Mark & Medusa, Thursday night at Silver

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Medusa arranges to sneak across the ocean in celebration of Mark's birthday. Best birthday ever, even if Medusa seems a little discontent.


There's really nothing better than shapeshifting drag queens. At least as far as Mark was concerned. Normally Stan maintained most of her masculine features so as to appear obviously genderqueer, but tonight she'd gone all out and transformed herself into a walking, dancing, lip-synching clone of Madonna. Complete with wardrobe changes. She and Mark had sat down for hours hammering out an appropriate playlist for Madonnarama, Silver's new joint birthday party for her and Mark. And he could not have been more pleased.

As "La Isla Bonita" came to an end, Stan's elaborate red flamenco dress shimmered, melting into a sparkling blue bustier with matching bottom, and her hair grew and straightened. The Spanish guitar played its last chord, the last lyric "lullaby" echoing throughout the club as Stan's fluid movements suddenly grew stilted, as if she were in a trance. Mark smiled as Larry handed him a zombie cocktail. He loved Stan's rendition of "Bedtime Story."

"This is some party," said a tall brunette standing to Mark's left. Swirling the ruby red liquid in her glass around before taking a sip, the woman continued to smile at the DJ. "Is every night here like this?"

"I wish," Mark replied, turning to look at whoever was speaking to him. Not a regular, he knew, but someone oddly familiar. The music and shouting were too loud for him to clearly recognize her voice, but he was sure that they'd met somewhere sometime. "Madonnarama is like Christmas, only comes once a year."

"What a shame," the woman replied, shaking her head slightly. "Though if you had parties like this all the time, you would never get any work done and it would not be nearly as special." Taking a step closer to him, the woman's smile broadened. "And I brought you a birthday present...since you share your birthday with the queen of pop, I thought I would bring you a true queen to celebrate with." Brown locks of hair flared out slightly, before resettling.

"We already have plenty of queens he . . . Oh my God." Mark would have been an idiot not to recognize that. He nearly dropped his drink. "Medusa?!"

"Shhhh," the royal Attilani urged, finger to her lips, though her smile didn't falter. "I am not here. I am merely a figment of your imagination."

"And I'm not even high." He put down his drink and wrapped her in a tight embrace, totally forgetting (or just not caring) about propriety. "People were sayin' that you all were dead and some didn't believe it and I didn't know what to believe." He let go, his hands traveling down her arms as he pulled away as if to really make sure that she existed, eventually coming to rest in her hands. "And then they said you're alive and just in limbo with little L and that you married the king and . . . Oh my God." Best birthday present ever.

People had been touching Medusa a lot recently - and while she wasn't getting used to it per say, she was able to resist the urge to flinch and recognize that it was how people reacted when they were presented with someone who had been missing for a significant period of time. "It is good to see you too. And yes, I am quite alive, just a couple of years older than I was the last time you saw me."

"And lookin' fine, too. How did you get here without Eenie and Meanie on your tail?" Mark glanced around. "Or are they here with a sniper trained on me if I make the wrong movements?"

"I may or may not have dodged Eenie and Meanie back on the island with a little assistance from my husband." In truth, Medusa had been feeling stifled on the island and desperately needed a vacation - Mark's party had been the perfect excuse to leave Attilan and return to the US for a visit. She was also sure that somewhere, there was a bodyguard she wasn't familiar with watching her - she wasn't stupid enough to think that Blackagar would truly have let her leave the island without one. However, she had the illusion of a night of normalcy, a night she would've had prior to the island's disappearance, and she was going to take it. "How could I miss the fabulous celebration of the day of your birth? No alternate dimension or paltry politics could stop me."

Mark waved to the bartender and ordered another drink for him and Medusa, and drained the rest of his own. "And I am humbled that you made the effort. So what are you doin' now? You're the Queen. Capital Q. That's gotta be a tad overwhelming. Well, it would be for me, 'cuz I never grew up a noble."

"Even growing up noble, it is still...well, I just was not prepared to be queen quite yet. I knew it would happen, but I had thought in another decade or two." Medusa's smile grew sad as she accepted the drink the bartender had made. "But life is what happens while you are making plans, and now I am queen." She took a sip of her drink, shaking off her sadness. "And yes, with a capital Q as you put it. Which is not such a bad thing, no?"

Medusa's expression didn't get past Mark, and he frowned. "S'not all it's cracked up to be?" he hazarded to guess. He could imagine so, if that were the case. Whatever freedom she'd had as a noblewoman would have been eliminated by the crown.

"Perhaps it is not, but I will adjust," Medusa replied. "But tonight, we celebrate. I would ask if you had ever danced with a queen before, but..." Medusa trailed off, a smile playing around the corners of her lips.

The change of topic wasn't a surprise, but Mark didn't press. She didn't want to talk about it, and anyway the best way to deal with palace fever was just to enjoy the night out. So he filed this information in the back of his mind and smiled at Medusa, offering her his hand. "You just made a joke. A pun, even. I think that's an even better present. C'mon, your Royal Highness, let's show these shlubs how Attilan makes 'em."