This story got its start based on a rumor about a gorgeous local television anchor a few years ago. A few weeks after the rumors started, she left the station and I never heard about her again. Needless to say, the names and characters here are fictional and they are all over the age of eighteen.
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"Mom, how much semen can a man produce in a day?" my daughter asked me out of the blue.
"What!?" I said, shocked and staring at her incredulously. I was stunned not only by her question, but by the fact that she chose to ask me with no warning just as I was sitting down at the family breakfast table. It was even more awkward because her younger brother Steven was walking into the room just as she said it.
"How much semen can a man produce in a day?" she repeated.
Now Steven was staring wide-eyed at her as well. An uncomfortable silence enveloped the room as both of us looked at my nineteen year-old daughter across the table. Heather sat quietly, scooping yogurt from a cup, her blue eyes locked on mine, awaiting an answer to her perverse question.
"Why would you ask me such a thing, Heather?" I said after a long pause. "That is certainly not an appropriate question."
Heather blinked, and then looked down bashfully, a red blush crept up from her neck until her cheeks were scarlet. I watched her carefully, trying to judge if her outrageous question was meant to anger me. She sat primly in her chair, her honey-blonde hair swept back from her face, her eyes sincere. Her behavior and question did not seem to be an attempt to make me angry but I was still flummoxed by her question and did not know how to respond at first.
I needed time to gather my composure and walked to the counter to fill my coffee cup. I looked out the floor length windows of our penthouse condo to the city skyline and Front Range beyond. It was going to be a beautiful day I thought, my flushed mind refusing to accept the sordid question my daughter had just posed to me over breakfast.
In the reflection of the windows, I could see our whole family assembled around the breakfast table. Heather sat at the table with her back to the windows. I noticed she was not dressed for class yet - she was wearing her favorite sleeping attire, a satin and lace peach sleep shirt. Her tanned legs peaked out below the mid-thigh length of the shirt. Heather was my pride and joy. Her conception had been a surprise, but she had always been a wonderful and curious child. She used to dote over her younger brother as they grew up. I knew she was a beautiful and confident young woman, albeit a bit sheltered from the real world problems of her peers.
Steven, my youngest child, had just turned eighteen. As usual he was wearing an old threadbare pair of pajama bottoms and cutoff t-shirt. Steven was roughly my height now, but still had the wiry body of a teenage boy. He slowly moved into the kitchen and sat at the table across from my normal seat. His light brown hair reminded me of his late father's. My son was a youthful and handsome boy.
I looked at my reflection. I was already dressed for work. My sweptback frosted blonde hair was shining in the early morning sun. I had not put in my contacts yet, so my green eyes peered out through my black-framed glasses. My colleagues always joked that the librarian had called and wanted her sexy glasses back. I was wearing a new satin white blouse and short black skirt combo that was now the de rigueur uniform of local television newswomen. You see, my name is Erin Morgan, I am the longtime late news television anchor for Channel 8 in Denver.
When viewing my reflection, I noticed that in the morning light, my new blouse was almost transparent and my bra was very noticeable. I reminded myself to make certain that my suit jacket was fully buttoned before we started the Nine O'Clock News broadcast tonight. I did not want video clips of me appearing in a see-through blouse on the internet - although I jokingly thought it might improve our ratings.
Looking back at the reflection, I smiled thinking that we looked like the perfect family; although I doubted that most families would talk about semen at the breakfast table. Steeling myself, I sat back down and looked pointedly at my daughter who had stopped eating her breakfast yogurt and was looking at me, waiting. Not sure how to respond, I snapped at her, surprising all of us at the table.
"You should be ashamed of asking such a dirty thing," I said. "Especially with your younger brother here." I looked over at Steven, who was also sitting quietly with a stunned look on his face.
"I'm sorry mom, I didn't know he was in the kitchen," Heather said. She paused, trying to judge my reaction before continuing. "I didn't mean it in a dirty or naughty way, it was just something I was curious about because of a conversation I had with Cindy after class yesterday."
"And why were you and Cindy talking about ... umm ... that?" I asked, quickly glancing at Steven. I am not certain why a thirty-nine year-old professional woman should be afraid to say a word like semen, but I felt my heart begin to race a bit as the nature of the topic I was discussing with my only children began to fully form in my mind. "That is not a topic you should be discussing with anybody," I said to my daughter.
My daughter was now quiet. I realized my sharp rebuke had gone too far and now I felt sympathy for her. From her demeanor, I could tell she was uncomfortable in asking me her question, but still had the courage to do so. Still her question was so out of character for her, I could not fathom why she would ask such a thing. I looked again at my daughter, and slowly a slight smile formed on my face, trying to reassure her that I was not angry at her for raising such a topic over breakfast.
"I'm sorry, Heather," I said. "Your question just startled me, that's all. Why were you and Cindy discussing that...? Again, I just could not say out loud what we were talking about. Heather looked up at me and then quickly at her younger brother.
"Well...Cindy said she caught her brother watching a dirty movie on his computer on Saturday night, and she said that in the movie the boy...ummm...sprayed a bunch of his ... umm ... stuff all over a lady's back, covering it. I didn't believe her."
Now I was even more embarrassed as I looked at my children sitting at the breakfast table staring back at me; seemingly waiting for an answer to a question that remained forbidden in my mind. As the uncomfortable silence continued, my professional training as a reporter finally kicked into gear, and I focused on the question itself rather than the uncomfortable atmosphere that pervaded my kitchen.
I was used to handling difficult and surprising situations in my job, and I convinced myself that my training and experience should allow me to shift my focus away from my embarrassment to my role as a single mother of my two children, so that I could answer my daughter quickly and truthfully in order to bring the conversation to an end. I was the adult at the table and knew that I needed to reassure my children that their mother was not afraid to discuss uncomfortable topics with them.
