Chapter Text
The Hidden Cove was a tavern like no other.
For one thing, it also served as a dance hall. It was the largest building in the town, and while most of the time it catered to the drunk and disorderly dock workers and sailors (and the occasional pirates) that found port here, on a few special occasions it served as a place where the town gathered for community dances and the like. But that was only a few times a year. All the other days of the year, it was ale, brawls, and music.
The stage was a place where anyone with any kind of talent could perform on, if the patrons agreed that it was worth watching. Unwanted performers were seen off the stage in a chorus of boos, curses, and typically an ale mug or two. Some were even bad enough to have weapons shook at them.
That was not the case, however, for Calpernia. She had been dancing and singing on the stage at the Hidden Cove for more than two months now, and not been booed once, nor had anything unsavory thrown at her. From the second she had stepped onto the stage 8 weeks earlier, the hard working men of the sea had been enchanted by her. With her sultry voice and the graceful way she moved, it was no wonder they took a liking to her. In fact, she was so popular, that the tavern owner had made her a regular performing 5 nights a week.
And on those five nights, the tavern was not only quiet, but very few brawls broke out, mugs broken, or men killed, and that made the tavern master very happy.
Calpernia now sat in her private dressing room, leaning back in her chair with her legs crossed, a bare foot tapping the air, twirling her light brown hair around a finger absently as she listened to the cheers that were still going on now nearly three minutes after her latest performance. A smile stretched across her face; not because of the applause and admiration of her fan. No, she was used to that.
Calpernia was laughing because of what they didn’t know. They saw her, thought she was beautiful and graceful. Thought that they might have a chance with her, could maybe even touch her if they could get close enough, but what they didn’t know was that Calpernia was not who she claimed to be.
Calpernia wasn’t even a real woman. Calpernia was a man.
And right now that man, dressed in a gown custom made from expensive material, a wig so well made one could not tell if it was real or not, with makeup applied perfectly, was laughing his ass off.
Lee jumped up from the chair and spun around the room, laughing like a fool. He had everyone duped. Oh sure, there would be hell to pay if anyone found out. A man dressing like a woman; he would be flogged, set on fire, and then hung just to make sure he was completely dead, but he was sure no one would ever find out. He never let anyone near him. Never let anyone get close enough, and always made sure that certain qualities never shown through and those other, more physical traits, were properly taken care of and kept accurately hidden.
But that was not the only care he had. His father had been furious with him when he had found out what his son had been doing. In the town where they were from, Lee’s father was a very prominent man with a lot of power, money, and influence. Lee would sneak out all night; his father thinking that he was doing what most men his age would be doing: drinking, carousing, and being enticed by women. Lee hadn’t been, however.
Lee had gone to great lengths to perfect his Calpernia persona. He had found people who could make him the necessary prosthetics to pull off being a woman: fake hips, fake breasts, wigs, dresses, and shoes. All of this had to be fitted and made special just for him, but when given enough money, no one asked any questions or voiced opinions.
Lee had even found a few women to guide him in not only putting on makeup and doing his hair, but how to move and act like a female convincingly. Granted, they were ladies of the night, but he paid them for their time and they didn’t have to worry about standing on the streets or getting beat up.
Lee’s father had disowned him of course, as soon as he had found out. And his finding out had been the worst luck imaginable.
There had been a rather brutish man who had taken a rather zealous liking to Calpernia. A large, hairy, disgusting brute that hovered as near to the stage as he could get, and then would try to follow her to her dressing room. He even took to waiting outside the back door of the tavern. One night, Lee had barely managed to escape the man’s beefy hands, which enraged the slug.
Lee usually left the tavern as Calpernia, so not to raise suspicion and then changed inside an abandoned building a few blocks down. But with lover boy so close on his heels, he hadn’t had the opportunity to sneak into the building. His only course had been to go home, losing the obsessed man in the twists do alleyways along the way. When Lee had climbed up to his room, he had managed to break a window thus waking up his father.
When his father had entered his room, gun in hand, thinking his son was in danger, how shocked he was to find said son half in the window, half out, wearing a dress, makeup, and a wig of light brown hair that fell just past his shoulders. To say his father was furious once his mind wrapped around what he was actually seeing was an understatement. Lee had thought for a second that his father was going to shoot him with the pistol that he held clenched in his shaking hand, and had considered throwing himself back out the window, risking bodily harm, just to avoid being shot.
Lee’s mother had swept in, taken everything in, and begged her husband not to shoot their eldest child. Lee’s father had then told him to get out and to never come back. That he was no longer part of the family, and that he was disgrace and an embarrassment to the family name and unworthy to lay claim to it.
Lee, in spite of his mother’s tears, had packed up and left that night.
Now he was several hundred miles away, doing what he loved to do. Well, at least one of the things he liked to do. The other had been just as elusive to him while he had been at his home with his parents. He loved to cook and to bake and he was damn good at it. But his father had insisted that it was woman’s work, servant’s work, and Lee was not allowed in the kitchen.
But while he loved to cook, that line of work was never easy to find. So, he made his way with the money he made performing as Calpernia. And he was happy.
A knock at his dressing room door, caused Lee to still immediately. He ran his hands over his dress while checking himself in the mirror just to make sure everything was in place. Satisfied, he strode to the door.
“Yes? Who is it?” His voice, even disguised was still a little deep for a woman, but no one seemed to notice or care.
“Um, flower delivery for you, Miss Addams.” The voice was not a familiar one and sounded like it belonged to a young man. Flowers were often delivered after a performance from various sources, so Lee thought nothing of it as he opened the door.
Standing there were two men. One was the speaker, a young man with cropped reddish blonde hair and an open smiling face. In his arms were a dozen red roses. Roses were rare and expensive and Lee loved them.
The other man was older, with graying hair shaved close to his head. He had a mischievous air about him, but stood stoically in the doorway, his hands behind his back. Both were dressed nicely, but it was obvious they were sailors.
“Thank you, gentlemen, for the flowers. Might I ask who they are from?”
“Oh, from our boss,” the older man answered, nodding his head. “He saw your performance and was simply taken by you.”
“Oh! How wonderful.” Lee took the flowers that were set into his arms. Their scent wafted up to him and he closed his eyes, enjoying the scent as it seemed to float around him. “Tell your boss I appreciate them. They are lovely.”
“You can tell him yourself,” the older man stated. He stepped forward as the younger man stepped back out of the way, still smiling.
“What?” Lee, confused by what he was not sure he had even heard correctly, said with a the voice very un-Calpernia-like.
“Sorry about this, love, but orders are orders.”
The man was quick. He grabbed Lee’s arm, and shoved him into the room, his fingers digging into Lee’s flesh very painfully. Lee, dropping the roses with much regret to the ground, swung, aiming for the man’s jaw, but missing when he ducked in anticipation. The momentum jerked Lee forward, giving the man the means to step behind him, and place a cloth over his face. There was a strange scent on the plain white cloth. Lee struggled but was held tight, and whatever was on the cloth was making him light headed.
The last thing Lee heard as he was guided gently to the floor was the older man telling the younger one that they had to hurry. Lee stared at the lamplight dancing on the ceiling as his vision began to blur more and more and his eyelids were refusing to stay open. Finally, unable to fight it any more, he closed his eyes and passed out.