A Friend in Need (Star Trek: TOS story)

Star Trek TOS Fanfiction
Title:	A Friend in Need
Author(s):	Yvonne De Chine
Date(s):	1986
Length:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
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A Friend in Need is a Spock/OMC/Kirk story by Yvonne De Chine.

first page

It was published in the print zine Shades of Grey #1.

Reactions and Reviews

I really don’t like menage stories. Honest. Having Kirk and/or Spock involved with a third person, even if it’s adding a third person to the existing relationship, is not what I read K/S for. (Especially when it’s McCoy - shudder!) I own four of the five zines in this series because I like to collect K/S zines, but I haven’t read many of the stories. But a friend, being well acquainted with my peculiar K/S prejudices (she things they’re peculiar, not me!) recommended this particular story, and I’m glad she did.

Technically it’s a menage story, and yet in its emotional direction and in its ultimate outcome, not really. The author is as matter-of-fact in the writing as she portrays Spock being about his approaching pon farr. He agrees with his captain and McCoy that an acceptable way to handle his condition is a visit to a “pleasure house.” (You could argue that Amok Time might contradict this assumption, but for purposes of this story I can suspend my disbelief and go with the flow.) Kirk insists on accompanying his friend, since he fears Spock will need not only his moral support but the knowledge of how to conduct himself in such a place.

So they arrive at a seraglio-type, expensive house of pleasure, and Spock chooses a companion, Elizabeth, who happens to be an ex-Starfleet intelligence analyst, attractive, knowledgeable of Vulcans and sympathetic, and Kirk settles into an adjoining room with his companion. But all is not well. Elizabeth comes to tell Kirk that Spock’s fever is escalating when their intimate activities should be bringing it under control.

Kirk bolts into Spock’s room and discovers his first officer needs him, needs the intimate contact with Kirk’s mind, even while he is being sexually serviced by Elizabeth. He needs the literal physical contact as well, as is proven when Spock panics when Kirk moves away for just a few seconds. So our captain climbs into bed to form the unlikely trio, he determined to give Spock exactly what he needs, the woman grimly set on her strictly-physical role, and Spock, desperate and not always lucid. Kirk descends into the pon farr’s inferno through the fingers on his face, and shares not only the physical sensations with Spock, but all the love and caring between the two of them which had never been expressed. During an interlude when Elizabeth leaves for food, after many hours of activity, Spock’s condition unexpectedly becomes urgent again, and Kirk gladly serves as Spock’s partner. Neither man can really believe what they are doing, what is happening, because even though they’d been joined mentally in the previous hours, there hadn’t been any physical-sexual connection. Through their astonishment they each realize they like what’s happening, and throughout the rest of the pon farr they share on a more equal basis, with Kirk more actively engaged, although Elizabeth still serves as Spock’s primary partner.

By the end of the story each man is determined to continue the relationship begun in a most unlikely way, and Elizabeth, well compensated, will be leaving for a local university.

This author, who writes under many pen names, is not to everyone’s taste, I realize that. There aren’t any frills to this story, and on the surface it seems that it addresses a topic I would generally not like. But from the very first page it reeks of Kirk’s concern for his Vulcan friend, and when Kirk succumbs to Spock’s need, it isn’t really so unlikely that he would allow himself to be drawn into sexual activity. The groundwork had been adequately if sparsely laid. (Perhaps the difference here, why I like this story so much despite it being about a trio, is that this isn’t a third person entering the already established relationship between Kirk and Spock, it’s Kirk entering an incomplete relationship that isn’t, on its own merits, meeting Spock’s needs. The story’s emotional satisfaction comes in knowing that not just anybody will do for Spock, he needs Kirk.)

There isn’t any grand declaration of love at the end, just a simple acknowledgment of needs discovered and desires revealed, and that’s enough for me. I re-read A Friend in Need when I’m in the mood for some matter of fact commitment between our guys, not to mention the hot sex that this author seems to be able to effortlessly pen story after story.

A FRIEND IN NEED by Yvonne De Chine is a different twist to the old problem, how does Spock solve his lack of Bondmate when he enters Pon Farr? Kirk's solution is practical, amiable, even fun, and turns out to be more revealing than either Kirk or Spock had imagined. The third party here is an intelligent, admirable female, one who doesn't intrude on the relationship, the electricity between Kirk and Spock but only adds to it. There is a great 'flavor' to this story, a feeling of atmosphere, of texture and weather and emotion let loose. This is a highly sensate story.

The general plot summary of "A Friend In Need" by Yvonne de Chine sounds terribly unpromising, yet this tale is surprisingly good. I would normally be prejudiced against any story about Spock resolving his pon-farr by going to a whorehouse, but the characters and events portrayed here are scarcely normal from the 20th century perspective. Imagine a society where a woman who used to be an Intelligence operative can become a prostitute as if it were any other profession with no stigma attached. Let us further imagine men treating prostitutes with respect for their competence. It is true that Elizabeth, the prostitute in the story, is treated as a sexual object. That's her job. That's what she contracted for. She didn't contract to be humiliated and abused as prostitutes often are in this society. I consider it rather wonderful to see Kirk and Spock treating Elizabeth as a human being. They may be in the midst of discovering their need for one another, but that doesn't mean they have to trample all over the rights of anyone else in their vicinity as I have seen in some K/S. "A Friend In Need" avoids misogyny and transcends formula treatment of heterosexual encounters in K/S stories. I was impressed with it.

Post TMP. When Spock's pon farr returns, Jim makes arrangements with a pleasure house on his Vulcan friend's behalf... and gets dragged into his friend's intimacy in a way he never expected. M/M/F threesome and great gay-for-you story. Some het sex but unobtrusive; the female third is nicely done and discreet, so the real focus is entirely on Jim and Spock's deep emotional connection.