Keep hanging out with Mars

“I won’t leave you here alone, Mars. I’m not that crass,” you smile, toying with your glass. “The guys who are going to the Theta fundraiser are missing out on the finer joys in life.”

“Really, you don’t want to watch scantily clad coeds perform vaguely sexual acts in exchange for money?” Mars says, deadpan.

“No way,” you say emphatically, maybe too emphatically. Fuck, you’d be more convincing if only the Theta girls weren’t so hot. “That is not one of the finer things in life.”

“So, what is?” Mars asks, leaning in to you expectantly.

“Well, lots of things are finer in life. Things like… like uh…” you glance quickly around the pub, stalling for time, and notice the two couples hanging around earlier have left. “Like, playing darts.”

“Brilliant save, Alex,” Mars says sarcastically, but the smile on her face tells you that not all hope is lost. She looks over to the dartboard and gets up. “Let’s play. What rules do we go by?”

“We can make it more interesting,” you say after thinking for a moment. “Best score after three darts apiece gets to dare the other.”

“I do like the sound of that,” Mars smiles, picking up her darts. “Get ready for a long night, Alex, because I am going to make you suffer.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” you laugh. “What’s the worst you can do? Make me strip in front of this crowd?”

“Oh, you’d like to play strip, wouldn’t you,” Mars laughs.

She gets behind the oche and shifts her on her feet. With a squint and three quick throws, she hits a respectable 9, double 13, and a triple 11.

“68 is the score to beat,” she says, all confident now.

You scoff, saying: “Lucky.”

You, with hardly any experience playing darts, take much more time with your first throw and hit a 4 with your first dart. Not a promising start.

“I’m just warming up,” you say, holding up a hand.

Mars smiles and gestures for you to go ahead. Shit. You zone in and throw another dart, but this one lands no closer to your intended bullseye, falling into the 5 point inner ring. At 9 points, things are not looking promising.

“So, what’s the plan? Hit a triple 20?” Mars asks, knowing that’s the only thing that’ll take you above her.

“You know I will,” you laugh, and you throw your final dart, earning yourself a neat 12 points to cap off your round.

“Take a shot,” Mars says, pointing you to the bar.

“You’re trying to get me drunk,” you say. “I see your plan.”

You return a minute later with your shot and down it, feeling the hard liquor burn down your throat. You shake your head. You’re not going down so easily.

The next round goes slightly better for you. Mars aims for the 20 and hits her first dart on the 1 and gets flustered, scoring just 25 points between her next two. You beat her cleanly with a score of 30, getting your first triple with an (admittedly low) triple 6.

“Your turn to take a shot,” you say, and Mars returns with her own shot glass, pounding back the drink.

“That’s more like it,” she smiles, dusting off her hands. “Now I’m ready to get serious.”

The next four rounds go by quick—you win two and Mars wins two, and both of you end up downing two more shots a piece. With a couple drinks in your veins, it’s starting to affect your accuracy.

In the next game, Mars goes for a double and ends up missing her first dart entirely. She scowls and focuses, leaning forwards. With a quick toss, she lands a triple 11 and then an 8, which puts her up to 39. It’s not great, but it’s better than what you've scored all night. Unsurprisingly, you don’t beat her.

“Ouch, you’re really taking a pounding,” she laughs.

“I swear, if you make me take another shot—” you begin saying.

“We’re drunk enough now. Let me come up with something interesting,” Mars says. She pauses and thinks for a moment, and then points to the ground. “I’ve got it. Do the worm!”

You grimace and obligingly lay down on the floor. Mars cheers you on with a fist-pump as you begin writhing on the ground, throwing your arms and legs up and down. It’s darn hard to keep it up, and you’re definitely not matching the Platonic ideal of the worm. In fact, you’re surprised nobody calls an ambulance for a seizure, but Mars seems satisfied after you’ve gone at it for half a minute, clapping and laughing to herself. She helps you up and dusts some imaginary specks off your shoulder.

“There there, that wasn’t so bad,” she says, hardly aiming to conceal the smile on her face.

You roll your eyes and ignore the stares from the other patrons of the pub.

“Next round. I’ll get you then,” you say.

You don’t.

Mars taps her foot, thinking of an appropriate punishment for you.

“Okay. You’ve done a dance for me, so let me test that brain of yours. I want you to come up with a poem that celebrates me,” she says, batting her eyelashes at you.

Goddamn this woman is beautiful, but you are not a poet. How could you possibly do her justice? You try to think of words that rhyme with ‘Mars’ and come up with ‘cars’ and ‘stars’ and try to put together other words that go with them, but…

“Time’s ticking,” Mars says, tapping on her wrist.

You start to panic, drawing blank after blank. Mars looks impatiently at you, waiting for her poem, and you spit out the first words that come into your head.

“Take a look at the lawman,” you say, “beating up the wrong guy!”

Mars stares at you, confused.

“Oh, man, wonder if he’ll ever know, he’s in the best selling show!” you continue, injecting a hint of melody into your voice. Recognition begins to dawn in her eyes.

“Is there life on Maaaaaaaarrrrrssss??”

She bursts out laughing, singing the last word alongside you, dragging out the word till you both run out of breath. You lean ragged against each other and laugh.

“I’ll give you a pass on that one,” she says, giving you a light bop on the head. “But don’t think you’ll get away with something like that again, smart-ass.”

“You just don’t appreciate real poetry,” you say, shaking your head.

“You just don’t know how to win a round of darts,” Mars laughs.

She straightens out and focuses for the next round, but the **** seems to really have sunken into her, and she misses her first dart again. This time, she doesn’t recover nearly as gracefully. She hits 10 points and then 6, leaving her with a paltry 16.

This is your chance!

You waste no time mincing words. You take a deep breath and throw your first dart, emulating the technique that you’ve seen on TV. Something about that works. It thuds onto the board. A satisfying 12. You glance at Mars. She simply shrugs. Then, it’s disaster. A measly 3 points. You just need 2 points to beat her. But that’s not hard to guarantee. You throw your dart on the side opposite the 1 and net yourself a cool 19 with your last dart.

“34 points! Take that,” you laugh, lording your score over Mars.

“Well done,” she smiles, leaning into you. “What are you going to do to me?”

What a question. Her breath is faintly boozy but mostly sweet, and with her this close to you, it’s getting real hard to think clearly. In fact, all you can think of is Mars curled up in your arms, or beneath you while you’re rock hard, her fit body bucking against yours…

“Kiss me,” you whisper.

{if Mars > 80} “I was hoping you’d say that,” she whispers back, something glimmering in her eye. {else} “Alright…” she says, her voice trailing slowly away. {endif}

She leans in and her lips meet yours. It’s good. So good. Her lips fit against yours so smoothly and softly. For a moment all your thoughts are wiped away. {if Mars > 80} All you can pay attention to is the way that she’s pressed against you, the heat of her lips and the pressure behind them overwhelming. {endif} Then, she breaks away, leaving you slightly breathless.

“I was hoping you might ask that,” she says. “That was much tamer than the punishments I gave you.”

“Sure, you can tell yourself that,” you laugh.

Mars merely smiles mysteriously and picks up her darts, readying up for another round. She seems determined to do better this time. Her first dart scores 9. Her next one misses the bullseye but hits the outer ring, adding a cool 25 to her score. Then, she caps it off with a triple 15. 79 points. It’s the best of the night.

“I let you have your bit of fun. Now it’s my turn to take the lead again,” Mars says, strutting back to her spot beside you.

“I wouldn’t be so cocky if I were you,” you say, flexing your fingers.

You repeat your ritual. You take another deep breath, and adopt the dart-thrower’s posture. Boom. Your first dart flies true and hits a double 13. 26 points on the table, which is good, but you’re going to need to do better if you’re to beat Mars.

“All or nothing,” you mutter, aiming for the 20 point segment.

True to form, your dart wavers in the air and embeds itself into the 5 point segment. 31 points total.

“Looking like a nothing to me,” Mars says, sounding much too gleeful.

“Watch me,” you say.

With that, you whip your last dart through the air, and just like that, it’s a clean throw.

“Bullseye!” you shout. “That’s fifty points, I’m at 81 total! Whoops. What did you get, Mars? 79? Oh, oh, oh… Somebody’s in deep trouble…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Mars smiles, shaking her head. “Come on. Serve up your dare. What have you got for me?”

Mars +15