Kind of like Winston and Julia in 1984 though. They agreed to transact secretly, and were discovered. The tension in the novel is even that maybe Julia is an Inner Party member, and the slap to both of them is that they don’t even betray each other, but the prole who rents them the room, the elderly Mister Charrington is an undercover member of the Thought Police.
Although not necessary by that point, a less total State could have held a public exhibition of the torture of Winston and Julia to quell any thoughts of defecting.
As Boromir might say, one does not simply opt out of totalitarianism.