Reinventing Valentine's Day

This challenge was started by Shon Richards on the 11th of January 2000. Here's his post to ASSD (the original post be found at google):

'I was with my wife at Target recently, and we noticed that the Valentine's Day products were already on sale.

My wife exclaimed, "Valentine's already?"

An attractive, young, female salesperson snapped "Yeah, it's so you can get depressed a month in advance."

This is a sad, yet typical reaction of what should be our greatest holiday. Valentine's Day is that magical time of the year where loved ones express themselves to one another. Unfortunately, it's also a kind of holiday checkpoint for single people. It's that cruel time of year where in a perfect world, a wonderful member of the opposite sex expresses their interest in you. In the real world, the day goes more like "It's Feb 14, why are you still single?" or "It's Feb 14, and your man got you what?" or "It's Feb 14 and she still didn't put out?" or "It's Valentine's Day, why haven't XXX called or sent a card?"

There are too many expectations for couples with Valentine's Day, and I think it's because the whole holiday acts like some sort of bargaining session. Women are expected to recieve candy, jewelry and flowers. Men are expected to receive sex in the form of that really fragile tacky red lingerie. Valentine's Day reminds me of barbarians trading doweries. There's a death of creativity to Valentine's day, and no, I don't count doing it upside down on the washer machine as creative.

So here's my idea. Let's reinvent Valentines Day with stories. The only requirement for your story is that you create a different way to celebrate Valentine's Day. Maybe that means in your story, Valentine's day is used to mourn lost loves. Or maybe it means everybody in town has to wear masks and shag each other silly. Heck, maybe in your fictional holiday, it's a time to massacre rival gangs. I really don't care what you do, but let's do something different. If I have to read another story of card swapping this Valentine's Day, I'm just going to give up on the holiday altogether.

The deadline for the contest is Feb 14. A shady panel of judges will review the results and post a comprehensive review sometime the next week. All stories must be submitted to lordshon@aol.com as well as be posted anywhere you like. If you think this whole idea is just a crafty way for me to recieve creative stories by e-mail, then you're half right.

Shon'

• "The Folly of Eros" by Souvie
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• "Mall Cupid" by Jimmy Hat
• "V Day (MMF FF Adul Cheat Preg Revenge)" by E.Z. Riter
• "Valentine's Day" by Hecate