Get alone, get alone often,

and if you can't sleep alone, be careful of the words you speak in your sleep;

and ask for no mercy, no miracles…. (Frantz Fanon)

June climbed the wet metal stairs to his apartment above the garage, clutching the thin banister, trying not to slip. Her fingers pushed the door open without knocking. She usually knocked, out of politeness, or in case one day he decided not to let her in, not to risk his life for an hour of bliss. But so far, he had never said no to the beggar's knock, and since it was pouring out, she decided to forgo the formal invitation and instead barged in unannounced.

"Hi," she called, voice raspy.

There was a bath towel folded neatly on the heater near the entrance, as if Nick had been expecting her. He stood up from his armchair, put the hardcover book on the table, walked towards her. "Hey," he greeted gently.

She stripped off her soaked red dress and boots, leaving the trappings of the handmaid uniform in a soggy pile on his floor. She let him envelop her with the towel. "Mm, it's warm," she murmured.

"My mom used to do that for me, warm up my towel on the heater in the wintertime," he soothed, drying her back, arms, hair. "So it was nice and hot when I came out of the shower. Until one day I put my wet towel on the heater and it caught fire. The whole bathroom smelled like smoke for the next three fucking years."

She smiled up at him, trying to imagine Nick as a little boy. He so rarely shared childhood memories with her. "I lit a kitchen towel on fire once. Also an accident. My mom didn't let me near the stove for years after."

"Ah, that's why your cooking skills are so, uh, rudimentary." He'd finished drying her hair and was now moving down her body. He took off her undershirt and bra, then knelt in front of her to lower her ridiculous petticoat and granny pants.

She considered arguing against his insult to her cooking skills, but couldn't even bring herself to feign indignation. He was toweling her legs dry, kissing her softly as he went. She couldn't argue with a man whose lips were pressed against her thigh. Instead, she just stroked his hair with one hand, and said, "Sorry I didn't knock."

"You don't have to knock," he whispered. "My door's always open for you."

"What if you had company? Your other girlfriends?"

Nick laughed softly. Without responding aloud, he tugged on her free hand to pull her down to the floor with him, so that he could kiss her in earnest. His hands cradled her face as he opened her mouth with his thumb. June leaned into him, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders. She could never get close enough to him. Her hunger for him would gnaw deep in her belly all day. From breakfast to morning prayers, shopping or sitting in her boring bedroom, her passion was an obsession growing steadily by the hour, until the night finally descended and she could run across the Waterford backyard to Nick. She'd avoid searchlights, watchdogs, and prowling Guardians night after night, just to indulge herself in the delicious pleasure of Nick Blaine.

Before she knew it, June found herself off the floor and in his bed, burrowing under the covers to carve out a nice warm hiding place for the two of them. She could hear the distant distractions of police sirens, walkie-talkies, bootsteps on the sidewalk, but she chose to focus on nothing but Nick's roaming hands and mouth. He had three main moods in bed: caretaker, predator, or passive observer. Right now, he was in caretaker mode, murmuring how much he loved her and needed her. "You're safe here," he told her. "We're safe now." A fallacy that they both stubbornly believed, at least when they were together like this.

He wanted tenderness tonight, so she responded in kind. "I miss you so much, Nick," she whispered feverishly between kisses. "I worry about you all the time."

"Not as much as I worry about you."

"Just as much." If they were found out, their fate would be the same. At least they'd be hanging next to each other, holding hands on the gallows. "Nick. I love you." Words she almost never said to him. Tonight, though, they poured out of her, as natural as breathing.

Luke Bankole sat upright on the edge of his bed, desperate head in his hands. He watched his so-called wife writhe in ecstasy while holding her pillow like a lover and muttering about how much she loved Nick Blaine. Her hips moved rhythmically as she panted his name. When she'd begun this sexy dream, Luke's ears had pricked up like a Collie's, and he'd rolled closer to her in their shared bed on the off-chance June wanted to merge her nocturnal fantasy with reality. But hearing Nick's name come out of her mouth had dashed those hopes. Nothing like listening to your wife moan another man's name to completely crush your ego, Luke mused. The only thing worse would be to actually see them together, something he hoped never to experience. Luckily for him, Blaine was stuck in Gilead—seemingly permanently—while June had been in Canada for months now.

Before June's escape, Luke had feared that she might not come back to him. Emily Malek hadn't even informed her wife that she was safe in Toronto, after all; for days, she'd stayed away from her family. But that hadn't happened with June. Moira had called him from the boat before it had even docked, so that Luke could claim his wife as soon as she set foot on Canadian soil. The thought had recently crossed his mind that he hadn't given her a choice; he'd just driven her to his house, showed her the master bedroom, and turned the sheets down. She accepted his cold bed like she accepted most everything else here: passively, wordlessly. She barely mentioned Gilead. She gave him blank smiles and said she was fine.

But not when she slept.

Luke learned all kinds of things about the New June when she was asleep. Her nightmares taught him about her most traumatic experiences in Gilead. Her muttered conversations with handmaids and Aunts fleshed out her relationships to him. June's continuous guilt and fear for Hannah came out in nightmares about their daughter. And the erotic dreams told him far more than he wanted to know about her lover. Even June's bouts with insomnia were instructive—she'd prowl around the house with a hammer she'd taken from his toolbox, on night watch, looking for Guardians or Eyes.

"I'll get you out," June promised her pillow. "I miss you so much. I worry about you all the time."

Luke rolled his eyes. Why worry? Commander Blaine had everything he could ever want: a huge house full of nice furniture, a cushy job, sex on demand (from his handmaid or wife or whatever he had), a house slave, a chauffeur to drive his Mercedes. Nobody was coming to electrocute him, rape him, drag him off to be stoned to death. A Commander had nothing to worry about. He was king of his world.

You need to move on, Luke kept telling June. Forget about Gilead. Fuck them all. You're here now; just be present. You need to be here. Take care of Nichole, take care of me. Or let me take care of you.

She didn't want any of her husband's advice, which made him feel resentful. She just kept obsessing over Fred Waterford's trial and Hannah's loss. She refused to move on, no matter what Luke suggested she do instead: yoga, jogging, restaurants, even dance clubs. It was like she didn't even want to be happy. Grudgingly, he admitted that June was being a great mother to Nichole, as nurturing as she'd once been with Hannah. Parenting came intuitively to June. But aside from taking care of her daughter, her thoughts were stuck in Gilead, even as she slept.

Usually, when she started talking to Blaine in her sleep, Luke would just get up, tail between his legs, and leave the room. These dreams normally didn't last more than a few minutes. But this one was particularly long and detailed, and Luke really wasn't in the mood to hear her declarations of love and devotion. You've gotta be cruel to be kind, he sang silently to himself. She needed to get her mind out of Gilead.

Before he could stop himself, he leaned close to his wife and said, "You'll never get him out. You'll never see him again. He'll die there."

June twitched, shook her head. Her face still buried in the pillow alongside her, she reached her hands out, grasping at something. Then with a short scream, she awoke.

Their lovemaking abruptly stopped, and June was back in handmaid red, looking down at her hands. They held a thick rope. Not again, she thought—didn't we just have a particicution last week? Aunt Lydia was standing next to the gallows in front of the handmaids, enjoying her time on stage. "Adultery and fornication," Lydia announced theatrically as the poor victim was brought out in handcuffs, wearing prison beige, face bloodied and bruised. They put his neck through the noose.

Nick.

With the shock of a thousand volts surging through her hands, June dropped the rope and reached out towards him. He can't be hanged, she thought frantically, not without me. Not with me watching. I'm just as guilty as he is; I should be there next to him.

Nick's dull eyes scanned the crowd of red-robed women until he caught her eyes. He exhaled, sending her a grateful smile. June, he mouthed at her. I love you, she mouthed back. She stared at him, not knowing what else to say, what to do, how to save him. Then Lydia's whistle blew, and as the other handmaids yanked the rope, June heard the creaky wooden platform drop.

"Hey, you okay?" June recognized Luke's concerned voice, and turned her head towards him.

"Yeah," she managed. Her heart was racing. She brushed the hair out of her face. Not real, she told herself. Just a nightmare. Nick's fine. That did not just happen.

"Bad dream?"

"Yeah," she repeated.

"Wanna talk about it?"

"No." She untangled herself from the still-warm sheets and trotted over to the bathroom. Splashing cold water on her face, she called back to Luke, who looked worried about her. As usual. "I'll be fine in a minute," she assured him, though her mind was still processing the image of Nick's calm expression as the platform dropped and the noose jerked his head backwards. Why had he smiled at her like that? Was he thankful that she was there to watch his death? No, she concluded, he was smiling in relief because her face was the image he wanted to have before him when he died. She leaned her hands heavily against the edges of the sink. Her tears fell into the basin, mixed with the running water.

"Are you sure you're okay?" the man in the bedroom asked again.

June chose the high-pitched, fake happy voice she used with the Waterfords. "I'm fine, Luke, really. It's okay. Don't worry." Why am I comforting him? she thought to herself. I'm the one who had the fucking nightmare.

"I'll make you some coffee." Coffee was Luke's solution to many problems. That and 'just get over it, forget about Gilead, move on.' June thought that was a shitty piece of advice, but the hot drink sounded good.

"Coffee would be nice," she said as pleasantly as possible, stifling her sobs.