The Handmaid's Tale 15

"'Here,' the Commander says. He slips around my wrist a tag, purple, on an elastic band, like the tags for airport luggage. 'If anyone asks you, say you're an evening rental,' he says." (233)

In this sexual safe-zone of sorts, the Commander tells Offred to pretend she's an "evening rental" - meaning a prostitute. Atwood pulls out all the stops on this bar and hotel, describing it to be everything that Offred never sees in daily life. The shock that hits the reader at this environmental change is reinforced with the realization that prostitutes still exist in an environment that doesn't even seem to be illegal. Prostitution is illegal in today's society where women have the right to do practically whatever they want, but there can be a whole club that isn't even underground or under the radar without even having legal issues?

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