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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about a first date that surprises both people, but in different ways.

Posted in Romance on Jul 8, 2021

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 161 stories

“Dinner For Champions” by Johan Rosenblad

Submitted to Contest #81

Start by making the topping, mashing two avocados and an equal amount of vegan creme fraiche in a mixer together with vinegar, garlic, ginger, cilantro and salt. Finely chop one red chilli pepper and one to two shallots and stir it into the mixture. Let it rest in the fridge. Make a batter from a mixture of wheat flour, boiled potatoes, beer and yeast. The batter should be thick as a sponge cake batter. Let it rise until bubbles are visible. Heat up lots of oil in a frying pan, pour your batter into the oil, making sure it spreads out nice a...

3 comments 3
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“Galaxy Girl: The Kiss” by Cara H

Submitted to Contest #81

The Kiss Dream Lover Pepper was filled with conflicting emotions. The dowdy, forty-seven-year-old nurse’s aide had been dismayed to learn that one of her longtime heroes, blues-rock guitarist Gerry Clifford, had been placed in a care home in London’s storied Crouch End borough. At just sixty-two years old, Gerry had been diagnosed with dementia. Pepper always thought that Gerry was sweet and smart, and she felt that what was happening to him was terribly unfair. She wondered if he was frightened. She knew that she would be. So, she sent a wi...

2 comments 2
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“Sixteen” by Cassia Savage

Submitted to Contest #81

April 2009 (flashback)"Eri." my mother's voice, both a memory and a wish. I miss her."Mommy?" I was five when she 'went away' then, 'died' now."Erica, promise me you'll find a good man," she had said. A good man... what if I didn't want a good man?"I promise." there was no other choice but to promise. She was sick and dying. The least I could do was promise something as simple as finding a good man.And I did find a good boy, though I can’t say I kept him.April 8, 2020It has been eleven years since my mother died. My sixteenth birthday. Somet...

25 comments 25
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“Heavenly Date” by Cali Jones

Submitted to Contest #81

When you’re the grim reaper, you don’t make many friends, let alone get many dates.  So, after all these lonely millennia, I signed up for online dating.  I know, it was risky.  I don’t even have a decent picture of myself.  But here I am, on my way to my first date with Angelina. I can not believe I am going on a date with the most annoying angel in all of the heavens. We met briefly one time. She was this little girl's guardian angel. The little girl had passed away in a car crash and I, just doing my job, was on my way...

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“The Set-Up” by Smudge Himmel

Submitted to Contest #81

Emery didn't normally celebrate Valentine's Day. It just didn't go with his vibe. Besides, Valentine's Day was busy, which meant that people were more cheerful, more careless, et cetera, et cetera... a perfect heist planning day. Or heist committing day. Which, you know, when you were the cities greatest (not) supervillain was something to be cherished. It meant that that bastard, Bubble Bath, The Shine Monster, He Who Makes You Slip, Emery's nemesis, hero alias Bathesar, would be on the lookout. Because they'd been through this routine. Man...

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“First Date” by Paige Leppanen

Submitted to Contest #81

There weren’t a lot of places to go on a first date in Grey Ridge. Going to a fast-food restaurant hardly felt romantic. The park was littered with trash and the movie theatre seemed to have a perpetually open vacancy for the janitor position. The city was an hour drive and that was simply too much for a first date, especially a blind one. Jason wasn’t sure his car could make it much further than the burger joint, anyway. That’s how he ended up in the bar, hardly able to breathe from the cigarette smoke. Manda seemed at home, waving to a g...

2 comments 2
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“Love is a Stand Still” by Daryl Oliver

Submitted to Contest #81

I saw her standing inside the store. Her hair perfectly quaffed. Her skin smooth and delicate like a porcelain doll. She was dressed in the latest fashion and it fit her beautifully. She was mine at one time, but I haven’t seen her since I left two years ago. Today was my first day back to this part of town, and as fate would have it, I find her in the same store the two of us both worked at a few years ago. Our love was true and fast. I knew from the moment I first saw Vanessa that this was something special. I looked at her and when our e...

3 comments 3
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“Begin Again” by Meggysa Nine

Submitted to Contest #81

I pushed the door and the chimes of the door sounded. It was seven in the morning when I came to the coffee shop I love to eat breakfast. I looked for a vacant table and saw one. I sat on the chair and placed my hand atop of the table. I waited for the waiter to come to me while watching the fast-moving vehicles outside the coffee shop.  Summer... I hate summer. It makes your skin itchy and sticky while your face becomes oily. "May I take your order, Ma'am Ash?" I am their regular customer and they memorised my name already.  ...

2 comments 2
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“One Good Woman” by Iris Miller

Submitted to Contest #81

One Good Woman  There’s a bug in my seltzer. Musca domestica. It gyrates wildly for a solid thirty seconds before shuddering.   I’ve been waiting for the girl I matched with for only five minutes, but my feet are tapping wildly. We met online, on one of those dating apps that are underused or misused. Once I matched with a man wanting feet pictures. That was an uncomfortable conversation.   The restaurant we picked was equidistant to our apartments. She lives in Murray Hill - which is where this restaurant is loc...

1 comment 1
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“Green” by Diana Quill

Submitted to Contest #81

Jordan:There were no butterflies. No, I felt like I was going to throw up. Anxiety stretched out the lining of my stomach, and I felt full and flustered. I can do better- I can do this. It’s just a date. My flatmate set this up. They always did, the type of social butterfly to give other people butterflies, whose conversations took flight with an ease that made me stand still with shock. So carefree, so easy-going, conversation and laughter flowing unbelievably effortlessly. More friends than minutes in a day, more numbers on ...

3 comments 3
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“Stuck” by Fly Ball

Submitted to Contest #81

Stuck“Are you stuck?” Viv’s dark eyes glitter up at Ty from her cross-legged position on the imitation Kashan rug.“No, I’m not stuck. Just let me…” Bracing himself on the round, knee-high table, he eases down onto a large sequined sitting pillow on the floor. “Whose idea was this anyway – Moroccan food, no chairs, no shoes…” Tucking a well-stuffed velvet cushion under his bent knee, he motions toward Viv’s crossed legs. “And there is no way I can sit like that.” He pulls his shin in close to his body with both hands and there’s a sharp crack...

3 comments 3
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“Doughnuts and Ax Belts and Really Weird Dates” by Ceci Calvino

Submitted to Contest #81

Please comment and tell me what you think! So, in case my mentor tracks you down and asks you, tell him I'd been seeing the human for at least a month before he asked me out. In the mornings I go to this doughnut place near my... living quarters. Of course I try to stay in the corner... you would too if you were me. But although I tried almost every corner table, I still got stares and points, if anyone noticed me at all. So one day I got there early and I picked a different corner table. I sat back with my six doughnuts, leaned against the ...

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“Cupcake Dan II” by Matt Render

Submitted to Contest #81

Outside Oleg’s Cakes was a concrete circus of coked up caffeine fiends, chain smoking already half-smoked cigarettes and chiming in and out through the front door of the shop, each time with a new conspiracy, or gripe. Chester, whom as his namesake implied, smoked chesterfields, wore a red beanie with a blue pom-pom on the top, heavily padded yellow mittens and a white wooled scarf that had yellowed from dried mucus and smoke. Inside the bottom left pocket of his green parka was always a half filled Mickey, assortments of dead...

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“Wrong person, wrong time” by Varsha R

Submitted to Contest #81

It all started when I was flipping through the pages of my favorite novel 'Pride and Prejudice' while sitting in a library with stacks of books lined sequentially. I was fully focused on the novel. Darcy and Elizabeth's love story almost made me forget the real world. While I was so into the book, I heard someone approaching from behind. "Hi! Are you Joseph?" a girl in her brown turtleneck and short skirt asked me. I turned down the book and replied "Yeah! Do I know you?" "I'm Kayla. We both went to the music class together in the 5th grad...

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“Ice Storm” by Rich Conti

Submitted to Contest #81

Ice Storm By Rich Conti The clatter of sleet against the windows made Paula shiver although her bedroom was warm and cozy. Her grandson Michael slept in his crib. The lights flickered and went out just after she settled into bed with a good book. She sat in the darkness and wondered what to do. Her phone rang a few moments later. “Hi, Jane,” she said, grateful her friend was checking on her. “My power just went out.” “We have a generator,” Jane said. “You should come over here.” Jane lived next door. Paula put on heavy leggings and a ...

2 comments 2
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