Nyota liked physical contact with people she knew. Her family hugged, kissed, walked arm in arm, and led people by the hand into dancing. However, Nyota's mother and father had been loving, but rather quiet and conservative about sexuality, referring to it in only the most clinical terms on the rare occasions when it was spoken of aloud in the Uhura home. This did nothing to stifle Nyota's awareness of her own body; she did self-exams with a hand mirror, learned by trial and error how she liked to be intimately touched. The pleasure she took in feeling her body moving as she ran track or danced went beyond sensuality to a joy in being alive and in good health. She knew how fortunate she was to be so.

Spock was no virgin when he first came to her, but he had discussed at length his mixed opinions - he would not call them emotions, despite the hint of pain she heard in his voice - about non-sexual touching. His mother had hugged and kissed him. His father, though proud of his son and distantly affectionate, seldom touched him.

As they spent more time together, they discovered new levels and varieties of warmth and affection. Spock seemed to yearn for simple physical affection and companionship in his private life. The frequency of his light touches to her waist, her face, and her shoulders surprised her, as did his habit of leaving her small gifts related to her likes and intellectual interests.

Spock surprised Nyota during previous winter holidays with small gifts, wrapped in red and green paper in acknowledgment of her Anglican upbringing. Christmas celebrations at the Uhura family compound were open to all, with Muslim relatives and friends joining in the socializing. Spock had made a good impression during his holiday visit during the previous year. However, the Uhura house was crowded and finding time alone with Nyota was difficult. Nyota was similarly frustrated. She had hugs aplenty from relatives, but none from Spock until the couple took a long walk one morning and curled up together on an old blanket beneath a sheltering tree. Spock wrapped his limbs around Nyota's body like a vine, moaning with comfort at her touch.

Months before, he had embraced her just as closely when they lay together on the lumpy Starfleet-issued sofa in his Academy quarters, talking quietly about everything under the stars. Aboard the Enterprise, they lay in bed touching and talking during the artificial nights when both were too fatigued to do more. Sometimes Spock tucked Nyota's head beneath his chin and stroked the tightly curled hair at the nape of her neck.

At other times, when Nyota sensed Spock's stress and fatigue across their bond, it was she who lightly rested her chin on his hair while she massaged the parts of him that she could reach; he lay down carefully so that only part of his heavy body rested on hers. During those times, sometimes she picked up fleeting worries across their deepening bond, ruminations on shipboard operations that had not gone as well as intended. She knew that Spock would be reluctant to discuss an emotion as illogical as regret. Nyota tried to respond with thoughts of assurance, confidence, and affection. Eventually his thoughts grew relaxed and abstract, becoming formless expressions of delight in the warmth and curves of her body and of sheer pleasure in her companionship.

Both grew slightly irritable when days went by without physical contact. Spock meditated. Nyota exercised or danced. Their private reunions following such periods of deprivation seemed to generate the energy of a star going nova. They always ended with cuddling.