As a maturing young person, age 13, Spock experienced an embarrassing biological effect of the maturation process. He'd expected to be called out for his human failings because what else could it be? Instead, his father explained that this new development was merely a precursor to the terrifying, inescapable madness that was the Vulcan reproductive cycle. Young Spock, sitting numbly on the edge of his bed, could not keep horror from showing on his face as his father laid out the facts of pon farr, with the caveat that he must never speak openly about it, or divulge this secret to outsiders. He was then prescribed a specific and rigorous form of meditation and left to anxiously obsess about it though most of his adolescence.
But after the first time with T'Pring he realized that a certain… surrender of control was necessary in sexual interactions. He'd recovered his senses without much trouble afterwards, and in every sexual experience since. It was quite possible his human genetics would allow him to escape the cycle altogether. It was also possible Sarek had overstated the severity of the issue to manipulate him.
Long ago, Spock came to the realization that his father was not particularly good at being a father. Evidence suggested he was, in fact, terrible at it. One son had voluntarily chosen V'tosh Ka'tur and a life of crime. An adopted daughter had been so rigidly indoctrinated, so certain that Vulcans knew best, that she'd started war with the Klingons, and later sacrificed herself on the altar of "the good of the many."
Currently, Sarek's youngest son – a card-carrying member of an organization for which the Ambassador had little respect – lay unconscious and dreaming while a slow-moving lava of arousal ambled towards his groin.
Spock knew he was dreaming. Dreaming made the scenario playing out behind his eyes seem less transgressive somehow. Even permissible. For in the dream, Christine knew she was being watched and found it acceptable.
They were in a large dressing room, the details of which were fuzzy at the peripheries. Spock found himself both watching from behind an ornate screen, and watching through the mirror in front of her.
At first, she'd been wearing the black and white dress, but then, when she began to disrobe, it was her uniform she removed.
Between the slats of the screen, he gazed, vibrating with exquisite tension, his heart thumping, his body fevered as she slowly unzipped and peeled the uniform back like the skin of some pale exotic fruit. In contrast, his perspective through the mirror was almost clinical, reflecting her own cool examination of her appearance, the way she touched her throat, and drew the back of her fingers up along her jaw to her right ear, moving her hair aside.
Under the glacier white of her uniform, however, was a disconcerting negative space, a stripe or bar across her chest like a void. His rational brain did brief battle with his imagination until the bar became a black velvet brassiere cupping her breasts from underneath the way his hands would do if he were to step out and put his arms around her from behind. By the time her uniform slipped down around her waist, then her hips, and down and down, he'd replaced the anticipated negative space over her mons with a triangle of black satin.
Dream Christine observed these alterations with a detachment he found provocative in the extreme. In the expeditious logic of dreams, all her clothing melted away so that she stood naked with all the curves and slopes and dips and swells in front and back viewed simultaneously. He marveled at the apricot-tint of her areolae (Christine loved apricots), the stark color contrast between her pubic hair and the hair on her head, the flex of muscles in the backs of her thighs that made the flesh of her buttocks jiggle slightly, the ruddier hue at the backs of her knees that made him want to lick them.
Posed briefly like Botticelli's Venus, she moved from delicate, erotic modesty to trace a line with slender fingers down her body from throat to labia. Her head fell back, and she began to pleasure herself. He watched through the mirror and watched her from behind, a deep shudder running through him—
"Spock…"
His name, so soft in her mouth.
"Spock…"
He tensed, hoping he was not still lying unconscious in the sickbay but his own quarters where sleep orgasm would be far less humiliating.
Illogical. How could he be thinking about being unconscious while unconscious?
The press of her body leaning over him, breasts brushing lightly over his chest felt too real.
"You need to lie perfectly still. Let me take care of you."
In sickbay. He was still in sickbay!
The material of the bio-bed squeaked and crackled on either side of his prone form as she straddled him. He couldn't get his eyes to open. His limbs were too heavy to lift. He could neither push her away, nor tame the physical evidence of his arousal.
No. No no no no…
This screaming protest in his head emerged a muted whisper.
"It's okay," she said, minty breath warm and wet at his ear. "We're friends…"
She rolled her hips.
"…with benefits."
Frantically, he attempted to recite the first analects of Surak. He knew them by rote, but they kept bouncing off the surface of his mind.
"Spock…"
Wake up!
"Spock."
Wake. Up.
"Mr. Spock."
wakeupwakeupwakeup
"Lieutenant—"
That isn't Christine's voice, he thought, just before someone slapped him.
Spock blinked up at the ceiling, the quiet background sounds of sickbay providing a moment of respite before the residual sting of the slap focused his awareness. He touched his cheek—
"Sorry about that," Dr. M'Benga said, gesturing at the mark on Spock's face with a stylus. "I was concerned you were trying to enter a healing trance and we can't risk that with a head injury."
Spock did not correct the doctor's misapprehension. The privacy screen around the biobed station had been activated and hoped it was not the only concerning thing M'Benga had noticed.
"That branch came down pretty hard on your head. You were lucky. Mr. Kirk estimates it weighed close to 150 kilos. If it had hit him, even a glancing blow like yours, he'd have been dead."
"He was not in proximity and therefore not at risk."
"He was upset he hadn't realized how badly you'd been injured."
"I did not realize it myself."
"Yes. You Vulcans are a hardy lot. Anyway, I sent him home so expect uncomfortable groveling at some point in the future."
"Where is Chri—Nurse Chapel?"
"Her shift was over, so I made her leave too. She'll be back to see how you're doing in a couple of hours."
"Please inform her that will not be necessary."
"I can inform her, but I don't think that'll stop her…" M'Benga trailed off, noting some alteration in Spock's demeanor. He fixed his eyes on his notepadd a moment, tapping the stylus lightly on the screen. "Nurse Chapel left the department at eighteen thirty-two, Mr. Spock. Over an hour ago. And I activated the privacy screen as soon as I noted your… distress. In case you were concerned on that account."
Spock felt his limbs loosen. He closed his eyes. M'Benga cleared his throat again. "Right. Okay. I'll let her know you'd prefer not to have visitors for a bit."
A 'bit" turned into cultivated avoidance for the next few days and carried into the next three weeks.
T'Pring's concern for his well-being and recovery after his injury had been short-lived – quite logically since he'd only informed her of it after he'd been back on duty. He was grateful they had returned to their routine of scheduled meetings via subspace.
His sexual infatuation with a human seemed foolish now. An injury-induced fantasy he could dismiss, though it troubled him how easily he had inserted a friend into the scenario.
As was often the case, T'Pring's visage onscreen left him a little breathless. A cascade of sensoria tangled in memories he had to wrestle into order and subdue before he could speak. Because she was brilliant and beautiful and he knew her scent intimately, and the way her hair slid between his fingers, and the clipped precision of her voice when she said There. Like that. More.
But this evening T'Pring didn't quite meet Spock's gaze – which sent a warning signal to his limbic cortex.
"You should be advised that a colleague here at the facility has expressed an interest in expanding the parameters of a professional relationship." She paused, looked up briefly to clarify, "With me."
Curiously, his first reaction was relief. Which was strange but he no time to ponder why exactly as irritation soon followed. He didn't care if she saw it. "That is a brash proposal. Who made it?"
"Healer N'Keth. You have not met him."
"Are you actively considering some sort of…" He searched for a word suitably trivializing. "…dalliance?"
"I am not."
"How then am I to respond to this, T'Pring? Why bring it to my attention?"
"I thought you should be informed."
Informed? No. She wanted him to be jealous.
Ever since the incident on the bridge with Nurse Chapel, when Angel had attempted to free his brother, T'Pring's desire for him to be demonstratively human in private – something she once claimed would be reason to dissolve their bond – had become pronounced. Sexual experimentation was one thing, but this was worryingly close to a fetish.
"Is there a course of action you wish me to pursue in the matter? Ritual combat perhaps?"
"You are mocking my concerns."
A worrisome possibility prickled the back of his neck. "Has he demonstrated signs of…aggression?"
If N'Keth was expressing early signs of pon farr she should take proactive measures immediately—
A tight shake of her head caused her earrings to sway. They were too heavy for her lobes and dragged on the pierced holes. "I do not believe the… needs of which he spoke were related to that specific condition."
Needs? Spock didn't prompt, didn't trust himself to maintain composure.
"Like me, N'Keth is also on long-term rotation at the Ankeshtan K'til facility and will not be with his wife physically for another two years. As you and I are separated under similar circumstances he suggested we might satisfy certain biological needs that, at present, we are unable to share with our preferred partners."
For the past three weeks, Spock had spent his off-duty hours in self-flagellating meditation, berating himself for the puerile objectification of a friend, and an entirely subconscious infidelity to his fiancé. He had actively avoided Christine Chapel, being civil when circumstances brought them in proximity, but otherwise forgoing her company. He knew it confused her, perhaps even caused hurt feelings. But he believed it necessary. And all because he walked in on Sam Kirk kissing a woman not his wife. And perhaps, that blow to the head.
"He has assured me this is not an uncommon practice," she said. Spock detected a slight flush of anxiety or embarrassment in the heightened color of her cheeks. "Though he has offered no evidence as to the veracity of his claim."
The irony was almost too on point. How could he challenge this Healer N'Keth for daring to suggest what was apparently a universal solution to the loneliness of deep space assignments.
"And what is it that you want, T'Pring?"
"I- I don't know. You, primarily."
He knew she spoke the truth and yet, despite her earlier denial, he also knew she would not have mentioned N'Keth's proposal unless she had, however fleetingly, considered it.
"Do you require some tacit demonstration of my approval?"
"I don't need your approval," came the sharp reply.
"Nor my permission."
"You are the man I have chosen Spock."
"But I am not the man who is there."
"Spock…"
"Until next time." He cut the connection and went to the bar.