Embrace My Reflection (10 page)

“How are you doing, Mr. Lake?”
Lucius had always known Dante was a good guy, but by talking to Ronnie instead of around him, Dante proved just how nice a guy he was.
“I’ve had better days that’s for sure.” Ronnie tilted his head. “Have you and Lucius been friends long?”
“We met in the army while serving at Fort Bragg. Both of us were military police. Did a tour in Iraq. When it came time to reenlist, Lucius decided not to, and I thought he might have a good idea about that. I went into the FBI. He came back home.”
Ronnie laid his head on Lucius’ shoulder, tracing random designs on his lover’s chest. “Lucius talked about me?”
“At times you were all he talked about. Of course, I didn’t realize until tonight that the Ronnie he told me about was a guy.” Dante held up his hand. “Don’t get upset. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell precludes any man talking about his boyfriend. Not very fair, but that’s how it goes. I’m glad I finally get to put a face to the name.”
“It’s nice to meet you, though Lucius hasn’t really mentioned you a lot.” Ronnie laughed. “It could be that we haven’t had a lot of time to catch up on what’s gone on while we were apart. It’s been kind of crazy.”
Dante turned onto the asphalt highway, heading toward New Orleans and the hospital. They fell silent, and Lucius rubbed Ronnie’s back, soothing them both with his touch.
“You should probably call Ms. Cindi, Ronnie. He’s going to be worried about you.” Lucius wiggled around and managed to pull his phone out of his pocket without letting go of Ronnie.
“All right.”
Ronnie dialed Cindi’s number. Lucius tipped his head back and closed his eyes, adrenaline seeping from him, leaving him shaking and tired.
He must have dozed because he didn’t hear any of the conversation Ronnie had with Cindi. He started as Ronnie snuggled closer to him and stuck his phone back in his pocket.
“Cindi and Percy are going to come to the hospital and bring me some clothes.”
Lucius smoothed his hand over Ronnie’s hair. “You told them to bring you a pair of pajamas, right? I don’t think you’ll be going home tonight.”
Ronnie nodded. “Cindi said she’d bring everything and not to worry about it. I hope there aren’t any ignorant assholes working as nurses or doctors tonight. I don’t think I can put up with any insults or bigoted narrow-mindedness.”
“Don’t worry, honey. I’ll be there to ensure you don’t bitch out some nurse. Or I might just encourage you to do so.” Lucius shook his head. “No one has the right to judge you because of the way you look or how you dress.”
“I love the fact you feel that way,” Ronnie murmured.
Lucius eased back slightly to look down into Ronnie’s hazel eyes. “I love you, Ronnie Lake, and I’ll never turn my back on you. It doesn’t matter to me if you like to wear women’s clothes or even if you decide you want to be a woman. None of it matters because I love you, not just for the gorgeous, sexy outside, but the beautiful soul housed in your hot body.”
Tears shone in Ronnie’s eyes, and Lucius bent his head, pressing their lips together. Unfortunately, it was a short kiss because the car stopped and Dante cleared his throat.
“We’re here.”
Rubbing his thumb over Ronnie’s glistening lips, Lucius smiled. “We’ll get back to that after you’re less bruised. I don’t want to hurt you, even accidentally.”
“Fine.” Ronnie pouted for a moment before sighing and climbing out of the car as Dante opened the door for him.
There was a group of nurses waiting with a wheelchair and they whisked Ronnie off. Lucius promised to join them as soon as he finished talking to Dante.
“Thanks, man. I owe you for helping out.” They hugged.
Dante shook his head as he stepped back. “Nah, bro. You’d do the same for me, if I needed it. I have to admit your boyfriend is damn sexy.”
“I thought you were straight,” Lucius joked.
“I am, but I’m secure enough to be able to say I think another guy’s hot. You got a good one there.” Dante flagged down a cab and tossed Lucius’ keys at him. “I have to get back to the precinct to write up my report. I’ll call you tomorrow to check up on Ronnie.”
Lucius waved to his friend and headed into the hospital. He would have to take Ronnie’s statement, but that could wait until after the doctor had a chance to see his lover. The case against the senator wasn’t going to come to trial any time soon, so they had time.

“The senator burst into my dressing room, grabbed my arm and started to drag me with him. I fought him, using every trick of selfdefense my boyfriend taught me. I wasn’t going to let him take me.” Ronnie stopped and drew a breath. His heart raced as he glanced over to where Cameron sat, perfectly dressed and coifed like he wasn’t some psychotic stalker.

“What happened then?” The prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Jegens, asked.
Ronnie shrugged. “I threw everything in the room at him. Shoes, make-up, clothes. Anything that might hurt or possibly stop him. He punched me, and I fell against the sofa, then the coffee table, breaking my ribs in the process. He caught hold of my arm again and forced me to my feet.”
He went through what happened to Andrew, who had testified a day earlier, trying not to get bogged down in the details, but not missing anything that might be important. Jegens had role-played Ronnie’s testimony, trying to get him comfortable with talking in front of a jury. Hell, it wasn’t that hard. He performed in front of hundreds every night.
“After he knocked Andrew down, he yanked me along the hall of the club to the back alley where there was a car waiting. He’d hit me a couple times around the head, so I was a little dizzy and couldn’t really fight back at that time.”
Ronnie paused and reached for the glass of water the bailiff had poured for him earlier. It had taken six months to get the senator to trial. Ronnie resented the amount of time it took, which was foolish he knew. He wasn’t the only victim whose chance to be heard took so long to come to court.
After taking a sip and putting the glass back, Ronnie smoothed his sweaty palms over his skirt. The attorney trying the case had told Ronnie he should wear a suit to the courtroom. Ronnie did, but not the type Jegens meant. Ronnie understood most of the case hung on how the jury perceived him. Yet he wasn’t willing to compromise who he was to make others comfortable. As long as Lucius didn’t care what Ronnie wore, then Ronnie would continue to dress like he did, even in court.
His charcoal suit, consisting of a fitted jacket and matching skirt, fit him like it’d been tailored for his slender body. His sedate dark blue silk blouse spoke of understated taste and elegance. His subtle make-up highlighted his eyes and lips. Ronnie wore a pair of dark blue heels to complete the outfit.
It’d taken Lucius, Cindi, Percy, and him two days to find just the right outfit and when he put it on for the first time, he’d felt powerful and confident. Those feelings told him it was the right combination to wear to court.
He’d seen some of the looks he’d gotten from the jury members and people sitting in the courtroom. Some were of appreciation, until the person looking realized Ronnie was a man, then they became looks of disgust or derision. The women liked his clothes, but not necessarily that a man looked better in them than they did. He was being petty and unkind, he knew, because there were quite a few people who didn’t seem to mind at all.
“And after he put you in the car?” Jegens prompted.
“He threw me in the trunk and drove somewhere. I was dazed from the fight and my side was killing me.” He brushed his hair back over his shoulder.
“What did you think the senator was going to do when you got wherever you were going?”
“I wasn’t sure, but it couldn’t have been good, right? No one attacks a person and kidnaps them from their place of business for fun or to be nice to them. At least no one I know does that.”
He glanced over at the senator, who wouldn’t meet his eyes. It annoyed him that the man just sat there with a smug, irritated expression on his face like this whole procedure interrupted something far more important he could be doing. All of the sound bites his team of high-powered lawyers gave to the press were about Ronnie. They were determined to make Ronnie out to be some obsessed stalker himself, who didn’t like the idea the senator didn’t want him. He stopped watching TV and reading the newspapers because he’d get so angry about it.
Lucius’ way of getting him to forget about what they said was to love him. He didn’t know how many times they’d made love during the ensuing months while waiting for the trial to start. Not that Ronnie was complaining or anything. He loved making love to Lucius.
“What happened next?” Jegens paced in front of the jury, intently listening to Ronnie like he hadn’t heard the story a million times before.
“He took me to a room in the back of this house. I still didn’t know where we were or anything. I continued to fight back. It was the only way I knew how to stall him. I needed to keep him from doing whatever he planned. Also, I knew if I held out long enough, Lucius would find me.”
“Who is Lucius?”
Everyone in the room knew who Lucius was. He’d testified earlier in the week about his part in the whole case. Ronnie met Lucius’ gaze where the man sat out in the gallery. Lucius smiled, not ashamed in the least by what Ronnie was about to say.
“New Orleans police detective Lucius Montagne is my boyfriend. We dated in high school, if you call caring for each other, but not being able to show it for fear of being beaten up by bullies dating.”
He mentally shoved away the bad memories. There weren’t many after Lucius came to Ronnie’s high school.
“We hadn’t seen each other since we graduated. One night, seven months ago, Lucius showed up at Cindi’s Cabaret where I work. He wanted to talk about the compliant I filed against the senator a few months earlier.”
Ronnie took another drink. Only coughs and the click of the court reporter’s keys broke the silence. United States Senator Cameron’s trial was headline news, not only in the tabloids, but in mainstream media as well. Ronnie had become very popular, but he declined interviews. He wanted his life to go back to how it was before Cameron became a terrible part of it, with one huge exception; he wanted Lucius to be there still.
“So let me get this straight. You filed a harassment compliant against the senator, but the officers you went to did nothing.”
Ronnie nodded. “Yes, they dismissed my concerns.”
“Why would they do that? Did they give you a reason why they’d chose to ignore your concerns about the senator?”
Jegens had told Ronnie he knew he had an airtight case against Cameron. He’d praised Lucius, Dante, and the others for getting him the evidence he needed to put Cameron in jail for a long time. The only thing that worried him, and he’d expressed his doubts to Ronnie, was how the jury would deal with Ronnie being a gay cross-dresser. As willing as the people of New Orleans seemed to be to accept alternative lifestyles and the more eccentric people who called New Orleans home, there were still many whose upbringing taught them that the way Ronnie lived was wrong.
He refocused on the questions.
“They looked at me and saw the same thing most of you see when you look at me. A fag trying to be a woman. It was bad enough I was queer, but I was even more deviant than that because I liked to wear women’s clothing.”
A few people shifted in their seats. Ronnie lifted the corner of his mouth in a small smile.
“I guess I kind of understand why you’d think that. We’re taught at such a young age about gender roles and stereotypes that when someone steps outside what we perceive as the norm, we’re uncomfortable and at times, unwilling to see past the outside to the person inside.” Ronnie took a deep breath. “The cops thought all those things about me. They talked to the senator, and he told them I was some crazy fag who’d been stalking him for months. That he should file a stalking charge against me. He wasn’t gay, but for some reason, I’d become fixated on him.”
Ronnie rolled his eyes. Like that situation would ever have happened. Jegens gave him an encouraging smile when his back was to the jury box. Testifying was as difficult as Ronnie thought it would be, but he’d get through it.
“Had you fixated on Senator Cameron? I mean, he is a handsome man.” Jegens nodded in the man’s direction.
“He might be, but he’s not my type.”
“What type is he?”
“Aside from crazy?” Ronnie swallowed his own laughter as some people in the gallery chuckled. “As far as I knew, Senator Cameron was straight. I don’t go for straight guys. Nothing but heartache there. And not worth my time when I could’ve found someone else who was gay and not crazy.”
One of Cameron’s lawyers objected to Ronnie’s use of the word crazy. The judge upheld the objection and Ronnie was told to refrain from calling the senator that. He agreed, even though everyone knew he was right.
“I’m simply saying Senator Cameron doesn’t appeal to me in any way. There was no way he couldn’t have known I was a guy. I work at one of the premiere female impersonator clubs. Usually it means all of the performers are male. So any argument he might have that he didn’t know I was a guy won’t fly. He continued to follow and harass me outside of work, even after he knew Veronica Lake was really Ronald Lake.”
Ronnie gestured toward Lucius. “The senator accosted me outside Detective Montagne’s house when I left it the afternoon of the day he kidnapped me. I’m not sure why he chose me to obsess over, though from what I understand, this is a pattern with him. One I believe the prosecution has already brought up.”
A few members of the jury nodded.
“I fought as best I could. I had just kicked the senator in the groin and was trying to make my way out of the room when Detective Montagne arrived to get the situation under control.”
“What kind of injuries did you receive during the kidnapping?” Jegens waved for one of his assistants to bring in some visual aids—enlarged photographs of Ronnie’s injuries.
Ronnie touched his left cheek where a small scar marred his skin. “The senator cracked my cheekbone and broke my nose. He split open my lip and broke two of my ribs. I sprained my knee as well. Being yanked along by the elbow while in heels is murder on your legs.”
Light laughter filtered through the court as the females in the room sympathized with him. Ronnie relaxed even more. He knew the senator’s lawyers were going to try to make him look like some crazy fag, but he could handle them. Hell, he’d been dealing with men like them all his life. They didn’t mean anything anymore.
Looking straight at Lucius, Ronnie smiled. Yeah, no one mattered anymore except the man he loved. And it didn’t matter what anyone else thought of him. Lucius loved him because of who he was on the inside. Ronnie’s outside wrapping only enhanced how Lucius felt about him.
“That’s all the questions I have for this witness, Your Honor.” Jegens sat.
Ronnie straightened his shoulders and got ready. Now it was time for the fight. He was going to prove to everyone, like he did to the senator that night, that just because he wore dresses didn’t mean he was weak or would break under pressure.
* * *