Alexei Panshin - Rite of Passage

“There’s nothing we can do. Let’s leave now, Mia, while we can.”

He blew out the candle. As we mounted our horses, it continued to rain.

We rode north through the night rain for hours. At first we stuck to the road, but when the ground started to rise and the country to roughen we cut off the road and followed a slow route of our own into the hills and forest. It was a tiring, unpleasant journey. The rain came down steadily until we were wet inside our coats. When we left the road, there were many times when we had to dismount and lead our horses through wet, rough brush that scratched and slapped. The noise of the cold wind was shrill as it blew through the trees and tossed branches. The only satisfaction that we had .was knowing that with the rain as it was, following us would be close to impossible. Considering the route we took, following us would have been difficult at the best of times.

At last we decided to stop, feeling ourselves beyond pursuit and knowing ourselves within another day’s ride of the military camp where Jimmy’s gear might be. We were both tired and bruised by our experience. Jimmy had had no practice in killing people and no stomach for it. The books I used to read made killing seem fun and bodies just a way of keeping score, but death is not like that, not to any normal person. It may seem neat to point a gun, and keen to pull a trigger, but the result is irrevocable. That policeman couldn’t get back up again to play the next game, and neither could Mr. Kutsov. They were both dead for now and always. That fact was preying on both Jimmy and me.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a spear carrier in somebody else’s story. A spear carrier is somebody who stands in the hail when Caesar passes, comes to attention and thumps his spear. A spear carrier is the anonymous character cut down by the hero as he advances to save the menaced heroine. A spear carrier is a character put in a story to be used like a piece of disposable tissue. In a story, spear carriers never suddenly assert themselves by throwing their spears aside and saying, “I resign. I don’t want to be used.” They are there to be used, either for atmosphere or as minor obstacles in the path of the hero. The trouble is that each of us is his own hero, existing in a world of spear carriers. We take no joy in being used and discarded. I was finding then, that wet, chilly, unhappy night, that I took no joy in seeing other people used and discarded. Mr. Kutsov was a spear carrier to the policeman, a spear carrier who asserted himself at the wrong moment, and then was eliminated. Then the policeman suddenly found himself demoted from hero to spear carrier and his story finished. I didn’t blame Jimmy at all. If I had been able to act, I would have done as he had, simply in order to stay alive. And Jimmy didn’t see the policeman as a spear carrier. Jimmy was always a more humane, open, warmer person than I, and it cost him greatly to shoot the man. I admit that the man was still a spear carrier to me, but nonetheless both deaths bothered me.

If I had the opportunity, I would make the proposal that no man should be killed except by somebody who knows him well enough for the act to have impact. No death should be like nose blowing. Death is important enough that it should affect the person who causes it.

We made our camp at last. We attended to the horses as best we could, sheltering them under the lee of some trees. Then we set up the bubble tent, pitching it on a level spot. Jimmy went after the saddle bags, bedroll and saddles while I finished with the tent. We stowed things away in all the corners and that left just enough room to stretch out the bedroll.

We were soaking wet. The rain made a steady pitter on the bubble and we could hear the rising and falling shrill of the wind outside. We left the light on until we had taken off all our clothes. Undressing was difficult because of the lack of room and a cold saddle is an unpleasant place to put your bare bottom. Jimmy was more hairy than I had ever suspected. Finally we spread our clothes out to dry, turned out the light and got into bed.

The bed was cold and so was I, and I put my arms around Jimmy. His skin was cold too, at first, but he was comfortingly solid. I needed comfort. I think he did, too.

I touched his cheek with my hand. “I’m not mad any more, you know.”

“I know,” he said. “I didn’t think you were. I’m sorry, anyway. I’ve got to take you as you are, even when you say stupid things. You can’t help what you think.”

He kissed me gently. I cooperated with the kiss.

“I’m glad you came for me,” Jimmy said. He moved his hand up the length of my back and across my shoulders. It gave me shivers. “Are you cold?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Did you think I’d come?”

“I hoped, I guess. I’m glad you came. I’m glad it was you, Mia.”

He shifted and then put his hand on my breast. I put my hand over it.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

“Why didn’t you ever say that before?” We’d kissed and done some other things, and I’d assumed he liked me, our differences aside, but he’d never said he liked the way I looked. I pressed the hand on my breast and I kissed his cheek and his mouth. I felt safer and warmer and more secure than I had in days. Oh, he was good to hold onto.

I let his hand go free and he let it wander. “I never dared,” he said. “You’d have used it against me. Hey, you know, that’s funny. When I touch this one, I can feel your heart beat and when I touch this one, I can’t.”

“I can feel yours, too,” I said. “Thump, thump, thump, thumps thump.”

I kissed my hand and let it touch his face. Kissed his face.

“You do like the way I look?”

“Of course. You are beautiful. I like the way you look. I like your voice — it doesn’t squeak. I like the way you feel.” He moved his hand. “I like the way you smell.” His face moved in myhair.

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” I said. “I don’t think I’d like this if I didn’t like the way you smell, and I never thought about it before. What do you mean I’d have used it against you?”

He said slowly, “You’d have said something snippy. I just couldn’t take the chance.”

I never realized before that he was that vulnerable, that something I might say could hurt him. “I say things sometimes,” I said, “but never if you told me that.”

He kissed my breast, moved his tongue experimentally over the nipple, and it swelled without my willing it. I thought my heart would become too large and break with the surge it made. We moved tightly into each other’s arms and kissed deeply. I held Jimmy to me and my knees moved apart for him.

Sex in the Ship is for adults. If you are an adult, then it doesn’t matter particularly whom you do sleep with. Nobody checks. But just as anywhere, people tend to be fairly consistent, fairly discriminating about what they do, at least the people I’m likely to be friends with. I don’t think I’d want to know well the sort of person who makes notches on the end of her bed, the sort of person who takes sex wherever he can, the sort of person who takes sex lightly. I can’t do any of those things. I’m much too vulnerable. I enjoy making love, but I couldn’t do it if I didn’t have confidence and trust, liking and respect, beyond the basic fact of physical attraction. I had known Jimmy for nearly two years and been attracted to him for nearly that long, but making love with him was something that I could not have done much sooner than I did.

In a sense, Jimmy and I were intended for each other. Whether we had met or not, whether we had liked each other or not, we stifi would have had at least one child, and probably more. But that is a mechanical process that has nothing to do with living together and loving. It was nice that knowing each other we could love. The passion of age fourteen is not an ultimate, but age fourteen does not last forever and passions do grow.