Author: kalima
Date: 2023-08-09T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fanworks; Mature; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Christine Chapel/Spock; Spock; Christine Chapel; F/M; Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Description: Fear of Flying by Erica Jong - the first time Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller - the last time The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson - the end
Publisher: Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive

Preface

Three Books
Posted originally on the Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive at http://www.adastrafanfic.com/works/819.

Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

F/M

Fandom:

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Relationship:

Christine Chapel/Spock

Character:

Spock, Christine Chapel

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2023-08-09
Words: 686
Chapters: 1/1

Three Books
by kalima

Summary

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong - the first time
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller - the last time
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson - the end

Notes

SNW S2E5, S2E8 and whatever happens next.

Short. Experimental.

Three Books

Fear of Flying ~ Erica Jong

The first time when she came to him with I don’t know, shut up it was shut up and kiss me, shut up, fuck me. And that word, fuck, in that context, after hearing it used for years in other ways, in that context, it was a current through soft tissue, his whole body suddenly alight. In that context of fuck, when she pushed at him and he let her, pushed him back as if a soft surface on which to fuck would somehow rise up to meet their bodies, in that context, as they struggled to uncover just enough for their genitals to conjoin, his mind made the connection, the sudden “oh” at the notion of a zipless fuck, how this was the urge toward that kind of fuck, where “zippers fell away like rose petals, underwear blew off in one breath like dandelion fluff” and then too suddenly, connected the expression to how he knew it, and why and who, and so he used the word as talisman to push away the guilt even as they pushed themselves together. Fuck me now, fuck yes and fuck.

The only true obscenity is war ~ Henry Miller

“I’m not going to talk about it with you. Ever.” She slips past him into his quarters.

“Come in,” he mutters to her back.

She turns to face him, arms crossed tight over her chest like she’s actually holding herself together. “I just can’t. I don’t—I can’t.”

It is her right, he assures her. Strong emotions are difficult for him to navigate. His efforts to help had been clumsy. Apologies. He’s grateful she’s here. (He doesn’t say that part out loud.)

“No. I – I should have – you – your heart was in the right place.”

He uses the pedant in him to lighten the mood, noting, “It is in the right place for a Vulcan.”

She almost laughs. Almost.

“I have a therapist." Short steps, back and forth, back and forth, "But I haven’t – I mean, I’ve been okay for the last couple of years. I don’t need you for that. I don’t need to put that on you. You’re not my therapist, you’re my—”

She cuts it off. Stops pacing. Looks at him with eyes huge and glittering with whatever it was she’d almost confessed. He waits but then can’t seem to keep himself from prompting, “What? What am I?”

What is this?

This time it’s not I don’t know, shut up but it’s still shut up and fuck me.

He’s a kind of therapy. A ready canvas for all her frantic, desperate, clutching, pulling, tearing, teeth in his shoulder, nails digging bloody trenches into his back. An errant lump of clay to make what she needs. And oh, how she roars, groans, rocks, writhes, shoves and prods, pulls at him, needs, needs him.

Ssh, ssh, ssh he soothes against her temple and again into her frenzied ups and downs, a whirligig astride him, jolting him into her. She shudders, bears down. He thinks about birth. He stays hard. She needs him to be hard. Yes, like that, like that, yes and don’t stop don’t don’t, until a sobbing guttural orgasm overwhelms her, stills, and silences the fire in her head. A moment later she’s weeping. But before he can – before his arms can keep her from leaving, she rolls off, tumbles to the floor, grabs up her garments in a run, out the door before she’s fully dressed.

Later, when he can finally bring himself to get up, to rise from under the weight of a curious depression, he steps on her underwear, a cold silky bit of stark white wrapped around his foot.

[Yet] dependence is scorned even in intimate relationships, as though dependence were incompatible with self-reliance rather than the only thing that makes it possible. ~ Maggie Nelson

I’m not being cruel. Or dismissive. Or callous. Or a bitch

I’m not being noble. Or selfless. Or self-sacrificing.

Not a. Not in. Not your future anyway.

So I’ve been told. Anyway

It’s self-preservation. Self-determination. Self-actualization. Self… something

I don’t know

Shut up

Afterword

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Table of Contents

- Preface
- Three Books
- Afterword