A Slut's Guide to Staying Savage

1

Okay, so we were on the side of Ashford Road, me in handcuffs, and I was trying very hard not to vomit tequila and adrenaline onto my own lap. The question rattling around my skull was how a perfectly ordinary Friday night had ended with my head pressed against the hood of my car and Sash still out cold against the window, her cheek smearing glitter onto the safety glass. Answer: it started, as most of our disasters do, with a hexagon, a whisper, and one truly terrible decision to wear clothes that demanded attention in all the wrong ways. But if I'm being honest, the whole day had been building toward this from the moment I walked into that sweltering community center and sat down across from a boy who wouldn't stop talking about his perfect life.
♦️♦️♦️
Six hours earlier, I'd wedged myself into a folding chair in the basement of the Oakwood Community Center, a room arranged in a precise hexagon that Mr. Rossi, our facilitator, called "the strongest shape in nature after the circle." The Youth Voices Collective met every Friday at four, and I'd been attending long enough to know the snacks were always off-brand and Mr. Rossi-a retired biology teacher with an unshakeable belief in teenage honesty-would explain the hexagon at least twice.
"A hexagon," he said, spreading his hands, "means no one is at the head and no one is at the foot. We're all equal here."
The cast was small that day. Drew was already sulking in his chair, a wiry kid from my school who prayed to Black Jesus and never let anyone forget it. Alpha leaned back beside him, all cheekbones and Tupac quotes, nodding along to a beat only he could hear. Kelly Thompson, a white boy built like a linebacker, was already talking-he was always already talking-about the mock trial club at Holy Academy and how he'd "done the research" on whatever.
Kyle sat quietly across from me, his hands folded like he was in church. Lorraine, Kelly's sister, was beside him, stealing glances when she thought no one was looking.
When it was my turn to check in, I said what I always said. "I'm Iona Varela. My mom died three years ago, my dad lives in Dubai, so I'm basically feral. And I'm doing fine."
Mr. Rossi tilted his head. "Iona, 'fine' is not a feeling."
"It's the only one I've got today." I shrugged.
And that's when I heard it. A whisper, low but sharp, from somewhere to my left.
Slut.
I didn't turn. I didn't flinch. But my jaw tightened, and I felt the word settle on my skin like a bruise that hadn't formed yet.
Mr. Rossi moved on, steering the group toward today's focus: community-police relations. Drew jumped in immediately, something about his cousin getting pulled over three times in a month. Kelly countered with statistics. Alpha quoted Tupac. The usual chaos.
Then Kyle spoke up, quiet as always. "What if you do everything right and they still treat you like a threat?" He wasn't looking at anyone in particular. "What's the protocol for that?"
Nobody had an answer.
Foreshadowing is a bastard.
♦️♦️♦️
Two hours later, I was in my flat-well, Dex's flat, but my older brother had been on an oil rig in the North Sea for the last four months, so the place was mine by squatter's rights. Sasha had let herself in with the spare key, as she always did, and was already halfway through a bottle of cheap prosecco, sprawled on my bed like a cat who'd claimed territory.
"Okay," she announced, pointing the prosecco bottle at me, "we have approximately ninety minutes to get you looking like a hot divorcée and me looking like someone who might accidentally steal your man. Move. And take off that prude top."
I glanced down at my cropped black shirt, the one I'd worn to the meeting. "What's wrong with this?"
"Nothing, which is the problem. You're going to Vice, not a PTA conference. We need statement pieces. We need impact. We need-" She rummaged through my closet and emerged with a hanger like she'd won a prize. "This."
The dress was red. Very red. The kind of red that made you think of fire trucks and emergency exits and possibly blood. It had thin straps and a neckline that plunged into dangerous territory, and the fabric was the sort that clung to every curve like it was personally invested in the outcome of the evening.
"That's... a lot," I said.
"That's the point. You've got the body for it, so stop acting like you don't. I'm wearing the black one with the mesh panels." Sasha was already shimmying out of her jeans, revealing a pair of impossibly short shorts she'd apparently been wearing all day for exactly this transition. "We're going to look like trouble, and trouble is the aesthetic tonight."
I considered arguing, but the prosecco was already fizzing through my bloodstream, softening the edges of the day. The whisper from the group meeting still echoed faintly in the back of my mind-slut-but I shoved it down. If people were going to talk, I might as well give them something worth talking about.
"Fine. But if I fall out of this dress, you're catching me."
"I'll catch you, and then I'll tell everyone it was intentional." She threw a handful of glitter directly at my face like a fairy with a grudge. "Now let's get dangerous."
Getting ready with Sasha is a full-contact sport. There's music blaring, something with a bassline that rattles the mirror. She's doing my eyeliner while I'm trying to locate my left heel, and we're both shouting over the lyrics about which lip color says "I'm emotionally unavailable but also slightly tragic." The red dress clings to my body in ways that feel both powerful and precarious. Sasha's outfit-a black number with mesh cutouts that reveal slices of her ribcage and back-makes her look like the kind of person who starts revolutions and then leaves before the paperwork.
"Dex called earlier," I said, adjusting the straps for the fourth time. "His friend Callum is back from wherever. Apparently he might crash here for a few days while he sorts out an apartment."
Sasha stopped mid-glitter-assault. "Callum. Is he hot?"
"I don't know, Sash. I was too busy not caring."
"You have a hot man potentially sleeping in your flat and you didn't ask for photographic evidence?"
"He's Dex's friend. That's like finding out your brother's coworker is single. It's not a prospect, it's an HR violation."
She threw herself backward onto the bed dramatically. "Iona, you are living in a romantic comedy and refusing to read the script. A hot stranger in your home? Late-night kitchen encounters? Tension over who ate the last yogurt?"
"You've watched too much television."
"I've watched exactly the right amount." She sat up, eyes gleaming. "Think about it. Dex is gone, you're alone, this guy Callum shows up, and suddenly there's eye contact across the cereal aisle."
I lobbed a pillow at her head. "Stop trying to manifest a meet-cute in my kitchen. For all we know, Callum looks like a thumb with a receding hairline."
"Doesn't hurt to have options."
"It absolutely hurts when the option is living in your spare room and leaves socks on the bathroom floor." I grabbed my vodka soda and took a long sip. "Enough. Tonight isn't about hypothetical thumb-men. Tonight is about dancing until our feet bleed and making terrible choices we can laugh about later."
Sasha grinned, raising her glass. "To terrible choices."
♦️♦️♦️
Vice was exactly the kind of place that thrives on bad decisions. Sticky floors, a light system that seemed programmed by someone having a seizure, and a DJ who believed volume was a substitute for talent. We pushed through the crowd toward the bar, our outfits drawing glances-some appreciative, some judgmental, most just curious. I felt the red dress working for me, a suit of armor made of audacity and double-sided tape.
Sasha was already dancing before we'd even found a spot to stand, her body moving like the music was a language she'd been born fluent in. The mesh panels of her dress caught the strobes, giving glimpses of skin that seemed to flicker in and out of existence. She looked untouchable. She looked like a warning.
And that's when I saw him. Not someone I knew-someone who would become a problem.
He was leaning against the wall near the back hallway, nursing a beer and scanning the crowd with the kind of slow, possessive gaze that made my spine tighten. Not bad-looking, I guess, if you were into the conventionally handsome but spiritually vacant type. Strong jaw, dark hair swept back, a shirt unbuttoned one too many. He locked eyes with me for a second, and I felt that small, cold prickle of being appraised like livestock.
I looked away, but Sasha had already clocked him.
"Ooh, ten o'clock, dark hair, dead eyes. Potential," she murmured into her drink.
"Potential serial killer."
"Same thing, different accessories." She winked and dragged me onto the dance floor.
For a while, it was good. The music was loud enough to erase thought, and Sasha danced like she was trying to shake her skeleton loose. I let myself dissolve into it, feeling the bass in my chest, the heat of bodies, the brief, blissful absence of whispers and hexagons and boys who thought they could define me with a single word.
Then the dead-eyed guy materialized next to Sasha.
I didn't notice at first-I was mid-spin, arms up, the red dress catching the strobes-but when I turned back, he was there, one hand already on her hip, leaning in to say something. Sasha was smiling, but it was her polite smile, the one that meant she was humoring someone while mentally calculating exit routes. She danced with him for a song, maybe two, and I kept half an eye on them while pretending to be lost in the music.
It was fine until it wasn't.
His hand moved from her hip to her lower back, then lower. Sasha shifted away, still smiling, but firmer now. He followed. She said something I couldn't hear over the bass, and he laughed like she'd made a joke. His hand found her waist again, pulling her closer, and I saw her face change. The smile dropped. She pushed his chest-not hard, but clearly. A no.
He didn't back off.
I was already moving, weaving through bodies, my heart starting to hammer. By the time I got close enough to hear, Sasha had her hand on his wrist, prying his fingers off her hip.
"I said I'm done," she told him, voice sharp enough to cut. "Take the hint."
"Come on, you were into it a second ago." He grinned, and it was the grin of someone who'd never been told no by anyone who mattered. "Don't be like that. Especially dressed like that."
The words hit me in the stomach. Especially dressed like that. As if her clothing had invited him. As if the mesh panels were a contract he'd signed without her consent.
"I wasn't 'into it,' I was tolerating it. There's a difference." Sasha stepped back, and he stepped forward. "And what I'm wearing has nothing to do with you. I'm going to go find my friend now."
She turned, and he grabbed her arm.
I saw red. Genuine, pulsing, behind-the-eyes red.
"Hey." I was there, suddenly, my hand closing over his wrist. "She said she's done. Let go."
He looked at me like I was a mosquito that had learned to speak. "This isn't your business."
"It became my business the second you put your hand on her after she told you no." I didn't raise my voice. I'd learned a long time ago that shouting gives people like him something to push against. "Let. Go."
For a long, ugly moment, I thought he might swing. His jaw was tight, eyes flicking between me and Sasha, calculating. Then Sasha twisted her arm free with a sharp yank, and she was beside me, her hand finding mine.
"You're both insane," he muttered. "Teases. Look at you-dressed like you're begging for it and then acting surprised when someone takes the invitation."
Sasha laughed-a real, bright, cutting laugh that somehow contained more fury than any scream. "Sweetheart, if you think clothing is an invitation, I genuinely feel sorry for anyone who's ever had to fake it with you. My body isn't a suggestion box. Now if you'll excuse us, I have a vodka soda getting warm and exactly zero interest in continuing this conversation."
We walked away, shoulders back, hearts racing, and didn't look back. I could feel his gaze on us like a splinter, but we kept moving, threading through the crowd until we burst out the side exit into the cold night air.
Sasha let out a shaky breath, then another, and then she was laughing, bent over with her hands on her knees. "Oh my god. Did I just say that? 'My body isn't a suggestion box'? I'm a legend."
"You're insane," I said, but I was laughing too, the adrenaline making everything giddy and sharp. "He could have followed us."
"Then you would have kneed him in the groin, and we'd both be legends." She straightened up, wiping her eyes. "Ugh, I need carbs and a dark room. Let's go home."
I was the designated driver, which meant I'd had exactly one drink three hours ago and was stone-cold sober. Sasha, on the other hand, was not. She'd been mainlining prosecco and vodka sodas all night, and the confrontation had burned through whatever buffer the alcohol had been providing. By the time I got her into the passenger seat of my ancient Honda Civic, she was already listing sideways, muttering something about breakfast burritos.
"Seatbelt," I said, reaching over to buckle her in. She swatted weakly at my hands but let me do it, her head lolling against the headrest. "Sasha. Sash. Stay awake for ten minutes so I know you're not going to choke on your own tongue."
"M'fine," she slurred. "Just resting my eyes. You're so pretty, Iona. Like a... like an angry librarian."
"Thanks. Very flattering." I started the car and pulled out of the lot.
The streets were quiet, that strange liminal hour past midnight when the city holds its breath. I kept the radio low, some late-night talk show murmuring about interest rates and zoning laws. Sasha's breathing evened out beside me, and by the time I turned onto Ashford Road, she was fully unconscious, her face slack and peaceful, glitter still sparkling on her cheekbones like some kind of deranged fairy princess.
That's when the lights hit my rearview mirror.
Blue and red, cutting through the dark. My stomach dropped through the floor of the car.
"No no no no." I checked my speed-five under the limit, if anything. My taillights? Had I signaled? I'd signaled. What- "Sasha. Sasha, wake up."
Nothing. She was dead to the world.
I pulled over, hands trembling, and killed the engine. In the side mirror, I watched the officer approach, a hulking silhouette with a flashlight that swung in an arc toward my window.
I rolled it down. "Officer, is there a problem?"
He didn't answer immediately. The flashlight beam swept over me, lingering on the red dress, the thin straps, the exposed skin. I saw his expression shift, a door closing behind his eyes.
"Step out of the vehicle, ma'am."
"I-what? Why?"
"Step. Out."
My heart was a trapped bird. I unlocked the door and stepped out, my heels wobbling on the uneven asphalt. "I don't understand. I wasn't speeding. My registration is In the glove-"
"Hands on the hood."
"What? No, you don't understand, she's just drunk, she's my best friend, we were at a club and she had too much, I'm taking her home-"
"I said hands on the hood." His voice was a wall. The flashlight was in my eyes now, blinding. "Do it. Now."
I did it. The metal was cold through my palms, and I could feel my pulse in my throat, in my temples, everywhere. "Please, you have to listen. She's not drugged, she's not hurt, she's just asleep. Her name is Sasha Oluwale, she lives on Clemence Street, you can check my phone, I have texts from her all day, we were getting ready together, please-"
A hand clamped down on the back of my neck and shoved me forward. My cheekbone hit the hood with a crack that I felt in my teeth, and the taste of copper flooded my mouth. My hands were yanked behind my back, cold metal biting into my wrists.
"You have the right to remain silent," the officer was saying, his voice a monotone recitation. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
"I didn't do anything!" The words came out mangled, bloody. "She's my friend! Just ask her, just wake her up!"
He spun me around, and I got my first clear look at him. Mid-forties, buzz cut, a name tag that read KOWALSKI. His face was carved from something that had forgotten how to be soft.
"I know your type," he said, low and cold. His eyes dropped to my dress, then back up to my face, and his mouth twisted into something ugly. "Out at this hour dressed like that. What'd you slip her? Rohypnol? GHB? Or maybe you're both just working girls who had a disagreement." He shook his head, the disgust radiating off him like heat. "I see girls like you all the time. Dressed like you're asking for it, acting surprised when you get treated like what you are."
The word from earlier-slut-echoed in my skull, except now it was wearing a badge and carrying a gun.
"I'm not a prostitute," I said, and my voice came out steadier than I felt. "I'm a high school student. My name is Iona Varela. My ID is in my back pocket. You can call my brother, Dex Varela, he's listed as my emergency contact. You can search my car. There are no drugs. There is nothing. I am just trying to get my best friend home safe."
He didn't loosen the cuffs. He just stared at me, and I could see the machinery of his assumptions grinding behind his eyes, struggling to reconcile the words coming out of my mouth with the body they were coming from. The red dress. The exposed skin. The glitter. The audacity of existing while female and brown and unapologetic.
Then, from inside the car, a groggy, slurred voice: "Iona? Why're we stopped? I need to pee."
I have never been so relieved to hear someone complain about their bladder in my entire life.
Kowalski's jaw tightened. He looked at Sasha, who was blinking blearily through the window, her mascara smeared and her hair a rat's nest, very clearly alive and very clearly just spectacularly drunk. Then he looked at me, with my split lip and handcuffs and the kind of terror that leaves a stain.
"Stay here," he muttered, and walked around to the passenger side.
I didn't hear the rest of the conversation. I just leaned my forehead against the cold roof of the Honda and breathed, in and out, while my wrists ached and my lip throbbed and the blue-and-red lights kept spinning, spinning, spinning.
♦️♦️♦️
It took another forty minutes. Sasha, suddenly and aggressively sobered by the sight of me in handcuffs, had explained everything in loud, indignant detail-the club, the fake IDs (she left that part out, thank god), the creep who'd grabbed her and called her a tease, the drive home. She'd demanded to speak to a supervisor. She'd threatened to call her cousin who worked for the city. She'd been magnificent.
Eventually, the cuffs came off. Kowalski didn't apologize-men like him never do-but he did mutter something about "better safe than sorry" and told us to get the taillight fixed before he let us go. He didn't look at my dress again. He didn't look at me at all.
I stood there rubbing my wrists, my lip still bleeding slightly, and watched him drive away.
Sasha wrapped her arms around me from behind, her chin on my shoulder. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I should have stayed awake."
"It's not your fault." My voice sounded far away. "It's not your fault."
"Your face is bleeding."
"I know."
"Iona." She turned me around, her hands cupping my cheeks, gentle on the bruised side. "You're the best person I know. You didn't deserve that. You didn't do anything wrong."
I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe that the metal on my wrists and the hood against my cheekbone and the word slut whispered across a hexagon were just random, senseless things, not a thread woven through the entire day, connecting a boy's smug judgment to a stranger's unwanted hands to a police officer's assumption that my body was an invitation. But I didn't say that. I just nodded and let her hug me and pretended the trembling was from the cold.
We got back in the car. I turned the key. The engine caught, and the radio came back on, still murmuring about interest rates and zoning laws, because the world is absurd and doesn't pause for your trauma.
"Hey," Sasha said softly, as I pulled back onto the road. "Callum better be hot. You've earned a hot man in your kitchen."
I laughed-a wet, startled, painful laugh-and the tears started again, but this time they were something like relief.
"Yeah," I said. "I really have."