Legacy

Dakota was in no hurry to return home.

That usually wasn't a problem. She'd often be stuck at school until six or eight o'clock, with practice for this or that, for track and cross country, soccer or volleyball or tennis, and even band practice. She was a member of the debate team, part of the school's yearbook staff, and she'd been a varsity cheerleader since ninth grade. It wasn't so much that she was trying to build an unbeatable resume, as her teachers often advised. No; it was only that she didn't want to go home. On days like this, with nothing better to do, she'd often stop by the library on the way. It was as good an excuse as any.

"Is your hair wet?" said the librarian as she entered.

"A little," she answered with a shrug.

And then she was among the stacks. She wandered through her favorite sections, knowing at a glance that nothing new had been added to the shelves since her last visit. She liked history and biography, and travelogues and ethnography, and descriptions of strange peoples in faraway places. She had less interest in science, and yet science fiction and fantasy had often proved a valuable distraction. After all, what could be more exotic? What could be farther from home? Of course, lately everything new in speculative fiction had devolved into softcore porn. Except that it wasn't really very soft.

Her fingers snatched up a thick volume with a lurid cover. It was the kind of book she'd normally not favor with more than a momentary glance—the kind of prurient fantasy fiction that featured a list of tropes in an easily-accessible location. What they really by that word was fetishes. Since when was choking a trope, after all? And yet this afternoon she found herself reading that list very carefully, and then reading it again. A list of kinks. Of fetishes. Of prurient desires.

How many of these were hers?

What, exactly, had Evangeline Morgan awakened within her?

Choking. Bondage. Light pain and discipline.

Images swirled before her mind's eye—scenes of leather and sweat, of discipline and deprivation. Her breath quickened and her nipples hardened beneath her tank top, and she knew at once that so-called light pain played no part in her own twisted fantasies. She was an athlete. Discipline was her love language. She wasn't afraid to be hurt. But what was it about Evangeline Morgan that put these thoughts in her head?

Sit. That word—that command—came back to her. The way Evangeline had simply told her what to do. And the way she'd stared at her, tasting and enjoying Dakota's body with her eyes and never deigning asking permission. It was almost rape. And yet she made it clear that she didn't need permission: as if Dakota's body had never belonged to Dakota to begin with. She heard the words in Evangeline's throaty, sensual voice: You can't be raped, little slut. You can't say no. You can't even be asked.

The book fell to the floor. Red shame flooded her cheeks as she bent to pick it up and replace it on the shelf. Not shame at her interest in it; she understood why others might enjoy it. She was only embarrassed at having dropped it—at having been daydreaming about lust and the lash and having lost track of what her fingers were doing.

But the librarian had been watching, and she thought Dakota was blushing for another reason entirely.

"It's ok," she said. The librarian—Mrs. Mitner—was a woman in her forties, with thick glasses and blonde hair that would soon be all silver. She had a friendly face that, when her anger was roused, turned quite ugly indeed, although Dakota had never been loud enough to rouse her anger. "You're of an age to read such things now. Only..."

Dakota tried to interrupt as the librarian's voice trailed off. "No, really, I just—"

"Please, don't be embarrassed," insisted Mrs. Mitner. "It's just that I know the kinds of books you've liked, and I wouldn't really recommend that one."

"You've... You've read it?"

Mrs. Mitner smiled. She always smiled with her mouth closed. "Not that one," she said. "I've read some of the author's other books. I think you would be bored by the prose."

For a moment, Dakota imagined Mrs. Mitner in a garter and stockings, with crotchless panties and an open-cup bra and a book in one hand and—

"You need something that stokes your imagination," continued Mrs. Mitner. "Not something that holds your hand."

Dakota nodded slowly. "Is there something you would recommend?"

"Well, not something that the library has on file..."

In a little while, Dakota held a rather well-worn copy of Story of O in her hands. It belonged to Mrs. Mitner's personal collection. It had her notes in the margins, and some of the passages had been reverently highlighted with a colored pencil, the way a good Baptist might make marks in a Bible to call attention to certain verses. When Mrs. Mitner had offered her the book, Dakota had tried to refuse. Yet the librarian seemed adamant that she take the book, as if the idea of letting Dakota read a lesser novel somehow grated against her librarian's principles. Dakota relented in the end, of course, and she promised to return the book in a week.

"Keep it as long as you need," said Mrs. Mitner again when she said that. "It's not my only copy."

And that was all well and good, but after that encounter, Dakota simply couldn't stay at the library. Now she had to go home. Now she had to face her father and the evil stepmother he'd married almost before her real mother was cold in the ground.

Not that her father and stepmother were all that evil, exactly. To be really evil requires a certain degree of interest. It has to become a hobby. It can't be just a nine-to-five; it has to invade your weekends. Dakota never invaded her parents' weekends. As far as she could tell, she rarely troubled their thoughts at all.

"Oh, there you are," said her father as if he'd been looking for her. "You're late."

"Late for what?" Dakota glanced at her phone. There weren't any missed calls or texts.

"Don't give me that tone, young lady!" said her stepmother, even though Dakota hadn't been talking to her. "We're going out. I was going to make something for you, but since you're late, I won't have time."

"We got a call from the school earlier," said her father. "From the counselor or something. It went to voicemail, so you'd better play it back and see what she wants."

"We don't need any more trouble from that woman, Dakota," said her stepmother, cutting in once more. "You need to get your grades up, or you're never going to get into college. You hear?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Dakota, trying very hard—and not quite succeeding—to keep that tone out of her voice. When last she checked, thanks to her college credits, she had a 4.7 GPA.

Then they went out through the laundry room into the garage. The garage door rumbled up. Dakota followed as far as the laundry room, pausing at the door to the garage until she heard the big garage door rumble back down again. And then she opened the door and stood in the doorway, looking out at her stepmother's BMW and her father's Corvette and the empty space where the Mercedes had been until only a moment ago.

"I'm quitting school," she said to her absentee parents. "I'm thinking of signing up for this leadership program thing. It'll mean taking a gap year, but it's supposed to be great for networking. And there might be a scholarship. What do you think? Should I go for it?"

Silence.

"Ok. Good talk."

Her father, Michael Rossi, was fifty and paunchy, balding and not any taller than she was. His hair was a dull black, his eyes were brown, and his nose was flat and pig-like. Her stepmother was much the same: Gia Rossi was fifty-ish and slightly less paunchy, with dull black hair and brown eyes. They'd married when Dakota was six, right after the accident. By the time Dakota was twelve, Gia Rossi hated her—for being taller and more beautiful, for being blonde and athletic where Gia was short and wide and ungainly, for being happy and content even though Gia had never given her permission to be either of those things. At least that's what Dakota had assumed at the time.

She lay the book on her bedside table and opened up the drawer beneath. In it lay a photo of her mother, wrinkled and faded and admittedly smudged with Dakota's fingerprints. It was the last one in the house.

Sara Rossi was her name—or rather Sara St John. She didn't look like a Rossi. She was blonde and lean, adventurous and always smiling. Of course she was always smiling: Dakota only had this one photo. But what mattered right now was that she didn't look even a little bit like Michael Rossi.

And neither did Dakota.

She took the card out of her pocket and dialed the number.

"How well did you know my mother?"