This story was tough. Some of it was hard to read. All of it was fascinating.

So glad for this happy ending! Thanks!

This is making me see the world from the POV of a battered woman - always seeking to be perfect and never succeeding. Tragic!

Without being explicit you show the desolation Sarek is making of his marriage bed.

You're without doubt a real great writer and as far as the style and the language is concerned I enjoy your stories very much.
Only the relationship Amanda-Sarek I find deeply disturbing. Of course, this pon farr must cause certain things in a marriage, but nevertheless I can't and will not imagine a human woman keeping up with this abuse. And it definitely is abuse and even more - the way you describe him "training" her to being passive is kind of rape. I have a problem with having this connected to love or just to "respect" because to me it is the total contradiction to respect.
And here I come to the question: In being a writer myself I wonder about us having a kind of "duty" towards our readers. For me it makes it rather difficult to describe abuse and rape in a kind of "romantic setting". You make Amanda appear as a kind of masochist and a victim. She accepts that he rapes her regularily, that he doesn't give a damn about her feelings and not enough of that. She allows him to discriminate against her humanity by the way how he denies her loving her son and making him aware of his being half human. And the motives - sorry, that makes the entire Vulcan society appear like hypocrites of the first order. IDIC? No, but racism pure.
Sorry for this harsh words, but you make me almost wish my English were better and I'd have some time to write my own story, dealing with the pon farr and Spock's humanity issues.

Love this incredible story,and come back to read it often..

However, The timing here is wrong. This is important because the passage of time is important to accurately track in this story,

As written, the elapsed time so far has been considerably over one month, and may well be closer to two. Healing, research work, days of confinement, and many weeks of brutal conditioning have already , First with no progress, then with some time of improved control...

Remember, the whole of phase one was to be six months total. As written, it’s more like eight.

Hi. I read all your stories this weekend. Thanks for posting them. This one resonated with me. I married a man from another culture when I was 22. I was a teacher in his country...think peace corps type situation. After we got married there was a coup and several Westerners were kidnapped and murdered. My organization withdrew from the country and I decided to stay, but I basically couldn’t go outside. I stayed because I was in love. After 6 months we still didn’t have his visa and I was pregnant. I left and came home. We finally got his visa when the baby was 7 months old. We’ve been married 25 years. And now? After 25 years and 5 kids would I put up with all the crap Amanda did? No, because it would be a bad example for my kids. Does Spock ever find out? My husband has a hard time relating with the kids. His culture your father is your boss until he dies basically. He greats his father by bowing down 3 times. His kids are American and think that’s crazy. He doesn’t know how to have a relationship of equals as they go off on their own. He gets jealous when they call home and only talk we me. I tell him that I wish the he could be more expressive with affection with the kids. He has no problem being that way with me. Anyway, your stories have made me think.

Hi
I thought that this story was very well written and like the other stories builds a world around some of what we see in star trek of the Vulcans. You haven't made them human, in these books they think differently which I think makes it better sci fi than even a lot of trek. In sci fi there is a temptation to make all characters ' humans in make up' e.g. their actions and motivations seem human like so the audience can follow and empathise with the characters but here they are alien. I especially liked in this story how t'pau was thinking in monologue when Amanda was at her house, that was beautifully written. I also think it was very realistic how Amanda struggled with being chattel and how that affected her and Sarek. x

Having finished this (as morbid curiosity is not something I can resist) I cannot help but see some contrivance in it and the interpretations its based on, some shooting for a low hanging fruit and deliberate constructing to somehow make it cceptable, but I must recognize and applaud the honest and somewhat sucessful attempt at a though-provoking, alien quality and the stark, ugly, consequential following of the implications, even sucessful attempts at poetic motifs.

It was, at the very least, I worthwhile experience.

I'm loving the way you're really bringing home to the reader that Vulcan is an ALIEN culture, with customs that are not just different from ours but also difficult for us to understand.

That said, I'm having trouble with some of the assumptions you're making and some of the conclusions you're drawing.

Pon farr is a time that most Vulcans prefer not to think about or talk about. Once it's behind them, they prefer to pretend that it doesn't exist. I have trouble believing that it's normal or common or conventional for Vulcan men to control their women absolutely OUTSIDE of pon farr. Amanda never gets to say no to sex DURING PON FARR. But in ordinary life? It's not life-threatening then.

And what about T'Pau? She's a Vulcan woman, but she rules.

I'm loving how much you're making Vulcans be truly alien, but I'm not sure I can finish this story; it feels as if you're taking things too far just for shock value, and that's not something I want to stick around for.

guest - honestly, I think you have a selective memory of Star Trek. Was T'Pring setting Spock - her husband - up to kill Kirk not pretty harsh? Isn't the Challenge in itself harsh? If Spock won the Challenge - setting aside his human elements or the shock that brought him out of his testosterone rush and let him speak in Pon Far - he would have "raped" the unwilling T'Pring. In fact, a woman's consent in Pon Far appears to be not an option. T'Pring in turn, did her best to have Spock killed. Sure, that is harsh.

But I didn't invent Vulcan biology or culture. I extrapolated the biology as a reason - the only acceptable reason for a Vulcan to be not in complete control - as to why Sarek would be so intransigent to Spock for 18 years. He wasn't just being abysmally harsh to his son, but had a reason to limit their association.

I respect that you have a more "human" view of Sarek. You don't have to write a story that postulates what might happen if Spock had taken the unwilling T'Pring to bed, or if T'Pring had succeeded in her plan to have Spock kill his best friend. But to pretend that this isn't part of the Vulcan culture is just closing your eyes to canon for a scenario that wasn't supported in the show.

Star Trek is not romance, but science fiction. SF has long been used to explore cultural issues and questions. I tried to find some logical canonical reason why Sarek would keep an eighteen year "silence" with his son, rather than do the logical thing, and reconcile. The only thing that trumps logic, for a Vulcan, is biology. Hence why I gave Sarek a truly daunting biological reason to avoid contention with Spock, because it had resulted in disaster before. And a reason why Amanda would both understand and forgive Sarek for keeping that 18 year broach and not push him to reconcile. You don't have to like the reason, but given the biology of Vulcans, it is consistent with logic, biology and canon. Pretending Vulcans have control over their biology is not canonical.

I also am amazed that you don't see any contradiction in totally ignoring Spock tossing Christine against a bulkhead in Amok Time, or various other actions (taking over the ship) but can call Sarek abusive in Holo 2. If Vulcans are in control then they are thus "abusive" - including Spock. But canon says they are not. When they are in a biologically fueled testosterone rush, and aren't in control, that's not a choice to be abusive. This is why Vulcans are alien. I didn't invent this. You don't have to like it. I didn't like it either much, when I first saw how Sarek treated Amanda in JTB. Hence why I wrote Holo - to give a valid biological reason why Sarek would behave as he did to Spock and to Amanda.

I'm revisiting this "universe", having first read your stories several years ago, and your concept of Vulcan/Vulcans in general and Sarek in particular strikes me the same way now as it did then. Your Sarek is an asshole, and your Vulcans aren't so much alien as revolting.

This story in particular I dislike just as much now as I did then. As a study of how some people can justify spousal abuse and how some people can "accept" (for lack of a better word) it, it's interesting to some extent. As part of the Star Trek universe, it's almost grotesque. And when the spouses are characters I like and enjoy, it's absolutely appalling.

I realise that comes across as pretty offensive, if not outright insulting, which is not my intention. It's merely my opinion, and as it happens it's pretty blunt. Each to their own.

s Z'sZ's NM

I think this is my favorite chapter.

Wow! All I can say is I'm so glad I'm not married to a Vulcan such as Sarek. Amanda has clearly mastered thinking beyond the obvious, and her love for Sarek is such that she can give up her very self for him, with no guarantee of happiness or even hope. Yet for her it was worth it.
An uncomfortable read, but engrossing all the same.