The Flavor of Gold is one of the first fanfiction and slash stories I wrote. It is in the K/S fandom. You can view it here.

And, here is the description: While on shore leave, Kirk runs into Finnegan, who tells Kirk that he would not have been as successful without Spock. Kirk takes on a one-man mission in order to prove Finnegan wrong. (Kirk so has issues with this!) Meanwhile, Spock, wondering where his 3D chess partner has gone, goes after Kirk. He finds him, of course, and then the fun ensues! Word count 30,491.

This story was first published in September of 1993 in the very fine First Time zine series put out by Robin Hood. The First Time series contained the myriad of “first time” slash experiences between Kirk and Spock. I would say that K/S was my first fandom, but that wouldn’t strictly be true.

When I was quite young, I was madly, madly in love with James West and Illya Kuryakin. Somehow, these action thrillers appealed to me in that they had these great characters that went through pain and suffering to save the world and the person they most loved in the world. Still being in grade school, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why these attributes appealed to me so, and I do recall feeling somewhat shy about explaining why I wanted to watch these shows. But it was accepted in my family that “baby” was watching her shows, and somehow, in a family of six, the TV was always available for me.

So, anyway, to relate that back to Kirk and Spock, I saw the same attributes in them that I’d seen in James and Illya. It wasn’t till years later (and I mean years) that I heard about slash. Yeah. Guess from whom?

I was at a Star Trek convention and Mr. Nimoy was the guest speaker. Someone, some bold person, asked him the question, “do you know about slash, have you read any, and what do you think about it?” The crowd booed and hissed, but Nimoy, being the professional that he is, answered the question with all seriousness. He said (near as I can recall), that yes, he’d heard about slash, and that no he’d not read any. As he understood it, it was something the fans needed to do, and he was okay with that. At the same time, he added that Mr. Shatner had been known to read a slash story or two, evidently enjoying it completely.

I pondered this a bit, and then curious, got my hands on all the slash I could find. And figured, after the 100th story, that, to paraphrase A Chorus Line, “I can do that.” So I did. And here is one of the first results.