“Sí. Sí. I’ve been dreaming about you,” he said in a husky voice that reminded her of the way he sounded first thing in the morning, memories of the few times they’d spent the night together. Her sex responded immediately, clenching around air in a wet rush.

Deja stood from her desk chair and headed toward the door. “What kind of dreams?” she asked, her own voice a bit deeper as well.

There was a smile on her face as she flicked the lights off and pulled her office door closed behind her.

Sixteen

Week Two

All academics lie. Period.

Sometimes, they lied as a matter of course. For instance, at some point in every semester, Deja said to her students, “You know more than enough to pass the exam.” Technically, that wasn’t a lie outright. For students who came to class and did the work, she was telling the absolute truth. But for the thirty to sixty percent of the students in each class who didn’t come to class and didn’t do the reading, she was lying; they didn’t know enough to pass her exams. Of course, she couldn’t tell her students that because she didn’t want to freak them out so much that they dropped the class for fear they couldn’t pass. So, it was a kind of lie of omission.

Sometimes, professors lied without even thinking about it, like when they had their annual goal-setting meetings with the chairs of their departments. Every year, Deja told her boss that she planned to finish her book, and she meant it. The problem was that she had the best intentions, but no time.

But the biggest and worst lies were the ones professors told themselves.

Every year, Deja promised herself that she would rest during winter and summer breaks. She promised herself that she’d catch up on all the sleep she’d missed during the semester. She vowed to cook real meals, go for walks, and rediscover herself during the holidays. She made herself the most solemn promises — usually in the middle of the night while scrambling to get graduate research papers back on schedule and with copious feedback — that she would actually take a break during the break.

She also simultaneously told herself that once the semester was over, she’d get all the research and writing done. By the time the semester was over, she usually had a notebook of half-formed ideas she wanted to turn into academic articles, notes on revisions for a book chapter or two, and a stack of books to read in just six short weeks.