In 1859, thirteen year old Victoria's father, Ambrose Whitfield, had the foresight to accurately predict the worst event to ever come to the United States, the Civil War. His 3,000 acre plantation, The Mist, as it had been named by Ambrose's grandmother. Set on the eastern bank of the great river near Port Hudson Mississippi. He owned 120 slaves and farmed 1,000 acres of top quality cotton, all of which was at risk of being lost to an invading army from the north.
He also knew that being a General in the Confederate army would provide him little protection should the south lose and Ambrose could see no clear way to victory given the limited resources the south possessed. He made the decision, against Victoria's wishes, to send his daughter to a private girl's boarding school in Maine, far away from the violence that was coming.
Eight years later, to the day, a train came to a stop at the station in what remained of Port Hudson. Twenty-one year old Victoria stepped down from the rail car with the assisting hand of a recently freed black man, the first she had ever met. When she looked down the platform, it was not her father she saw but Dellia, the black woman who had all but raised her and old William, a black slave of her father's plantation. But he was no longer a slave either. There were no more slaves. The South had lost the war. The South had lost their identity. The South seemed to have lost everything.
She approached Dallia with a questioning look. "Where is Papa?" She asked.
Dallia hesitated. "Your father waits for you at home." She offered. "The war took a toll of Master Ambrose." She added.
"Is he sick?" Victoria asked.
"In a way." Dallia explained. "It's his mind." She said. "Mostly gone now."
William had collected Victoria's luggage and loaded it onto a two seater buckboard. Dallia helped Victoria into the wagon when a gust of wind blew Victoria's bonnet off. "Good graces." Exclaimed Dallia. "Child, what have you done to your hair?"
There sat Victoria, her hair chopped short and jagged, sticking up and out in all directions. And it was as white as a cotton ball. Dallia just stared at her.
Victoria spoke as if her situation was as normal as sunshine in August. "I'm afraid there was an experiment a few years ago that did not go as planned." Victoria said. After reading in a New York paper about a stage actress who had platinum hair and was the latest heart throb of all the young men, she decided to copy it. A late night mixture of Borax powder, Lye soap and kerosene mixed into a paste and left on her hair overnight, proved to be the wrong approach. Within a week, all of her locks had fallen out, leaving her with a totally bald head. She remained that way for months until one day she noticed her hair was finally beginning to regrow. The only problem was that it was totally white and completely unmanageable.
Little more was said about her hair, her father or the war on the ride home. When the big two story white plantation house came into view, Victoria was amazed to see it in pristine condition. She had heard and read so many stories about the complete devastation in the South, she was expecting the worst.
When the wagon came to a stop, she leaped to the ground and ran head long onto the porch and into the great hall. "Papa!" She shouted and hearing no reply, she raced up the curved stairway and down the wide hall to her father's room. The door was closed. She knocked. When it opened, she was face to face with Missy, the black girl who had been her playmate as a child.
Victoria wrapped her arms around Missy and hugged her. "How is Papa?" Victoria whispered. Missy stepped back allowing Victoria to see. Ambrose was in his bed, quiet, still. As Victoria came to the bedside, her father looked so old, so frail, and so near to death. "Papa." She sat to the edge of the bed and rana hand over his cheek.
Slowly Ambrose opened his eyes. "Victoria." He said. "I have prayed for your return." He swallowed hard. "I have saved this place." He said. "It is yours, to do with as you wish."
"But Papa." Victoria started.
Ambrose raised his hand slightly. Rolling his head side to side, he began. "They were burning every plantation, the crops, everything." He said. "I could not let that happen to you. Leaving you with nothing."
"But..." Victoria was trying to tell her father that none of that mattered.
"I made a choice." He continued. "I. I." Tears came to his eyes. "I gave information to the North." He said. "I am a traitor." He was weeping. And then, he was gone. Ambrose Whitfield, Wealthy southern farmer, General, father, traitor was gone and the greatest betrayal of his life was going to be buried with him.
Two months later, Victoria was walking into the barn when she overheard men talking. A number of the former slaves had wished to stay on at the plantation. They had food, and reasonably decent living quarters and truthfully, they had no idea where else to go. "I'll ask Ms. Cotton." One man said as another gasped as he was the first to see Victoria enter the barn. All four men turned to see her grinning at them. The man who had called her Cotton lowered his head. "I most sorry Ms." He hesitated. "Ms. Victoria." He said. "We, I, I mean no disrespect." He said.
"You call me Cotton?" Victoria asked.
The mad shook his head. "No disrespect. Ms."
She stood there as the men waited. She ran the fingers of her left hand though the mess on top of her head. "I like it." She said. "From now on, call me Cotton." The man started to object. Victoria raised both hands, palms outward. "No." She said. "This is my farm." She said. "And Cotton runs it."
And from then on everyone on the plantation and soon, everyone in town called her Cotton.
That fall, the first cotton crop in seven years was harvested and the yields were better than expected, the quality was premium and prices were at a peek. The plantation accounts were all settled and there was money in the bank. Life was returning to normal for Cotton, finally.
She was sitting on the bank of a pond when a black man came through the trees from the opposite direction. He was leading Missy by the hand. She was not resisting and once at the water's edge, Missy untied her wrap dress and let it fall from her slender shoulders. She then pulled the rope tied around the man's waist and his pants dropped to the ground. The two were nude. Missy was beautiful and the man was as fit as any Cotton had ever seen. When he turned toward her direction, Cotton saw his amazing penis arching outward and nearing full erection. The sight of it was amazing and mesmerizing to Cotton.
What happed next caught Cotton completely off guard. Missy knelt in front of the man, her left hand cupping his huge ball sack, her right stroked the length of his manhood. Even from that distance, she could see the bulbous head of it. And then, Missy slowly worked her lips around that head and was easing a small portion of that cock into her mouth.
Finally the man pushed her back off of him and Missy lay back into the tall grass. When the man knelt between her legs, Missy raised her knees and slid her feet over his muscular back. Cotton's imagination raced as he entered Missy. The girl moaned and he took no time sinking his full length into her.
