that why she nearly quit before she saw what Grace had done for her, before Grace promised that this wouldn't change a thing between them?

No. It wouldn't change a thing between them. She wouldn't let it. Just get a good night's sleep, Grace. This will all go away in the morning.

She said it to herself over and over again until she began to believe it.

Grace started making her way to her bed when she spotted her wastebin out of the corner of her eye. With the video still in her hand, she hovered above the bin, seriously considering what Will wanted her to do with the tape. This was supposed to be a once and done thing, anyway. No one else was supposed to see it. So there was no reason for her not to trash it.

Although...maybe that wasn't the best idea.

Maybe it was a good thing that she had this. That she kept this.

Because as long as it was here, she could hold onto it for safekeeping. After all, she had spent her day hunting for every last copy of this thing just to make sure no one else ever saw Karen like that again. Did Will even realize how easy it could be for someone to just come along and pick this out of the trash, to start the cycle all over again? She wouldn't want it to fall into the wrong hands. And he didn't need to know that she still had it. She sighed and slid the tape onto an end table before going to bed, resolving to find a better hiding spot for it in the morning, out of sight, out of mind. It wasn't like she was ever going to watch it again; she was sure she could find a place in her shoebox of an apartment where it would never see the light of day. It was fine. She was doing Karen a favor. She was being a good friend. No harm done.

In no time, they'd be able to forget this ever happened.