No, your eyes are not deceiving you. You have seen this story before. This is the re-edit. 7/26/10

I can count the number of times we had sex on one hand.

I know you're shocked. Looking back, so am I. I, James T. 'Tomcat' Kirk entered into a marriage and had sex with my spouse four, count them, FOUR times. It's so astonishing, so against my character, that those who have written my biographies would fall over if they knew. Well, as I said many years ago, double dumb-ass on them. They don't need to know. Those times may have been few, but they were memorable. I won't tarnish them by making a public announcement.

Don't worry, I'll share them with you. But only because I need to remember, not because you need to know, okay?

Now, let me be frank here. I wouldn't call any of our times 'normal', but our first joining actually seemed like the train-wreck of a cliche that I'm sure my biographers have been spouting for decades.

It all started with pon farr, the most hidden of all Vulcan secrets. Which made it a real pain in the neck. If I had known about that biological imperative earlier, things might have been a lot less life-threatening.

Yes, I was the reason Spock survived the Kal-i-fee. Because I was able to neutralize the threats against him.

He was threatened by his bitch of a fiancee. T'Pring would have stabbed him in the back if she hadn't found it more fun to make him kill the puny little human by his side.

But, more importantly, Spock was also threatened by himself. I honestly believe he would have died in a ritual suicide if Bones hadn't pulled a fast one to keep me alive. That neural paralyzer 'saved the universe', as the historians would say. I know it saved my personal universe. What would I have been without my shadow? A pompous ass with delusions of grandeur, that's what. Instead, I honestly made a difference. Because he was by my side.

But I digress...

Before you ask, let me say that the gossipmongers were right about that day. We did bond during the ceremonial battle. As that paralyzer took hold, causing me to collapse onto the red sands of my friend's homeworld, I felt his mind grab at and fit itself to mine. I swear, the 'snap' as the two pieces came together was almost audible. But he didn't hear or feel it. The lingering effects of the plak tow hid the joining from him.

I knew that even though I was losing consciousness as it happened. Because the last thing I remember of being on Vulcan was the 'snap' of the bond and his mental scream through it. He thought I was dead. He thought there was nothing more for me, or for him.

But when he found out otherwise, he recovered from his pain beautifully. All it took was for him to hear my voice behind him. Yes, the smile that lit up his face was as brilliant as Sol, as mind-blowing as the Crab Nebula or any of the other amazing space oddities I've seen. At the time, I had wished I had a holocam to record the moment.

Not now. That smile was for me and me alone. I even feel jealous that Bones got a look at it. But I don't hold it against him. Because we never told him what happened next. Well, not verbally. I'm pretty sure the physical evidence spoke for itself. I knew that he was aware of the hidden parts of my relationship with my first officer when Spock died saving us.

But let me get back to the beginning...

After the Kal-i-fee, Spock lied. No, not evaded, misdirected, omitted, or any of the thousand terms he substituted for that word over the years. Spock LIED. His urge to mate did not fade with our battle.

Yes, the plak tow temporarily receded. Killing your captain will do that, I suppose. It's an emotional shock. Vulcans work so hard to suppress their emotions that when they encounter one they can't push into a little box, it affects them physically.

That Vulcan tendency was unexpected, to say the least. To make matters worse, Spock was so good at suppressing that I was the only one who noticed that he still wasn't quite right. When I asked Bones if he could see the powder keg inside Spock, he asked me why I was trying to project my emotions onto our friend. McCoy knew the whole situation on Vulcan had upset me. He just had no clue about how much it had upset Spock.

I'm not complaining about Spock's reaction, though. The hold on his pon farr gave me a chance to prepare.

I needed to get ready because my bondmate, in a very human way, was fooling himself. I could feel, through the bond, that he was convinced he could ride the rest of the mating cycle alone. I knew better. Feelings like that don't just go away. They keep building until they explode.

So how did I prepare?

No, I didn't spread incense and candles all over my room. No, I didn't stop off at some pleasure planet to get all my Vulcan's favorite foods. The romantic gestures wouldn't have mattered, anyway. Spock believed candles were a danger on a starship. The only ones he allowed aboard the ship were those in vessels that have a safety valve to extinguish the flame, like his meditation candle. And as far as food...he would eat anything vegetarian that wasn't Italian. Seriously.

Yes, I know. Get to the point, Jim. Okay, I didn't plan a seduction, not in the classical sense. I did something much more basic. I reserved a gym room for two days. Then I went to Scotty and I lied straight to his face. I told him Starfleet had commed me on a private channel and they had requested that Spock and I participate in a top-secret project.

"We don't need to leave the ship," I said to my chief engineer. "We just need to be alone for a few days to do some research."

I don't know if Scotty bought my line, but he never questioned me about it. He just nodded and took the conn.

My gut tells me he would have done the same if we were in the middle of a battle with the Klingons instead of a milk run from Altair VI to Vesuvius V. He would have done it just because his captain asked him to. I didn't deserve the crew I was blessed with. I know that now. Thank you, my friend.

Yes, yes, I'm getting there. Be patient. I'm an old man. I need time to process my thoughts.

Once I made sure we were both off-duty, I invited Spock to the gym for some hand-to-hand combat. It was something we did on a fairly regular basis. He usually seemed to enjoy sweeping me over the mat. But this time, he wasn't thrilled by the idea.

I could see him hesitate as we stood in the hallway near our cabins. I could feel his apprehension through the bond. He didn't want to hurt me. Our fight on Vulcan had him preoccupied with thoughts of how fragile I was compared to his super-human strength.

I didn't give a damn about his fears. Not when I kept hearing Bones' voice in my head. It was continually repeating 'If he doesn't mate, he will die.' I had to do something to help Spock, or I would end up losing one of the best friends I had ever had. So I dragged him to the gym.

No, not literally. My first officer was so well-trained that I could deceive him by acting normally. All I had to do was start walking toward the room I had reserved while I talked about the change in the duty roster scheduled for the next week. Spock knew better than to give me less than his total attention during discussions of ship business. In fact, his focus on me was so intent that I don't think he even realized where we were until I thumbed the lock on the door.

I kept the discussion going as I walked into the room, so of course he followed. I talked as I locked the door, I talked as I changed my clothes.

Although he was loathe to interrupt our discussion, he wasn't entirely comfortable with our new location or the activities it implied. As soon as he entered the room, he leaned against the wall furthest from me in hopes of not giving into the urges within him.

I didn't stare and I didn't say anything about his obvious difficulty. I knew if I was going to succeed in giving Spock what he needed, I had to get past that infuriatingly logical mind of his. I was going to have to catch him by surprise.

So as I finished my discussion of the duty roster, I walked closer to him. I made sure that I looked casual. I didn't stalk him. I just moved as I normally would during a long and involved discussion. But I made sure my body language inched me toward him. Then, the second he turned his head away from me, I grabbed him.

My first attack was an offensive move popular with Orion merchants. He countered that easily. Then, a Klingon move. Again, my friend simply pushed me away. So I changed my tactics and went with something as familiar as breathing. I put him in a human chokehold.

Finally, success. Considering the way we were standing, the only way Spock could get free was to drop me to the floor. That's exactly what I needed and I took advantage of it quickly. As I went down, I pulled him with me. To make sure he followed me to the mat, I kicked a leg out from under him.

In seconds, Spock was lying on me and I could feel the evidence of his 'recovery' from pon farr. Recovery, my ass. I know a raging hard-on when I feel one.

The idiot still tried to pull away from me. He still tried to gather his composure, even after panting on my face with that fiercely hot breath of his. Of course I didn't let him. Instead, I allowed the sensations from our bond to overtake me, and in the process, accepted his heat into me. As I felt Spock's need, that gentle, playful tomcat inside me turned into a fierce cougar. I grabbed him with all my might and held on until those pushes against me reversed and became clutches, clawing. Signs of possession.

We burned.

It wasn't gentle. It wasn't loving. Instead, it was raw, possessive, painful and fierce. He clawed at my clothes. I ripped at his. His hands left bruise marks where he held me. I left small wounds wherever my mouth touched him. And when we came together, when he slid that double ridged cock into me, I screamed. In pain, yes. It hurt like a bitch. Spock was too far gone to be gentle by then. But also in possession. He was mine! I claimed him that day as much as he claimed me. The bond flared to life and helped us in our quest to get ever closer to each other. The need consumed us for three days.

All I can remember of those days now is heat, heat and fullness. For those three days, he was everything to me. We didn't eat. I drank water from the faucet in the connected lavatory only when my body insisted. We slept when we couldn't keep our eyes open. The rest of the time, we mated.

No, we didn't make love. We mated. Love was for others, those who could afford to think as well as feel. We were controlled by a drive that allowed no chance of thought. Its commands were primitive, instinctive, and yes, very very painful, mentally and physically.

The biological imperative took its toll on us before it let us go. We were both completely covered in bruises when we finally left that room and composed ourselves well enough to go back to duty. We were weary, both outside and in. So weary that we struggled to move.

We were also feeling psychic effects of our time together. The bond was quiet because we needed space away from each other. Mental contact now hurt because we had spent much of the time using our minds as battering rams, trying to destroy any barriers between us.

But there was a contentment inside my mind that hadn't been there before. It leaked out of me and into Spock. Just as his worry for my safety leaked into me.

We were part of each other. We were no longer two people. We were one.

I wouldn't have had it any other way.

end part 1