Holding the Handmaid's Hand #MyHandmaidsTale

Holding the Handmaid's Hand

I never chose to be infertile. I never chose to love a man who didn't love me back.

Yet, here I was. Trapped by society and the chains of wealth. Holding the Handmaid's hand. My husband bearing down on another, just to give me a child.

I'm his wife. It ought to be my belly swelling over the months, my skin tightening, my joy erupting as I bear a child. Were it me, copulation would be an act of love and explosive passion as opposed to the occasional tighten and release on my hands.

It's unfair.

Accursed Handmaid. How I hate her for stealing these precious moments from me. The only claim I have to my husband, the only proof that he is mine, is the ring on my finger. There will never be a baby to connect the two of us. Should he impregnate the Handmaid, I'll have to care for the child of another woman, forcing a smile all the while. The ladies at the society clubs will call me blessed, since only the luckiest families take a Handmaid. Even luckier are those whose Handmaid gets with child.

Yes, blessed. I think bitterly, eyeing the dull woman lying in front of me. I could kill her, I realize suddenly. It's been seven months now, and no baby. She's as useless as I am, only without the social status that I grip like a lifesaver. I really could kill her. The thought strikes me, holds me hostage, forces me to turn it over and over again in my mind.

I see the way my husband looks at her. Not with lust, but with hope. He wants a child to carry his legacy, and the Handmaid can give it to him. I cannot.

The injustice of it ties a knot in my stomach that refuses to come undone. I squeeze the girl's hands tighter, forcing her to understand that I am dominant. She may have the womb, but I have power.

Can she still conceive? She carries a face of stone during copulation. Today she winces, she twitches. She's desperate to prove her viability.

I glance down at my feet. Three-inch blue stilettos stare back at me, urging me to give in to my hatred.

Slowly, I release the Handmaid's hand. I see her brows arch, betraying her bewilderment. My husband takes no notice, occupied with the task at hand.

I slip off my shoe. The servants see, but they don't dare speak.

"Shut your eyes." I breathe to the Handmaid. She obeys. During these sessions, my word is law.

I raise the stiletto, and it's then that my husband looks up. "What are you–"

The Handmaid opens her eyes at the sound. The last thing she will see is my grin as I plunge the heel into her throat, erasing the threat to my marriage. Her face is frozen in a permanent state of terror as blood gushes from the wound.

I sit back calmly. "Let this be justice."