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She saw you.
She saw you as you are; a small, broken god in her desolate realm, isolated from other mortals.
Commanders looked down on you, even your own husband, in that paternalistic condescension reserved only for you (and her, you realized, since you two were his prized possessions, his beautiful yet barren wife and his fertile broodmare) because of the thing between your legs. Wives looked up on you since you're the wife of a high-ranked Commander and one of the key architects of Gilead, yet she looked at you like you're equals; like she deserved to breathe the same air as you.
Perhaps she was right.
She looked at you in your eyes; hatred, disgust, awe, and tenderness wrapped up in one. You suspected the same look is reflected in your eyes, too. You had a long history with each other, all more meaningful than with Fred, in more ways than one. She was, after all, the mother of your child, as deluded as it was.
You remembered when you asked Aunt Lydia for a Handmaid that resembled you, so that you can fool yourself into thinking that the child she'll be carrying in her womb is yours. Aunt Lydia placated you at that time, since all the Handmaids were assigned randomly, but when she arrived, your heart fluttered. She resembled you somewhat; blonde hair, blue eyes, and strong jawlines. Yet she had three things that you lacked and envied greatly: fertility, heart, and a fighting spirit. The last two were somehow still not broken by the hell you've created, and you admired her for that.
When she was pregnant, you couldn't help but feeling elated, despite the fact that the child was neither yours nor your husband's. You came to her room every night to talk to the baby—Nichole—and slowly but surely, you started to spend more time with her. It's hard not to, when the child you oh so craved was nestled deep inside of her.
Her hair became so dull because of the lack of sunlight and proper care. You noticed that when you were playing with her hair while one hand was on her stomach. When did you become so intimate? Not even Fred played with your hair before you went to sleep, yet here you are, contemplating whether you should ask Rita for smuggled hair care products from the black market for her.
You knew she wasn't asleep from the way she's breathing. She never looked at you, not even when you spooned her for the first time. She just laid there, taking it all in, like she took your husband in. Both you and Fred just took whatever you want from her while she was helpless and stewing in righteous loathing. Him, her cunt, you, her womb.
Self-hatred and what felt like might be guilt manifested itself in your chest, and you tugged her hair hard to let some of the pressure out. She hissed in pain and you were torn between the desire of yanking her hair out and dragging her to the floor or apologizing to her, to tell her sweet lies about how sorry you are and how you will make everything better.
You did neither of those and kissed her shoulder instead. She tensed up and a slow exhalation of breath followed, but she didn't react more than that.
Why did you do it?
You pondered upon it and you realized you have no answer other than you wanted to.
Maybe you've lost your mind to loneliness and isolation. You've been touch-starved all your life, even when you and Fred still had a normal relationship as husband and wife. You could probably put it into childhood trauma bullshit that people love to spout off whenever one is behaving slightly off. Yes, your mother was a cold woman who prefer to send you away whenever you wanted affection and your (loving, stern, chauvinistic) father was taken away from you too soon, but to seek it out with a woman who you enslaved? If Gilead believed in the importance of mental health, they'd throw you into a bright padded room with a straitjacket binding you.
You stared at the back of her head, like somehow if you did it hard enough, you'd be privy to her innermost thoughts. If she were your friend, you probably could ask her what's on her mind, but seeing as you were her captor, you couldn't do anything but stare at her.
Suddenly, she started to sit up with a grunt. This was the first time she did anything other than waiting to fall asleep while you were with her, so you can't help but look at her in confusion. She went to the bathroom and you sat up, blinking at the sudden loss of warmth in your arms.
You weren't sure whether to lie back down while waiting for her or just sat on her bed, but she was back before you had to choose. She stared at you with that blazing blue eyes of hers, barely visible in the darkness of her room. You subconsciously wet your lips and gulped, like she was going to do something to you.
She opened her mouth, like she was going to say something, but decided against it in the last second. A part of you thought she was smart enough to not trigger her mistress, or whatever the hell you were to her, to blinding rage, like you were prone to doing, but the other part of you thought she was completely exhausted. Not broken, no. Far from it. But she was tired enough to let you do whatever you want to her, in this case, being close to Nichole while spooning her. Or was it spooning her while being close to Nichole?
Since when did your priority became so skewed?
You caught a glimpse of her face, moonlight shone on her like she was some sort of a guardian angel in thin white nightgown, and your heart broke a little. You wanted to reach out to her, but you froze instead, waiting for her to move.
She bit her lips and stroked her stomach. It made your empty womb quiver in jealousy. She had the one thing you want the most in the world, but at what cost? Only the fall of one of the most powerful nation in the world and dignities of women across the country. No big deal.
Surprisingly, she didn't kick you out of her bed. She climbed on her bed, but she didn't avoid your eyes like she used to, even if she turned her back against you again.
You carefully laid down beside her. You were staring at the ceiling and starting to count to one thousand so you can sleep since the moment of taking her in your arms was lost for tonight when you felt her touching your hand. You looked down to see that she reached out from her position with her back against you, like she was asking you silently to spoon her again.
God. Maybe you were both crazy. Why else would she reached out for her kidnapper, asking for another scrap of affection in this cold place?
You decided that you wouldn't think too much and granted her unsaid wish instead. You turned to her, encircled your arm around her fragile form, and pulled her towards you in a surprising display of strength. Your nose was practically buried in her hair and your breasts were pressed against her back.
You inhaled the smell of her cheap shampoo and closed your eyes. Before the darkness took you over, you could've sworn that she squeezed your hand before her breathing evened out.
You fell asleep with a smile that night.