Never Let Him Go
An outtake from "Breathe," my upcoming sequel to "Breath." Soon, I promise.
For Uhura it has never been sex for its own sake. She's always held the tenet, "friendship first, romance, second." She slept with men before Spock, but …. She never met any brilliant guys, really. There were bright ones, very handsome ones, but none were interested in anything long-term and frankly, she wasn't either. Sure, they were nice enough, but casual about romance, and so was she, once she'd turned 20. Before that, before Starfleet Academy, a beautiful South Asian man broke her heart in language school. She was rather serious about him, and he seemed to be serious about her too. But one night Sendhil told her he was about to be married – an arranged marriage, in accordance with his culture's ancient tradition – and she was furious with hurt.
After that, it was casual. Not terribly meaningful, except for the friendships forged. She was too busy in her first year at Starfleet Academy to be serious about anything but study and physical fitness. At this point "romance" was limited to good sex and a cuddle on a cold night, a fun "roll" after drinks and dancing, a breathless round of sex after a dangerous cadet training exercise, a mutual love of poetry that led to a few weeks of bedding together, good-natured conversation and quoting literature ironically as they said a final farewell. The end of the ahhn-ahhn-ohGod!-unngghh. Until next time.
Then she met Spock and it all changed. This was a slow build, date after date, conversation and challenge and more conversation, exploring questions until her mind thrilled with contact with a fellow intellectual. One who respected her. One, who after months, admitted he loved her. She had waited so long to tell him, and did so.
There were mind-touches, too, even more thrilling than conversation – each was like entering the mansion of someone's mind and opening doors to see vistas of thought or sense or memory.
And when it finally got to sex, it wasn't sex. It was lovemaking of the highest order – Spock took the time to thoroughly research human sexual response, and it soon became clear that he could be expert in anything he chose.
And he was.
Gradually, as they built more mutual trust, he began mind-touches during their lovemaking and these opened new worlds of sensation and feeling, for both of them.
… She will never let him go, not if she can help it. He doesn't want to be let go, she knows, as intimately as she knows the sound of her own name from his mouth.
He is perfect, even if he is almost a head taller and she has to stand on her tiptoes to kiss him.
He always, always leans in.