Chapter 16 details the mating ceremony, the central event in Gilead's struggle to survive nuclear havoc. The ritual takes place in a genteel canopied bed. As Offred, robed and veiled, lies between Serena's outspread thighs and clutches her hands, the Commander, also in uniform, mounts Offred and ejaculates. Serena then coldly dispatches the Handmaid from the scene. Offred returns to her room, a setting medieval and nun-like in its innocence and purity. She yearns for Luke's embrace, for worth, for the sound of her real name.
Frenziedly repeating "I want," Offred obeys her urges and gets out of bed. In her zigzag longings for an undelineated assuagement of emotional unrest, she sets out to steal something. Once down the stairs and into the darkened sitting room, she hopes for a knife but, instead, pinches off a fading daffodil bloom to leave in her room for the next Handmaid to discover. A click signals the approach of another person. Nick slides into view and pulls her to him for a kiss. He passes on a message: the Commander wants to see her in his office the next day.
