The day did not start well. It was 9AM and I was in the office of Dr. Liu, my graduate advisor, sitting through yet another dressing down. My dissertation proposal was going poorly, and I had just turned in yet another underdeveloped draft. My advisor was fairly nice about it, but it didn't make things any easier. She was fairly easy on the eyes, at least, which meant that these meetings weren't all bad. I may be an enlightened male member of the liberal academia, but what guy wouldn't get a little turned on looking at that exotic face, framed by that short black hair, that tight, petite little body in a short skirt, perky little breasts framed by a tight blouse...
"Why are you spending so much time looking at those things?"
I snapped back into focus, a bit of a blush rising to my face.
"What do you mean?"
"For your research -- you should be focusing on finding more primary sources and including your own original ideas, but you keep slavishly citing from secondary sources instead. If you want to get published you need to come up with something more original"
My advisor stared me down over the top of her rimmed glasses, her almond eyes intently watching me.
"I expected better of you Mark - the papers you wrote for the classes you took with me were excellent. What's changed?"
"It's been a rough semester."
"How so?"
"It's no excuse."
"Mark, I was a grad student too not all that long ago. I know it can be rough -- maybe I can give you some advice"
She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms below her chest. As upset as I was, I couldn't help noticing the hint of cleavage revealed by her blouse.
"Well, it's the usual. Teaching too many classes to try to pay the rent, that sort of thing, but I could handle that.
Last month, though, my girlfriend broke up with me. That's what really messed me up. I thought she was the one."
I put my head in my hands, dejectedly.
"Valerie? The girl you brought to the reception for the first year students?"
"Yeah, her"
"I'm sorry to hear that. I had a bad break-up in grad school too. You can't let it affect your work, though."
I rubbed my hands back through my hair, trying to think of how to explain my situation.
"Dr. Liu, it's more than just a 'bad breakup'. We'd been together since my senior year of high school, and she didn't just dump me, she humiliated me."
She looked at me quizzically.
"I'm not sure you'd want to know. It's rather personal."
"Mark, you've been my advisee for five years. You've done research work for me, you've house-sat for me - I think we're beyond that, and you need to talk with someone and get this off your chest."
I felt my face flush. This wasn't the sort of story that you told your female advisor and still maintained a professional relationship. But, she was practically forcing me to tell her, and damn it, I just didn't care at this point. Whatever happened, happened, I figured. At worst, she'd at least have to pity me enough to give me another extension.
"Well, like I said, we'd been together since high school, but it's always been a long distance relationship..." I looked away, nervous to say what was to come, "and, this is going to sound weird, but you need to know to understand -- we had an open relationship."
Dr. Liu's eyes widened a bit.
"Oh."
"Yeah, it was...do you really want to know this?" I stuttered.
"Yes, go on," she said, giving me an unexpectedly intense look.
"Okay, well, the agreement was that we could, you know, fool around with other people, as long as it was just physical -- but the emotional stuff, that could only be between us.
At first it was okay. I got some on the side, she got some on the side, we talked about it -- but like two years ago she told me she was ready to stop, that it wasn't working out."
