Cosmic Fuck Series

Fanfiction
Title:	Cosmic Fuck Series
Author(s):	Gayle F
Date(s):	1977, 1978, 1986
Length:
Genre(s):
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS, K/S
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:	Cosmic Fuck Series at the K/S Archive
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"The Cosmic Fuck Chorus" by Melanie R, sung to the tune of "Yesterday," printed in Obsc'zine #3

The Cosmic Fuck Series is a set of four influential early Kirk/Spock slash stories by Gayle F. The last story was written as a birthday gift for a friend.

The zine The Cosmic Collected (1986) compiled the whole series.

A fan in 1979 referred to it as "Gayle [F's] famous K*S* 4" series.

The Series

• Desert Heat (first published in The Sensuous Vulcan in 1977)
• Beyond Setarcos (first published in Thrust)
• Night of the Dragon (also first in Thrust)
• Between Friends (first published in Obsc'zine #3 in 1978, but was a pass-around story much earlier than that, one called "Birthday Present.").

Some Firsts

It helped form much fanon for K/S pon farr stories and was the first appearance of the double ridges on Vulcan penises, and the final story was the first published Kirk/Spock/McCoy threesome.

The Introduction of the Fuck or Die Trope

The Cosmic Fuck series centers on a now familiar to fandom theme: Kirk and Spock must have sex or one of them (usually Spock) will die. As Henry Jenkins explains:

"Kirk and Spock are stranded on a desert planet with little chance of immediate rescue; the Enterprise is away on an emergency mission delivering plague serum to Mmyrrmyon II, when Spock prematurely enters Pon Farr, the Vulcan mating fever. Spock will die if he does not achieve immediate sexual release. Kirk comes to the slow, reluctant realization that the only way to save his friend's life may be to become his sexual partner...It seemed the logical thing to do at the time....The men's love grows and their consciousness expands through the magic of the mind meld. In the end, their love is so firm it can be broadened further, incorporating McCoy in a friendly menage a trois that mirrors the familiar gathering of three buddies that concludes many of the broadcast episodes. The Cosmic Fuckseries outlines within a simple, uncluttered plot (indeed, within what may be the archetypical K/S plot) many of the basic premises of "slash" fiction: the movement from male homosocial desire to a direct expression of homoerotic passion, the exploration of alternativesto traditional masculinity, the insertion of sexuality into a larger social context."

A Fan's Introduction to Slash

And Star Trek Lives, I read that, and that had information about the Welcommittee, and how do you get a hold of these things, and I read about classic stories, and went, I want to find those stories. So, then I began tracking down the editors, or authors, and writing them, and asking if they had zines still in print, if they had stories still in print, was there some way I could get hold of them, could I copy them if I could find a copy, because some of them wrote, y'know, they're out of print. You can't even get them any more. But if you can — Many of them said, "If you can find someone who has a copy, you have my permission to photocopy it." And then I ran into [Gayle F] — haahh, bless her. She, of blessed thought, who wrote, and I had asked her about her CF, for Cosmic Fuck, series, and she, which, y'know, because already the sprouting ideas of slash were rampant in my brain. And she said, "Of course." She said, actually, "It's out of print. I don't plan to reprint, but I do have copies of the stories here, that I used, if you don't mind having my scribbles and marks as far as editing goes." So and I said, "Are you kidding me?" (laughter)... the [slash] thoughts were there [in my mind already]. Because the first fan fiction I read was Captain's Woman, was total Mary Sue. There was no slash even remotely involved in it. No, that came out of my own little brain.... When Gayle's copies came to the house, they were in the mail. I opened the mail and saw them, I put [my baby]...down for his nap. They were loose bound, you know, they weren't even bound, and I knelt on the floor next to my bed so I could keep everything in order and turn the pages. And I didn't even move until he woke up, and read straight through. And I could hardly stand afterwards. No wonder my knees are bad.

Reactions and Reviews

1983

No fan writer, whether K/S or straight, has yet made me feel that her Kirk and Spock were the Kirk and Spock (the same goes for pro Trek stuff), but a few have come awfully close. The characterizations in Gayle F's Cosmic Fuck series are superb. I only wish that she had shown them freely choosing to enter into the sexual relationship, instead of having it initially forced on them by the pon farr.

Regarding [the] comment about Gayle's Cosmic Fuck series — that you wished that she had shown them freely choosing to enter into the relationship, rather than having it forced on them by the pon farr She wrote these stories before 1977 (I don't know how much earlier), and at that time hardly anyone was writing K/S and those who were, were getting blasted for it (i.e. Winston Howlett's denunciation of Gerry Downes' Alternative in Winston's zine Probe]]). At the time fen were trying to find "reasons" for K and S to get together, almost as if we had to force them together. Now, there is so much K/S, that there are some stories out that have them falling in to bed together for the first time with hardly any motivation whatsoever. Of course, these are the badly written stories. I do think that you have to show some motivation in terms of something that happens in their lives which changes them in some way, so that they decide to enter into the relationship, but I do agree that it doesn't have to be forced. Leslie Fish in effect "forced" Kirk to enter the relationship with Spock in "Shelter" by having Spock semi-conscious and very vulnerable. The way she wrote it, they wouldn't have become involved, if Spock had been in his conscious mind. But, there again, Leslie wrote this over six years ago. A lot has happened in K/S and in fandom in the intervening years.

1992

Star Trek has been a part of my life since about 1975, and I was introduced to K/S almost the same time I got into ST. I have been a member of the K/S and K.S. APA since issue #3 and they are on issue #54 now. I can't remeaber if the first K/S I read was "Shelter" by Leslie Fish, or ALTERNATIVE by Gerry Downes, but I think that before I read either of these, [A F] had told me about Gayle F's Cosmic Fuck Series at a convention that we were both attending. But the CFS had not yet been published— [A] had read Gayle's copy. Desperate to read it, I called Gayle (whom I didn't know at all) in Oregon (where she was living at the time), and I told her that I wanted to read it. She was really nice (especially considering the fact that she didn't know me from Adam) and she told me that a friend of hers in San Jose (which is 50 miles from San Francisco) had a copy for proofreading and she was sure that [M] would let me read it. I called [M], and she said "Sure" and invited me to dinner. So it came to be that I was sitting in the living room of a total stranger, reading the most erotic story that I had ever read and getting incredibly turned on, while this total stranger was making me dinner! These are the strange places that K/S takes you!

1994

Okay, okay, I'm probably one of two people who haven't read this [zine] (the other probably being my mother), but it's one of my huge collection of unread zines and therefore subject to my incredibly insightful, penetrating, discerning (sounds like Spock's eyes) scrutiny! So for that fine other person out there, this is for you.

This [Desert Heat, Beyond Setarcos, Night of the Dragon, and Between Friends], is a series of connected stories concerning Spock going into pon farr while he and Kirk are left for a week on an abandoned planet. So, of course, Kirk has to help out. The stories continue back on the Enterprise, and Kirk has to help out some more. In the last story, McCoy helps out, but more on that later.

I'd already heard about [Gayle F's] writing being a lot like her sexy, ultra-explicit, fantasy artwork. Well, it's not exactly like it. There's a bit too much of "he licked his chest, abdomen, legs, knees, ankles, feet, toes,..." (not a quote} for my taste. Then, there's lots of "telling" not "showing". Also, the characterizations are a little strange. For the most pan. Kirk is unrecognizable and Spock is cliche with his exacting, logical talk. The rest is inner thoughts that are so heavy with a kind of emotional poetry, that I was confused as to who was feeling what and especially, why.

The style of writing was frustrating to me. Done in short, clipped sentences, I had to work really hard to visualize things and believe me, there were lots of things I wanted to visualize) The use of repeating verbs didn't help imoi?), nor did leaving off nouns and the objects of verbs, and the "ands". Example: "Dropped his pants, kicked them away and jerked off boots, socks." There are many more examples, but you get the idea. Also, there are lots of hes, hims, and hises that totally confused me as to whose, whats and wheres.

Bones is kidnapped, forced into a labor slaver/ for these beetle-like creatures in a cave — is all done in memory. The funny thing is, if the whole story were told to someone in synopsis form, it would sound fascinating. The only problem is, that is how it's written...

K, S and McCoy all having sex together is the least successful of all. Granted, I was unable to overcome my innate dislike of sex scenes with Bones, and actually it wasn't written badly. But when I read about Bones licking Spock's ass and penetrating him, I was less excited than morbidly curious. Especially difficult was Spock moaning: "Bones, Bones, Bones...". It was like when you're a kid and you hear or see a family member having sex.

Then, the strangest thing happened. They couldn't handle so much passion, or something, so they all experienced a weird guilt trip with a "mutual sense of failure vibrating them like a single chord." Huh?

All right, now I'll stop complaining and say there were lots of really hot, sexy parts. Yes, but...

2009

I could start out this review by saying that this is one of your typical Kirk-and-Spock-are-stranded-on-a-planet-and-Spock-goes-into-Pon-Farr stories. I could, but I can’t because there’s one very important factor that separates this particular story from all the others – it was, if not the first, then one of the very first of those stories ever written. And what makes it even more significant – it is in this story that we first read about those famous “double ridges” that adorn a certain Vulcan’s penis – a feature that has made its way into hundreds of K/S stories ever since.

Like the author I profiled in my previous LOC, this particular lady is more known for her fabulous artwork than for her stories. And while Shelley Butler still actively draws and writes K/S, sadly, Gayle is no longer active in the fandom. Still, she leaves with us a fabulous legacy of artwork and stories such as this one, which have and will continue to leave an impact on the fandom.

Since, as I said, this is a “Kirk and Spock stranded, Pon Farr” story, there’s really no point in me going into details of the plot, since most of us who have been reading K/S for awhile already know what the plot is. But as rich as the history of K/S is, there aren’t a lot of stories that we can point to and say, “This is the first story where (insert plot used numerous times here)” or “This story is where this particular aspect of Kirk or Spock was first mentioned, which has now become the norm”. So when we CAN point to such a story, it is well worth a mention, as well as a read. And when that story is written by a very, very talented lady who was an original original when it came to K/S, reading that story, either again or for the first time, becomes that much more special.