Title: Learning to love
Disclaimer: I do not own the Star trek the characters or profit in from this writing.
Chapter 4 Touch
Spock sat drooping on his bed and listened to Sarek's approaching footfall. He pressed his lips hard together to stop his chin from quivering and tried to school his features into an impassive Vulcan mask.
His father entered Spock's room and stood quietly at the doorway, observing his son. Spock felt the gentle brush of Sarek's mind as he tasted his son's emotional state. His father drew a chair toward the bed and sat. Spock hadn't raised his eyes.
"Your mother is upset," stated Sarek. Spock's head jerked up in shock, the utterance was so unexpected. It was a redundant statement, unnecessary and illogical - as if either of them could be unaware of her distress when it beat against their minds like a frantic teresh-kah trapped behind a glass door in the kitchen. It was all Spock could do not to flinch every time a new flutter of distress began.
He looked at his father and utterly failed to maintain his stoic Vulcan expression.
"Your mother has informed me you told her she was not to cuddle you anymore. In addition, you told her that by cuddling you, she was disrupting your development." Sarek paused, giving his son a questioning glance.
Spock nodded.
"Why?"
"It is not Vulcan." Spock whispered.
Sarek was silent for so long Spock looked up. His father's face was its usual impassive mask.
"Your mother is not Vulcan and has different needs. Humans require touch in a way Vulcans do not. It is necessary for your mother's emotional and physical wellbeing that she be able to touch you."
Spock stared at his feet. He was deeply conflicted. He knew cuddling was not Vulcan. There was no word for "cuddle" in the Vulcan lexicon. The references he'd read on Vulcan child development all mentioned the need for discipline and restraint. None mentioned cuddling or tickling or snuggling.
The real problem was… the thing that truly concerned him was… that he liked it. He liked it when his mother pulled him on to her knee, tucking his head under her chin and wrapping him in her arms. She would rock him gently and sing him tuneless songs or tell him stories he already knew. He could hear her heart beating in her chest and the sibilant rush of air in her lungs. She would slip her hand under his shirt and give him what she called a "heart tickle." He would snuggle into her and she would stroke his hair.
And now he could not do it any more. He must do without and learn discipline, or he would never be Vulcan. He felt his mother's distress and he knew how she felt, trapped and alone.
"Spock, if your mother was diabetic, would you deny her insulin because it is not Vulcan?"
Spock was shocked. "No, Father. Vulcans do not suffer from diabetes, but it would be illogical to place Mother's health at risk by denying her needs."
"Quite. It is the same with cuddling; regardless of whether Vulcans have this need, it is necessary to your mother. A study of Earth health literature should show you this is so. I understand human children can wither and die if deprived of adequate touch. Human adults also suffer and can develop what I believe is called 'skin hunger'."
Sarek continued, "It is our duty to ensure that your mother's needs are met. She is isolated from her kind and has no one else to rely upon. In addition, Spock, remember it is a Vulcan's highest duty to meet the needs of his family; this is especially so of a bond mate or parent."
"So I should allow mother to cuddle me?"
"Indeed. As long as this does not cause you distress. "
"I believe I can tolerate it, Father."
"I believe your mother will be pleased."
##
Amanda Greyson watched her husband. He was in the dressing area adjacent to their sleeping room. Sarek's clothes hung to one side and hers to the other. There was a waist-high central island with shallow wide drawers on either side. These contained all the small items for grooming and adornment, with shoes stored in the bottom section. Long mirrors covered the end wall of the dressing area. The arrangement was extremely functional.
Sarek was in the light white undergarments he wore beneath his Vulcan robes. He had just tied the waist of the loose nether garments when Amanda entered.
"Husband," she said carefully masking her feelings.
"Wife?" came as acknowledgment and inquiry.
"Is it true that Vulcans are a truthful race?"
Sarek paused and looked at is wife in the mirror. "You are aware this is so."
"Then it distresses me to inform you that I have become aware a high-ranking Vulcan official has uttered untruths." As she spoke Amanda moved closer to her husband until she was standing within arms' reach of him.
He still kept is back to her as he replied, "Please elaborate."
"Well," she said and reached out and trailed a finger lightly down her husband's back. She was pleased to note his posture froze at the light touch. "It seems this high-ranking official informed our child that the need for touch is essentially a human one and Vulcans don't require touch in the way the weaker, inferior races, like humans, do."
Sarek had paused in the act of tying his writs bands and quietly replied, "I am sure this official didn't use those derogatory terms."
"Maybe," she conceded and now her other hand stroked gently across Sarek's muscular shoulders, "nonetheless, the clear impression was given that Vulcans don't crave touch every bit as much as humans."
Sarek swallowed visibly and his wife's hand trailed caressingly down to his lower back.
"Vulcans can exist without touch. "
"As can weak and needy humans," stated Amanda, stepping closer and stroking her hands around her husband. He watched the reflection in the mirror with steady fascination as the small efficient hands stoked across his belly and started to work under the edge of his undershirt. "It appears this official made it appear the need for touch was solely human. He said it was permissible to indulge in order to assuage the needy human and for the sake of familial harmony. However it was not necessary to Vulcans."
The hands were now moving under his shirt one stroked across the planes of his chest and the other pressed into the waistband of his nether garments.
"This Vulcan official neglected to mention he melted like ice in Vulcan's Forge under the hands of his wife, that he was more responsive to touch that anyone his wife had ever encountered …" here she ran her fingernails softly down Sarek's chest and belly so both hands were at his waist.
"This may not have been appropriate information for a child."
"Maybe," she conceded and pulled the waist tie that held Sarek's under garments so that the knot undid.
He placed his hand over hers. "I am due at the Embassy in half an hour."
"Is that so?" she continued and ran her free hand around to stroke over her husband's muscular backside. She stroked and caressed over the firm hard planes and curves of his rear, and the tops of his legs. She noted the trembling he was unable to suppress. Impassive Vulcan? Ha!
She whispered, "The official may be wise to keep this information confidential. Who knows what effect it may on Vulcan diplomacy if it were known?" She pressed hard against his back and rubbed her cheek against him. "Female spies may be sent to subvert negotiations and that could get very messy, as I would be forced to declare ko-telsu kali-fi and protect what is mine." She said the last word with harsh emphasis.
As she spoke she moved sightly away from him and to the side and then opened the bond and sent an vivid image of herself as a warrior woman from Vulcan's past, prepared to battle all who sought to take her man. She saw his response ripple though him.
"Wife, I will be late, you have made your point most persuasively. I was in error to mislead our son."
"Indeed you were. Our son is now ashamed of his own responses and needs, thinking them an indication of weakness - and un-Vulcan. This is unacceptable. He is your son and has your sensual nature. You need to correct the erroneous idea you have burdened him with."
She quickly reached over and finished pulling the tie free, causing Sarek's nether garments to fall, and slapped him stingingly hard on the left buttock.
He spun and grabbed her upper arms.
"You go too far, wife."
She looked him in the eye, completely unrepentant, smiling triumphantly.
"I don't go far enough," she replied, staring directly into his eyes as she reached and stroked between his legs. Her hand moved gently and rhythmically and she looked at he husband.
"I will be late." His voice was no longer completely calm.
"What major international issue waits you at the Embassy, Husband?"
"We are finalising the details of the Andorian trade agreement, the section related to fertilizer."
"Important matters indeed, the fate of worlds hangs in the balance."
Sarek, sounding slightly strained, replied, "It is important nonetheless."
"I believe that you should contact your office and tell them something urgent has… arisen…." purred Amanda.
"That would be an untruth, wife."
"Not so, Husband; I consider this…" she gripped him firmly and deepened her strokes, "very important."
"This is not behaviour appropriate to a Vulcan…"
"I am not Vulcan," she replied. "Consider this your punishment for not being truthful with our son; now you are forced to acknowledge your own hedonism and ability to deceive."
She sank gracefully to her knees and Sarek uttered a sound none of the people who had opposed the intractable and implacable Vulcan across a negotiation table would ever have believed he was capable of producing.
Sarek knew he had never had any hope of success in this confrontation. His opponent was implacable and possessed information she would ruthlessly and skilfully use against him.
Ambassador Sarek arrived at work a full ninety-eight minutes late. His staff accepted without question his assertion that there had been "pressing matters to attend to."
##
That night Sarek walked with his son in the garden and strove to explain that touch in all its forms was acceptable for both Vulcans and humans, in the appropriate situations.
"This appears to contradict you earlier statements, father," son replied.
"I believe I have unintentionally misled you, Spock. To clarify, Humans are generally more openly expressive and unrestrained in touching than Vulcans. You have witnessed the touching and hugging amongst your mother's family when we visit. " He glanced at his son sand saw him nodding, a slight crease between his eyebrows.
"Vulcans also value touching; indeed, touch is necessary for health, physical and psychological development. However, our touch telepathy changes the experience in ways that humans rarely understand. We must respect both personal and mental space. Because of this, we appear less amenable to physical contact, when it is more accurate to say we only engage in contact with an individual whose body and mind it is appropriate for us to touch. So, while we may touch significantly less than humans, for us, the experience is more intense."
Spock considered this, "This is logical, father."
Sarek nodded.
Amanda watched the exchange through he kitchen doors. She was sensing Spock's emotions as best she could. She thought of this as "listening at the door." She gradually became aware of an uncoiling of the tension in her son and smiled.
Present
Spock lies beside Nyota with his head resting just below her breasts. His warm breath moves over the plane of her belly. He rhythmically strokes her skin, tracing her contours delicately with his long fingers.
She looks down the curved graceful arc of his back, and runs her hand from his shoulders to the cleft of his buttocks and back, feeling the velvety heat of him.
When they first met she had noticed how he held himself gracefully, yet tightly furled, and utterly misinterpreted the signals. When they had started their relationship she'd expected to have to teach him the ways of touch.
From the beginning, he was the most physically responsive person she'd ever known and it was he that taught her. He'd slowed her frantic rush to orgasm; he'd taught her the journey mattered, not just the destination. They'd spent nights just touching, until she learned herself in a way she hadn't realised was possible. She didn't know if this was a Vulcan trait or a Spock trait; she just knew it was another reason she treasured him.
TBC…