Temperatures Rising Contest — 2022

Tell us a story about temperatures rising, figuratively or literally. 

Passion, obsession, lust, fever, climate change, anything you can conjure. It can be true or completely made up. It might be a torrid noir romance or a treatise on making the perfect cup of tea. Anything goes, so long as it’s hot.

You get 99 words or fewer.

The writer that sets our pulse racing the most wins a free Gotham class of their choosing.

Here’s an example: 

Penn knew hot flashes were for women undergoing menopause. So, on her twenty-sixth birthday—when she found herself slumped over the dirty bathroom sink, staring hard into the mirror, skin splotched and red, her heart beating all irregular like a wounded deer running its way back to the forest from the busy road—she was struck. The warmth spread through her chest, knocking her down before she’d even had the chance to answer Grandma’s Happy-Birthday-ladybug phone call. Sliding down to the merciful cold tile, Penn contemplated her body, and what it meant now.
                     —Emma Stephenson