The Picnic

Fanfiction
Title:	The Diver
Author(s):	Kate Sheridan
Date(s):	1995
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Picnic is a K/S story by Kate Sheridan.

title page

It was published in the print zine First Time #42.

Summary

From the publisher: "While on a visit to Kirkʼs home, Spock is introduced to the custom of bidding on prepared lunch baskets as a means to a date when he and Kirk go with Kirkʼs mother to a town fair."

Reactions and Reviews

1995

Spock goes home with Kirk and they cavort in the grass. Kirk recounts an anecdote concerning a human mating ritual from his own past. This ritual involves "supper baskets" — personally decorated picnic baskets for sale to ones potential mate. This has hidden meaning for both of them as their relationship progresses. Because of my aversion to either of them engaging in housework or doing any baking, I got a little nervous when Spock wandered into the kitchen. But, to my relief, he was only going to make some tea and Mrs. Kirk helped him. I was confused and lost at first as to what was going on m the kitchen when Mrs. Kirk took a "thoroughly modern food container" and "took a marking pen from a drawer and drew a small circle with an inverted check on one of the lower front corners." I thought I had missed something, but later I found out it had to do with the baskets, the auction and the bidding.

This sentence was entertaining as I attempted to figure it out: "Jim! Jim!' Spock cried around the kiss as Kirk's cooler, fatter human cock nudged along the underside of his hotter, longer one. poking at the tight little Vulcan balls with its oozing tip." Hmmm. now.... Let's see...there's a fat cock and an oozing tip...

A fun and original story with a nice, old-fashioned courting feel to it.

I liked this story of Spock declaring his love by buying a picnic basket. Mother Kirk rang truer than she usually does in these stories.

1997: One of Three Stories With the Same Theme

Stories in which Spock goes home with Kirk to Iowa seem to be much less common in K/S than stories in which Kirk goes home with Spock to Vulcan. These three stories are a sample of a relatively small body of K/S stories set in Iowa.

In each of these three stories, Kirk invites Spock to visit his boyhood home, and the result is a turning point in their relationship. Two are classic "first-time" stories, and in the third, the visit leads to a relationship of greater intimacy and commitment. (The "Kirk brings his life partner home to Mother" story is a different type of K/S tale and probably deserves a thematic review of its own.)

"Home" can mean the place we come back to, the place where our roots grow; or, it can mean the place we forsake, the place we must leave in order to begin our lives in earnest. In K/S, "home" has come to have different meanings for Kirk and Spock respectively. For Spock, Vulcan often means "home" in a sense that is at best ambiguous, at worst bitter and alienated. We tend to see Spock as at home only in Starfleet or with Kirk. By contrast, Iowa as Kirk's "home" seems much less problematic.

In "A Place to Call Home," this contrast is clear and explicit. The story takes place after Kirk's mother's death; Kirk has invited Spock to spend a week with him at his now-vacant boyhood home while he decides whether to sell the farm. The house, and the story, are suffused with Kirk's memories of his happy childhood. In contrast the memories of home that Spock shares with Kirk are mostly negative. At one point in the story Spock says to Kirk, "I do not find that [home] brings me the same sense of fondness and nostalgia that it seems to bring you. On the contrary, it makes me extremely thankful that I was given the opportunity to leave." Although "The Picnic" does not tell us how Spock feels about his home on Vulcan, it is clear that Kirk enjoys visiting his old town and reveling in old memories.

The image of Kirk's home town in both "A Place to Call Home" and "The Picnic" is romantic and nostalgic. It's a place where people farm, fish, go on picnics, make a snow man, go ice-skating, eat huge breakfasts and drink hot chocolate in front of a roaring fire. It's an idealized image of the small-town American "heartland" that is rooted deeply in our national lore and myth. Indeed, in "The Picnic," Kirk and his neighbors are shown celebrating their town's centennial. In a story line reminiscent of Oklahoma! Kirk's mother makes a box supper so that Spock can bid on it and win an evening with Kirk.

The nostalgic images in these stories affected me deeply, perhaps because I come from a small town in the upper Midwest myself. But regardless of the associations the reader brings to these stories, I think the clarity of the writing in "A Place to Call Home" would make anyone feel at home in the Kirk farmhouse. The author makes us see the spacious, comfortable rooms, feel the warmth of the fire and the stillness of a deep snowfall, smell the breakfast cooking and taste the hot chocolate. The actual details of farm and small town life are rasher hazy. In both stories, Kirk's mother is, or was, a research scientist, and Kirk's father has been dead for some time. It's not clear who actually farms the land, but I don't think it really matters. "Iowa" in these stories is such a powerful symbol of home, family and all-American virtues that social realism is at the very least a secondary value.

What is the function of "Iowa" in K/S stories? To judge by "A Place to Call Home" and "The Picnic," it is a place where the two men can relax, "be at home," and cast off the roles and inhibitions of their Starfleet identities. It's a place where both men — not just Kirk — can "come home" in the sense of returning to bedrock, to essential truths, to their real feelings about each other. In "A Place to Call Home," Kirk and Spock spend their week together relaxing, talking, revealing more and more of themselves growing closer. In "The Picnic," Spock is initially reluctant to go home with Kirk to participate in the small-town centennial festivities, but loses his inhibitions and gets so into the spirit of the events that he astonishes Kirk. Both stories are written mostly from 's point of view (though it was not always clear who was telling the story, and I felt the treatment of point of view could have been improved in both stories), which is appropriate since it is Spock who does most of the loosening up in both stories. It is interesting that in "A Place to Call Home," Kirk and Spock grow closer as a result of being alone together — romantically snowed in for much of the time — while in "The Picnic," the barriers to a romantic relationship fall as a result of their participation in the typical small-town communal activities of a bygone era. Perhaps the common denominator is that in both stories, being at home in Iowa seems to give the two men permission to get in touch with a part of themselves that is artless, simple, natural and unsophisticated. The results, of course, are satisfying for all.

[snipped: comments about Miles to Go.]

1998

A breakfast treat for me...with time left over for a cold shower! This short story is a wonderful example of how an imaginative author can take a very old-fashioned idea like a box supper (which even I am too young to have experienced) and turn it into an enjoyable, lighthearted romp for two very sophisticated gentlemen from the 23rd century. Imagine the sedate and socially self-conscious Vulcan bidding a totally outrageous price for a very plain picnic basket which he just happens to know will guarantee him a "date" with one James T. Kirk. So what if Kirk's mom did the preparations of both the food and the traditional meaning of the auction. The end result is both predictable and very readable. We witness a beautiful declaration of love, a refreshing lack of hesitation and doubt and a knowing mother. A very nice combination for this reader's brand of picnic basket.

2005

This is a charming story. Kirk and Spock are on leave in Iowa where there feelings for each other are very close to the surface. Kirk's mother arranges for them to attend a boxed supper organised by the Historical Society. Unbeknown to Jim she prepares a picnic basket for the auction and lets Spock know which is hers. Spock declares himself in front of the town and whisks an astonished Kirk away. All finished off with declarations of love and passionate sex and a meld on a blanket under the stars. Lovely.

2009

Spending shore leave together in Iowa, Jim and Spock attend a picnic basket auction - which proves the perfect way for Spock to declare his love for his friend. Seriously, the summary doesn't make this story justice. This is as perfect as fluff can get, intelligent, tender and fun yet never boringly perfect or nauseatingly sweet. Adore the quiet moments together, matchmaking mama Kirk, Spock's very public declaration of love and lovemaking under the stars.