Let’s just start there: it could have been worse.

This is my third year entering the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge. (You can’t enter this year because it’s closed but if you want to sign up for alerts to enter in future years, just google that phrase and you can get on their notification list.)

In January, they give about nine thousand people group into clumps of 25-30 writers a prompt. The prompt will have a genre, a character, and a plot point. You get 2,500 words and one week to upload a story, which is then judged by some mysterious cabal of people (who provide pretty good feedback for the most part, but sometimes you can really tell none of them have ever left New York City. Their urban-centric comments are hysterical.)

In years past I got the thriller genre and the action-adventure genre, neither of which are interesting to me as a writer, but hey, expanding your mind and vocabulary can be fun.

This year? Oh bloody hell: ROMANCE.

No, please. But oh yes. You cannot change your prompt. So I got Romance, for a central character, a foodie, and the plot point “stranded”.

Coulda been worse. 28 poor sods got “Horror, a birthday party, a nosy neighbor.” Yeah, good luck, kids.

I wrote my story, and I have to admit this year I discovered something fun about the contest I hadn’t in years past: It can be fun if you let go and play around. In years past I was set on “how can I prove my talent.” This year it was “how much fun can I have playing with this genre and its expectations and writing a character that both complies with and mocks them?”

A lot, turns out. :]

If you want to read it, the surprisingly freeing story I wrote is below (2495 words!). It won’t set the world on fire, and that’s part of the point really. Instead of trying to heal the world, I had a good time. Writers can get a little too pretentious with our stuff sometimes. This had a completely different result. I had forgotten how much fun it can be to just write for the joy of creation and the silliness of making other laugh out loud.

Enjoy.

OPERATION SETH

A series of disasters plague two medical residents struggling to really know each other. Is this the worst first date ever, or the best?

The little pellets in her hand looked like dead grubs. Why the hell would anyone eat this shit? If she wanted that many carbs, she’d splurge with a potato.

Consulting the box, Michele dumped the rice into the boiling water. Added salt. Dropped in chopped onions, pushing them with the bamboo spoon she’d bought that afternoon.

And cursed. The recipe said they were supposed to go in the other pan with the red goop. She scooped them out with the slotted spoon, burning her fingers on one trying to get away. With another curse, she threw soggy diced onions into the frying pan full of tomato sauce.

Was Seth worth this?

SHIT! The oil should have gone in first. She added it now, but the bottle slipped and splashed into the sauce, scattering boiling drops across her blouse and arm.

As she ran cold water on the burns, her phone lit up. She was on OB-GYN rotations this month, and therefore on call 24/7.

Her patient was convinced she needed to go the hospital. Which she didn’t, yet. By the time Michele restored calm with the anxious mother-to-be back, the entire pan was popping red liquid like a prehistoric tar pit full of blood, even depositing tomato on the ceiling.

She’d never learned to cook. Why bother, living in New York City where every deli offered fresh, healthy options if you had the money? Which her family did. But she was determined now. She’d asked Seth over on what they both knew was a pretext of reviewing exam notes-cum-booty call. She would see Operation Seth through. And then never cook again.

His eyes, that skin. That brain. Seth was the star of their medical residency program and drop dead gorgeous. So why was her fantasy for this evening the two of them talking across a dinner table, rather than rolling on the carpet?

Because, as her therapist had said many times, she liked to self-sabotage by setting herself up for failure. A guy like Seth, deep and beautiful, would never really date Dr. Barbie, as some of the Family Medicine team called her. All blond and no brains. Tonight might be a hot shit booty call, but Seth seeing beyond sex to her? From her cooking?

Delusional.

Grabbing the biggest knife from the block she’d had delivered that afternoon along with the Instapot, Michele hacked at the big green dildo-looking jalapeno. She had swithered about using it, but now it became the object of her aggressions. Until her thumb got in the way, the knife slicing through her protective glove to draw blood.

Furious, she threw the bloody pulpy mess into the sauce and headed for the bathroom. She’d taken Benadryl before she started, but better safe than sorry. The doorbell rang. Michele pushed hair from her eyes, then shrieked in pain as the pepper juice hit them.

She flung open the door dripping blood, snot, and tears.

“Are you okay?” Seth dropped a paper bag on the entry table and grabbed her hand. “Do not rub your eyes! Were you cutting hot peppers? Is that blood on your blouse? Are those blisters? What’s that smell?”

Through a haze she saw him cross her front room into the galley kitchen; only a counter separated the two. Leaning back so the spitting oil couldn’t reach his face, he swung the pan into the sink and ran water; steam hissed upwards. He turned the burner off.

“Bathroom. Now.”

Seth rinsed her eyes and treated her hands with a gentle touch that started a different kind of burn in her body. Applying a last tissue to her ruined make-up, Michele opened the medicine cabinet door—just as her smoke alarm went off.

“Oh shit, that rice shit.” Michele moaned. Seth shot her a startled look, then pushed past her into the front room.

The water was gone, a nasty clump of what looked like white and brown maggots welded to the bottom of the brand-new Instapot. Seth disconnected it and raised his eyebrows.

“Jollof Rice is harder than it looks.” Michele averted her gaze.

“Rice?” Seth’s perfect eyebrows shot higher. “You never eat carbs. Everyone knows that. In the cafeteria you don’t even take corn from the salad bar. Why—oh. Oh. For me?” His dark eyes softened, and he grinned. The grin that made him the most popular resident in the osteopathic program. That made Michele want to melt into him. “Do you cook for all your study dates? Forgive me, but cooking doesn’t seem like your kind of thing.”

She shrugged. “I wanted to cook you something from Ghana. The website said Joloff Rice was popular and easy. It lied.”

Seth’s grin deepened into a warm smile. “How thoughtful.”

Something in Michele warmed. She forgot her stinging eyes and hand. “Thoughtful?”

His face fell. “Wrong word?”

“No! I wanted you to … I thought you thought—.” She bit back the words, but he leaned forward.

“Intriguing. You wanted; I thought?”

Go for broke; he’d already seen her snotty with runny mascara. “That I’m good for a booty call, but Dr. Barbie can’t be taken seriously.”

He looked as though she had slapped him. “What?” He let out a sigh that lifted his dreadlocks. “Ah, Michele, to be seen as a real person is a rare thing. This year’s star African resident knows something about that.”

She blinked, and he shook his head. “Never mind that. Honestly, I thought a woman like you would never look twice at me. Beautiful, kind, intelligent, why would you bother with the resident misfit beyond—.” He gestured. “This one-night stand.”

She felt light-headed; he was standing so close to her. “You thought all I wanted was a booty call? Misfit?” Her voice shrilled and she pulled it back to normal range with a deep breath. “Seth, you’re awesome and sexy and …” She fumbled to a stop.

In slow motion, he stretched his arms around her shoulders. “So I am sexy?” he asked, and she let her head fall onto his chest. “Can we take each other seriously and have fun, too, Michele?”

“That sounds plausible.” Her voice was muffled against his sweater.

He lifted her chin with one finger, then pulled a frown. “I want to kiss you, but did you taste that food? Will I get second degree burns from your lips?”

It was her turn to offer a woozy grin. “Not from the food.”

The kiss was beautiful. Juicy. Warm and spicy, mulled wine rather than hot sauce. They pulled back and stared at one another, all teasing gone.

“You are very beautiful,” Seth said, emphasizing each word, his eyes locked on hers.

“So are you.” She was having trouble breathing.

He leaned in, then his eyes narrowed. “Are you… Michele, are you excited, or having an allergic reaction?”

She would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her.

He carried her to the couch, opened the windows. Checked her vitals. Ransacked her medicine chest and brought Benadryl.

She sat up. “I’m allergic to jalapenos.”

Seth cocked his head. “Yet you cooked with one? Why didn’t you take Benadryl first?”

“I was never really gonna eat that sh—stuff.” She gulped water. “And I did take it. I was about to take more but then the doorbell rang, and… all the rest.”

            “You poisoned yourself just to impress me? That is … extreme.”

“Not impress. I did take the fucking Benadryl, plus wear gloves. But I wanted to give you something nice, Seth. I wanted to—it sounds so corny—really get to know you.” She rolled her eyes at her choice of words. “Not just know you, you know?”

Laughter suffused his eyes. “You have quite the way with words. What you don’t know yet is that I am an excellent cook. My roommates call me The Budget Gourmet.”

She would not place hope on that yet. Michele shifted her legs. He moved so she could swing them around his body to sit beside him. Her legs grazing his back sent a thrill through her inner core.

“Your rice is like ‘The Gift of the Magi,’” Seth said. At her blank stare, he continued. “Sorry, that was random. My favorite story. Two people each make a big sacrifice so they can give the other one a perfect gift. It’s a famous story from O. Henry. You don’t know it?”

She shook her head. “I come from a long line of doctors. It’s all I know and all I have time for. Told you I was shallow.”

He took one of her hands. “Stop being mean to the woman I am dating. Close your eyes.”

Charmed, Michele obeyed as Seth began. “Once upon a time, two young lovers lived in a cheap flat in New York City. They were very poor, but Della had beautiful hair, and Jim owned a gold pocket watch….”

The only realities in her life became the warmth of his hand, his thigh grazing hers, and the sound of his voice filling the room. As he closed with Stella’s shorn hair glistening in the firelight, Michele opened her eyes. “That’s the loveliest thing ever.”

His face was soft; she saw that sometimes at the hospital, this gentleness in his composure, a calm center in a chaotic world. She drew in breath. “Except for you.”

Seth’s thumb rubbed her fingers, and warmth suffused her body again, but he made no move toward her. Instead he spoke.

“When we came here, I was 15. I barely knew English. Our ESL teacher gave us a simplified version to read, with a study guide. That story unlocked my new life. After that, I lived in the library. It was a place of refuge for someone like me, in a town like that. We did not come first to New York; the refugee society sent us to Nebraska.”

“Many people were kind, but I had never seen any land so flat, so many cows doing nothing. Or people. And it was cold; the wind turned us inside out when it blew. Four years we were stranded there, the opposite of everything we knew. We lived in the mountains before. Green, lush jungle. The river. The sky.” He stopped, swallowed, but she heard his voice tremble.

Michele squeezed his hand. “Tell me more”

“I grew up near Bosumtwi Lake. Every morning…”

The apartment darkened as they sat, holding hands, the spell of his voice transforming her one-bedroom walk-up into his homeland. She tasted fish roasting in ashes, heard birdsong and lapping water. When he finally stopped, her apartment was dark.

“I have talked forever. No one asks—.” Without warning his stomach growled. Hers answered. They laughed.

“The lions are awake now,” he joked.

She switched on a lamp. “Ghana doesn’t have lions. I read your country profile on Wikipedia.”

“Dr. Barbie is widely respected for her research skills.”

She stared at him.

“Did that sound sarcastic? I mean it. You are respected. Someday you will tell me about your family trauma because of descending from a dynasty of doctors. You must have a lot to believe anyone, anywhere, thinks you are dumb. Or shallow. But for tonight, stand up, please.”

He began kneading her shoulders with his thumbs, and her knees felt weak. Behind her, she could feel him grinning.

“Internal Medicine residents know what to do with our hands,” he said.

She turned, catching him off guard, and kissed him, hard. Pulling away, she smirked. “This resident knows what to do with her mouth.”

He kissed her back softly. “Teach me your ways.”

She pulled off his sweater. He unbuttoned her blouse. Backing toward the bedroom, she slipped in something and fell, banging her head against the wall.

His strong arms came around her. “Stay still. Where’s the light switch? How many fingers?”

When they were mutually assured she did not have concussion, she dabbed her fingers in the sticky brown liquid beneath her.

“What the everloving fuck am I sitting in?” she asked, holding up her hand.

He looked stricken. “I forgot it. You said once in the cafeteria how much you loved keto ice cream. You were saying how wonderful this brand was, but someone said it was so—.” He broke off.

“Expensive,” she supplied, thinking of the price tag on the last pint she’d bought, after a difficult exam experience three weeks ago. And how horrifying the price tag would have been to him, when it meant nothing to her.

His eyes tracked the dripping rivulet. “Not expensive now, just melted. I will buy you a new table.”

Liquid dairy oozed from the bag down the side of the end table, puddling except for the long streak where she had slipped.

“Sorry. I really wanted to give you something nice, but I ruined your furniture.” He sounded like an apologetic child. “Hopefully not your floor, too.”

Michele took his face between her hands. “Gift of the Seth,” she said.

“What?” His look of puzzlement made her laugh; she kissed him again.

“I only burned dinner,” she said when they came up for air. “Your ultra-expensive ice cream you didn’t need to buy to impress me melted. You win.”

“You tried to cook something you were allergic to,” he said. “You win. But please, never again. And you are worth it.”

“Maybe we call this a win-win?” she asked, nuzzling his cheek with hers.

“Maybe we call this the start of our second date,” he murmured against her hair. “It is after midnight. Are you on duty tomorrow—I mean, today?”

“No, but I have a patient going into labor soon with her first. Probably today.”

“Ah. Then we should take your phone into the bedroom with us, and make the most of this time, because time is precious. Like new life.” His lips moved over her forehead; his hands stroked her breasts, shoulders, back, and found ice cream there. He brought one sticky finger around and put it to her lips. She closed her mouth around it with an exaggerated pucker and batted her lashes at him as she sucked.

“Did you know Ghanans are almost always lactose intolerant?” Seth asked, then grinned as she shook her head, making his hand wiggle back and forth. “I was not going to eat the ice cream. What dairy products do to me is not sexy.”

Picking herself up off the floor, carefully avoiding the congealing mess, she pulled him up to stand beside her. “Besotted idiots, that’s what we are. Let’s shower to make sure neither of us drops dead.” She undid his trousers.

Seth’s dreadlocks tickled her shoulders as he unhooked her bra. “I am off duty until Sunday. If we live until dawn, this date could last all day. Minus you attending a birth, of course. And any time spent treating anaphylactic shock.”

“I’ll show you shock.” She hauled him into the shower, where they shared eighteen glorious minutes before her phone rang.