Sex Talks

by

Gayle F. Arrowood

I rushed around my small kitchen trying to get the dishes from the previous night

into the dishwasher.  Still being in graduate school, I had tons of writing on my dissertation to do today.  And my children, Sammy and Ginnie, had to be ready when their father picked them up for his weekly visiting rights.

Just as the last dish went into the dishwasher, Sammy stumbled out of his bedroom, massaging his tired eyes.

“Want some cereal?”  I asked as I yanked and shoved the dishwasher the three feet between it and the sink where I would hook its hose to the faucet.

“Not yet.  I’ll get it,” he answered.

 “OK.”  I finally twisted the hot water spicket as far as it would go.  Then I plopped on a dining room chair, placed my elbow on the table and rubbed my forehead.  Shit, allergies starting already and it’s only the beginning of April, I thought.

After a few minutes, he staggered into the kitchen for bowl, spoon, milk, and sugared corn puffs.  When he finally settled into eating across the table from me, he asked, “Mom, how come ya talked so much when ya were in bed with Ted last night?”

“People talk when they’re in bed.  What makes you ask?”  I answered without thinking much about it.  I had a king-size headache.

“Mom, lemme give ya a man’s point of view,” Sammy explained.

I stared at him, knowing only too well what was coming.  I was thinking now.

“Men don’t want ya talkin all the time,” he said while taking a bite of corn puffs.  “I mean even when ya were up, before I went to bed, you were talkin too much.  Nobody can get a word in with ya.  I mean Ted can’t.  And the last two guys that have been here in the last few years couldn’t either.  And I can’t.  See, it’s uncool, Mom.  You don’t realize how uncool ya are.  And Ginnie’s getting just like ya.  Men wanna marry a cool woman.”

“Sammy, I’m a confirmed bacholarette, and Ginnie is only nine-years-old.”

“Will ya stop makin up words.  Shit, it’s embarrassin.  Ya even do that in front of my friends.  I can’t believe I’m so cool when you and Ginnie are the most uncool people I’ve ever seen.  It’s not a bacholarette, it’s an old maid.”

“Sammy, mom’s are supposed to look uncool when their kids are your age.”

“It’s so embarrassin.  Last night, I felt like walkin into yur bedroom and tellin ya ta close yur mouth and get down to things.  But ya keep the door locked.”

“Did it ever occur to you, young man, that some things around here are private.  And you should have been going to sleep and minding your own business, instead of parading back and forth between the bathroom and your bed, just so you could listen better.  Did that ever occur to your devious little mind?”

“Mom, I couldn’t tell what was said.  I just heard voices.”

“If Ted thinks I talk too much, he is perfectly capable of saying so himself.”

“He may not want to criticize at the beginning, mom.”

“What makes you think this is the beginning?” I had decided to question him quite thoroughly because he’d been on me every time I had a boyfriend to our apartment for the last two years.

“Mom, now look.  I know where ya keep your diaphragm.”

“And where’s that, smarty pants?”

“Bathroom closet.  I check it every time ya go out.  And it’s always there.”

That one cracked me up.  In fact, every time in the last few years that Sammy and I discussed sex, he said something that got me laughing so hard I could barely think.  But my headache was suddenly gone.   See, the funny part was that diaphragm was eons old.  The one I used was in a drawer in my bedroom.  I suddenly realized how long it’d been since I cleaned out the bathroom closet.  And I made a mental note to leave the old one there, so he wouldn’t look elsewhere.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.  “I’m tryin to tell you how it is with guys, mom ya blab too much.”

“Look, nibby, the first couple dates, I listen mostly.  And he better say everything he needs to say in that time, so after I’ve cased him out and decide to start talking, I can have my say.”  I was still busting my gut over the diaphragm. 

“Mom, listen, I’m tryin to teach ya about cool.  So stop laughin.  Ya see what I mean about ya being uncool.  Ya keep laughin when the other person doesn’t see anythin funny.”

“Son, when you’re twenty-one, I’ll tell you what’s so funny.  But for now, you’re a need-to-know basis.  And you don’t need to know what’s funny about this.”  Finally I calmed down enough to add, “Has it ever occurred to you how ludicrous it is for an eleven-year-old boy to be telling his mother how to act in the bedroom?”

Sammy frowned.  “Mom, somebody’s gotta tell ya.”