2005

"Ugh, it was awful; revolting," Jack told Will, making a face like he had just smelled old cheese.

"God," Will said in agreement, taking a sip of hot coffee from his purple mug, "I can imagine." He made a face. "Ew - no. I don't want to imagine that."

"I know! And the worst part is; technically she's still married to Stan!" Jack watched as Will came around his kitchen counter to sit at the round table next to him.

"Well, what Karen does in her marriage is her business," Will chided. Jack rolled his eyes.

"Maybe that's true for you," Jack told him, "but I can't let her just throw everything away. God knows I've been trying to bust up her and Malcolm for weeks now."

"Well I'm sure you walking in on them having sex will ease the tension," Will replied sarcastically.

Jack nodded sadly and stirred his spoon in his cereal. Images from the awkward encounter of not even 12 hours ago flooded his mind. Jack had thrown open Karen's bedroom door, excited to go shopping and have the opportunity to talk to her about Stan without the interruption of her new boyfriend, Malcolm. He was supposed to be away on business, but when the door flew open, there was Malcolm, naked under a sheet, hovering over an also-nude Karen.

"Why do you care so much, anyway?" Will asked, noticing Jack's utter despair over Karen's adultery and her crumpling marriage to Stanley. "We all know that Karen does whatever the hell she wants. You've never been this controlling of her relationships before." He raised his mug to his face to take a drink.

Jack immediately became defensive and snapped back at him.

"Maybe because I'm in love with her, ok?"

Will choked on his coffee and quickly set his mug down to grab a napkin and wipe up his mess while he stared at Jack's face, which was still etched with rage, yet completely oblivious to the words that had just come out of his mouth. When Jack, confused by Will's reaction, realized what he had said, his face softened as confusion flooded him.

"I-I mean…because I love her," he corrected. "Like you love Grace. That's what I meant." Wasn't it? "I just don't want her to make a big mistake."

Will nodded slowly in understanding, but eyed Jack suspiciously.

Later that day, Jack paced his apartment thinking about everything that was happening. His mind was running wild with images of Karen moaning in pleasure beneath Malcolm last night, sound bytes of his conversation with Will that morning, and the vision of Karen in her wedding dress, ten years ago almost to the day, arm in arm with a beaming Stan.

But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't the vision of Karen in the throes of sexual ecstasy out of his mind. Her back arched, her brow wet with sweat, her perfect red lips parted seductively. God, she was sexy.

Suddenly Jack realized that his memory was turning him on in a big way. There was no doubt about it, he wanted Karen. His body was reacting to her sexuality in a way it had only one other time - the day Grace got married when he had kissed Karen in the hallway of the church and they had found themselves in each others' arms on the floor of the dressing room.

What the hell? He thought. His first reaction was to be repulsed by his reaction to thinking about Karen having sex, but he soon warmed up to the idea as he did the only thing he knew how to do. Throwing himself across his bed, he quickly undid his belt buckle and unzipped his jeans.

His hand moved up and down his shaft as he fantasized about Karen's raw sex appeal. He imagined running his hands over her bare breasts, relishing their softness and fullness under his fingers. With each pass of his fist, he visualized thrusting in and out of her, her flesh tight around him as they formed the closest bond two people can possible have. As he felt himself nearing orgasm, he bit his lip, pretending he was biting hers as he brought her to a mutual climax. In his mind, she cried out and shuddered beneath his weight, her eyes closed and her lips parted as she breathed his name over and over.

When he was finished, he let himself relax back onto the cush of the bed. He thought about the steady rise and fall of his chest as he recovered from his self-induced pleasure, but a small, nagging seedling of a thought had crept into his mind.

Sex with a woman had always only meant one thing to him: procreation. He had fathered Elliot by way of invitro fertilization, and had never had slept with a woman, she he naturally had not ever given thought to the creation of a life by natural means. But as he thought about Karen, and realized that making love to her would not be an altogether unpleasant thing, as he had always thought, he began to think that maybe also having a baby with Karen would not be an altogether unpleasant thing. It might be kind of romantic, actually. Not in the "true love" mushy gushy kind of way, of course, but in the way that two people who have a great affection for each other and bring a child into the world together would be.

Yes, should Karen ever want a child, he should be the one to give it to her. His mind was made up.

Not that he was sure that ever be an issue. She had been pregnant once - he remembered the horrible sounds of her sobbing and pleading with Will to keep her miscarriage a secret from Jack - but she had never spoken of it to him and never indicated a desire for a baby ever since. Even still, Malcolm would be out of the picture soon, and he knew Stan didn't want any more kids, so Jack felt that the task must fall to him.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at his door, and soon Karen was making her way through his front door. She plopped down onto the bed next to him, and neither of them spoke for a minute as Jack took her hand.

"Sorry," he told her, defeated. "About last night."

"Oh Poodle," she smiled, "I'm sorry…that you had to see that."

Jack pretended to be disgusted as he wrapped her in a soft embrace and sniffed her hair, wanting really nothing more than to enact the scene he had walked in on the previous evening, but take Malcolm's place.

"Well," he told her, "just don't let it happen again."

"Mmmm," she snuggled into him. "Ok." She squeezed her arms around his fleetingly before sitting up. "Jackie?"

"Yeah?" she looked up at her and toyed with the decorative buttons on her sleeve.

"You were right," she admitted, biting her lip. "About Malcolm."

"I was?"

"Yes. We had a long talk last night after you left, and I think I need to end it." She broke their eye contact and look down at her hands. "I miss Stan, honey." Her voice was a whisper. "He's the only man who's ever truly loved me. I can't walk out on that."

Jack sat up so that he was at her level. A tiny voice somewhere in his mind was screaming that what she just said wasn't true, that he loved her too and he always had, but the voice wasn't loud enough yet for him to hear it. Instead, he said the only thing he could think of.

"Oh, Karen."