So a Bryson story -- I picked him up from school Thursday and on the way out, his mom said to me, "We had a talk about sex. I'll tell you more later." Seeing as how she wanted to talk to me first before I brought it up to Bryson, I asked Bryson about it (because that is the kind of ex-husband I am, and speaking of which, not too long ago I was in her classroom and one of the parents came in and heard Bryson call me dad, so the parent says to her "Is this your husband?" and she stammers, pauses, stammers some more and says, "He's, uh, that's Bryson's dad" as if I am some sort of dirty little secret, which I am, not that there's anything wrong with that).
"Bryson, your mom tells me you had a talk."
"A talk?"
"Yeah, about, you know, stuff."
"About what stuff?"
"Boy and girl stuff."
"You mean S-E-X?" (yes, he spelled it out)
"Yeah, that's it."
"We talked about it."
"What did you say? What did she say?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"Because she said I can't tell anybody."
"Well, I'm pretty sure she was talking about your friends. Besides, bud, you're not going to tell me anything I don't already know." (I was hoping this was true.)
"OK."
"So what do you know?"
Pause, as if wondering if he would get in trouble. "That boys have different things than girls and girls have different things than boys."
"You already knew that."
"But when they kiss and stuff, and their privates touch, the girl's thing goes into the guy's thing and the guy's thing goes into the girl's thing and you can have a baby. That's when it's S-E-X."
I pause, wondering if he's going to spell it the rest of his life. "You know, that's pretty true. There's a little more to it than that, but it gets real complicated." (Boy, does it.)
"Like how?"
"That's a story for another time." (When you're 24.)
That's all.