Page 6 of Constantly Cotton

John had cleaned him up, fed him, gotten him tested—gotten himhealthy—and set him up at the flophouse. At the time, John had been pretty strung out, but even then, even before his recovery, John had taken care of Cotton, and not once had he taken Cotton up on an offer of sex for trade.

Cotton had lived in the flophouse for months on John’s dime before he begged to be put on the roster to film scenes. He’d spent two years as one of John’s premier performers, but then Henry had come to the flophouse, and something in Cotton had started breaking.

At first he thought it was a crush. But then, he’d crushed on almost every guy he’d slept with after John had pulled him off the streets, and that had included the guys he’d done scenes with. And then one night Henry had pulled him aside for a private talk, and Cotton had started to undress excitedly, thinking, “Yay! Henry finally wants me!” But Henry had just stared at him and asked him to put his clothes on.

And had then done something extraordinary.

He’dparentedCotton, in a way that had nothing to do with being Cotton’s Daddy. John had done this to some extent—insisting Cotton eat, politely declining his offers of sex, making sure he slept at the flophouse, and checking in on his roommates. Lance had tried, sort of begging Cotton not to get his hopes up as he threw himself into crush after crush, hoping each time he’d find true love, discover the Daddy who would take care of his Boy.

But Henry had sat him down and said, in essence, “This isn’t good for you. I’ve had sex that wasn’t good for me, and I had to quit so I could find the kind that didn’t hurt me inside.”

Cotton would always regret not etching his actual words on gold foil and putting them above his bed. That conversation had been the beginning of his breaking.

He’d continued to work scenes, though, having what appeared to be gleeful sex on camera with whomever showed up in the roster. He’d thought it was something he was good at. And hey, he didn’t expect anything from it, right?

But one day he’d walked onto the set—a bed with a super firm mattress so the models didn’t sink down to their balls in fluff, well-washed cotton sheets and comforter, a sturdy dresser and sturdy chairs for acrobatics, and artwork that got changed around a lot, not to mention a shag carpet that was steam-cleaned frequently—and sitting on one of the chairs, stroking his cock, was…

A stranger.

But one who looked like… well, a bad memory, really. Cotton had some super shitty memories, and he’d thought he was okay with that, but this stranger hit his shitty-memory sweet spot, and that was the end.

Cotton started crying and couldn’t stop. He sat in John’s office for two hours, silently weeping, while John and Dex, who was John’s business partner and the “mom” of the operation, both tried to calm him down.

Finally John crouched in front of his chair—classic dad move, Cotton had thought then, and he hadn’t changed his mind—and taken Cotton’s hands in his.

“Buddy,” he said, voice gruff, red hair a spiky mess from anxiously tunneling fingers, eyes red-rimmed and sad, “Cotton….” He took a deep breath. “Carson,” he said softly, surprising Cotton with his real name, the one he never used. He’d left Carson Harris behind when he’d been kicked out of the house.

“John,” he’d whispered back. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Baby,” John told him, green eyes sober. “You can always be here. Don’t worry about food. Don’t worry about rent. If the guys at the flophouse don’t cover you, I’ve got your rent. I know Henry has been trying to feed you all right out of porn anyway. Let him.” He’d pushed Cotton’s brown hair back from his forehead like Carson’s—Cotton’s—mother used to. “As long as you want, as long as you need, we will take care of you.” He gave half a cracked laugh. “Hell, if meorDex had a spare room, you would have been living there for the last three years. So don’t worry about food or rent. Just… whatever is going on in your heart? It’s been broken a long time. Honey, you need to fix that. And you can’t do that working here. Some guys can. Bobby can. Reg could.”

Cotton nodded, because Bobby still did the occasional scene for the joy of it, and his boyfriend enjoyed watching him. Reg had been a legend in his time. Not the strongest or the brightest, but his heart, his pleasure at getting to do something somebody else enjoyed, that had translated onto the screen.

“But I’m not….” A sob tore at his throat.

“No,” John said, squeezing his hands. “And you shouldn’t have to be. Kid, I know you wanted to pay your own way in the world. It’s the only reason I let you start working here. But I was fucked-up then, and my reasoning was fucked-up, and my backbone was made of coke, and we all know it. I’m clean now, and I’m a grown-up. I don’t want you working here anymore. It’s hurting you. This business, it comes with all sorts of pain. There’s drugs—although I try to keep them out ’cause they almost wreckedme.There’s depression. And there’s brokenness. You’ve got the second two, Carson—”

“Cotton,” he said gruffly. “I… I’m Cotton now.”

John nodded. “That’s fair,” he said. “And you can still be Cotton even if you never come back here again.” He gave a crooked smile then, his pointy canine teeth making it charming even though John was not particularly handsome. “You are always welcome to come back. You can work lights, you can clean the showers, do the laundry. There’s always work here to do. Just not….”

“Naked,” Cotton had said, and they’d both smiled.

And Cotton realized that he’d stopped crying, because apparently John Carey really was a decent guy for a porn mogul, and he’d known it was time for Cotton to quit.

That had been in early June, and since then he’d applied to junior colleges, but it had been too late in the year for him to get in by fall semester. On the one hand, it had been fine. He’d cleaned the house and cooked for everybody. Done the shopping and even looked into getting a job. Henry had a contact who could get him a bonded job cleaning houses—he thought that might be a thing he could do.

But whatever he’d planned for the rest of his life after he got his shit together got a shock to the heart the moment Jason Constance was rushed through the door of the Johnnies’ flophouse and Cotton allowed his bed to be converted to a hospital cot.

He’d never worked so hard in his life.

He changed bandages, took and recorded vital signs, sponged down fevered flesh, and monitored fluids. Lance showed him how to install an IV and then how to change the ports, how to read a chart to see if someone else had given the patient medication while Cotton had been catching a rare couple hours of sleep. In a million years, Cotton had never dreamed he could do these things, but Lance and Henry had needed him.

This man—this tired man tossing on Cotton’s bed, bleeding—had been a hero. Cotton felt like the absolute least he could do to reward that was to help Lance make sure the man was okay.

For three days “okay” was not a thing. Lance had to work shifts, but he trained the Johnnies guys on the fly, and Henry helped too when Henry wasn’t at his job as a private investigator. But for three days, with Cotton taking point because he was home the most, they watched as their patient thrashed about in pain and fever. They gave him his medicine through the IV because he couldn’t wake up enough to swallow pills, and they cleaned his wounds almost constantly because infection could not—could not—be allowed to take hold. For three days, they fought to make sure that didn’t happen.

The third day after Jason Constance had arrived, his temperature finally dropped below 100. In celebration, Cotton had stripped him naked and put bed pads underneath him so Cotton could clean him, stem to stern.