Wish Shift: Adjustments

1 A.S. Day 147

When Derek got out of the shower, he was still half in amazement at
Jenny. He toweled himself dry and wrapped the damp towel around himself.
He figured he might as well make the bed after he put some clothes on. He
really wanted to do something nice for Jenny today, but right now he
couldn't think of what it should be. He found himself thinking about what
she had told him about Sonya and that brought him back to last night and
what she said to him about why she had done that this morning at
breakfast.

Mindy was right. He had known even when Derek had been saying that they
were only friends that he was lying to himself. He had known that she was
a lot more to him than that almost since the beginning. When he saw Jenny
that first time he just wanted to talk to her. He needed to get to know
the beautiful petite woman that he had seen that first day. Something
about seeing her walk past the plate windows at Java Jolts that first
time had hooked him and he didn't want it to let him go.

Even just keeping it on the level that they had slipped into after they
started spending more time together was good for him. He wanted more, of
course he did. But he wasn't a fool. Jenny wasn't just any woman. She was
a woman who was dealing with everything that had occurred since the Shift
had sundered her from her old life. Sometimes Derek felt that even having
this level of relationship with her would possibly be all that he could
expect. He didn't blame her for that, in her place he didn't know if he
would have done any different.

He still could hardly believe it had even happened. It was nothing that
he could have expected he knew. But when he walked into her trailer to
pick her up last week and she had just turned around and kissed him, even
if it was just a little thank you peck, he didn't know what he should do.
He knew what he had dreamed of doing, but having that become more than a
desire of his made manifest was just something that made him freeze.

She had never done anything like that before. He never expected her to
even conceive of doing that to him and he guessed that inside he had
resigned himself to the idea that what he had with Jenny was just what it
was going to be. He thought that would have disappointed and discouraged
him, but it didn't and it didn't make any sense to him, but he had
accepted that the relationship they had was as far as it would ever go.
Then during the entire week that followed that little peck, it seemed
that everything that he had wanted her to do to let him know she
reciprocated his feelings for her was happening and he just froze.

Each night when he brought her home he knew down to his very core that
she wanted him to kiss her. He could practically see it in the air around
her. He could feel it rolling off of her in waves almost and he stalled.
He couldn't take that step toward her. He was almost screaming at himself
inside to take that step and at the same time he was terrified of doing
it. He had never had that kind of feeling ever before. Mindy was right
again. He never felt the way about her the way she was before the Shift
that he felt about Jenny now.

He replayed each touch and every little thing she did to him each day
after that first unexpected kiss on his cheek and he could not match his
reaction to it to anything he had ever experienced in a relationship ever
before. It was only seven days. But it was seven days that changed
everything. Seven days ago he was just what he was to her. Her friend.
The man who was there for her because he wanted to be, the person that
dropped everything to be what she needed and he was still those things.
But now she was more, she was everything to him. Each moment of last
night was branded into him and he knew when he finally went to sleep last
night that she loved him. It was a frightening thing for him to stand on
the same place in her heart that Sonya held. He only hoped that she would
keep him there.

He walked into the bedroom and stopped. She had left him nothing to do.
The bed was made already. He couldn't remember the last time he had not
made his own bed and he wasn't sure if he wanted her to be doing that. He
wanted the woman that boldly swept aside whatever excuses they had given
themselves and consumed him last night. He wanted that woman and not one
of those sad girls that were taught they were inferiors who should spend
their lives in service to the men in their lives, like those he had known
in the Church before his parents had died.

But he already knew she wasn't like that. That was something he didn't
question, so why did it bother him that she had done this? And did he
want to say anything? This was something ordinary that she had done for
him unasked. He dropped the towel into the hamper and started to pull
some clean clothes out of the dresser and then started putting them on.
This was Jenny he reminded himself. She wasn't like any woman he met
before, because there had never been a woman like her before. She knew
more about being a man than he did long before he had seen her walk by
his shop.

She knew what pushed his buttons because they were her buttons too once.
He wondered if he was up to the task of being with someone like her. Ever
since the Shift had happened he had wondered if he would have been able
to do what so many others were doing now. He had already privately come
to the conclusion that the people who were shifted were already stronger
than he thought he could have ever been. He had enough trouble just
dealing with the things in his singular experience. He didn't think he
had it in him to do what he had been watching Jenny do since he had met
her.

She had made herself into who she was now like a petite phoenix. She knew
what it felt like already to be on both sides of the lover's bed.
Suddenly, even though he had never met Sonya, he felt a deep gratitude to
her. Part of the woman she was, was what gave Jenny what she needed to
know to become the woman that he held last night.

Without the love that Jenny had for Sonya there would have been nothing
like what she had given him. Jenny had been figuring out what kind of
woman she was going to be since she shifted. He needed to trust her lead
and let her choose to be the woman she wanted to be. The woman that she
gave to him last night was already the sum of those choices. And if that
woman was going to do things like this, he should let her continue to
chart that course and not stand in her way out of misguided discomfort on
his part.

He walked down the hall into the kitchen. She'd already cleaned up there
as well and now she was at the table writing on a small notebook. He
walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her ear.

"You didn't leave anything for me to do," he said in a mild accusing
tone.

She put down the pen turned in the chair and kissed him with her hands on
both sides of his face. "If it bothers you, you can drive me to the
store," she said.

"Ok, I can do that," Derek said reaching for the Jeep keys on the hook.
"You want to go now?" he asked watching her nod yes.

"So what do you have tomorrow then?" he asked. She picked up her purse on
the table by the door and walked after him.

"I don't have anything for the rest of the week," she said.

"How'd that happen?" he asked. The whole time he had been taking her to
the medical park since he offered to drive her, he hadn't seen her take
more than a weekend away from it.

She wrapped her arms around him hugged him tightly and rubbed the side of
her face into his chest  and looked up to him with a smile. "I asked for
it," she said. "I don't want anything in our way for the next few days,"
She leaned up and kissed him again. Derek realized that he hadn't had a
choice since he'd asked her in front of Java Jolts to come here with him
last night, and he didn't want to get in the way of what was happening
either now that it had begun.

"Now unless you don't want me here, take me to the store," She said to
him with a big smile. "Cause that bachelor kitchen of yours has got to go
now. I'm going to have to show you what I can really do there tonight."

She walked out of the door and he just watched her go for a few steps
before hurrying after her.

"A-fucking-mazing," he said to himself again.

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1 A.S. Day 147

The first place they went by was her trailer. She leaned over and kissed
him before she went out and said she would just be a minute. She hadn't
said what she was needing to get but, he was just going to ride this
wave. It was longer than a minute of course, but not by much. He heard
the door open again and saw her turning around to lock the door. She had
a small blue duffel slung over her shoulder and as soon as she finished
she came over to the jeep and put it into the back seat.

He looked at it sitting there. There was no way she had packed that in
the time she was inside.

"You didn't think I was going to wear the same thing the rest of the week
did you?" she asked him and kissed him again.

Derek didn't say anything and just put the Jeep into gear. "Where to
next?" he said.

She told him and he pulled the jeep out into the street and started
heading there.

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1 A.S. Day 147

Derek reached into the back of the Jeep and picked up some more of the
plastic bags that were piled on each other. He put them down and reached
for another couple to add to his load. Jenny came out of the house and
picked up some of the ones he had just put down and carried them back
inside. He loaded up his hands with as many as he could carry and
followed her inside. It took him another two trips with her drifting back
behind him and also carrying  some as well before it was finally clear.
He slung her small blue duffel over his shoulder and brought that in as
well.

Jenny was already busy sorting through what they had gotten. He put down
the last of the groceries and took her bag back to the bedroom. He heard
cabinet doors opening and the sound of things being shuffled around when
he walked back into the kitchen.

"If I knew this was what you had in mind," he said. I'd have suggested
that we just use your truck. Are you sure this isn't too much? I've never
gotten this much at one time before."

Jenny put what she had in her hands into the cabinet and shifted it
around a little. She turned back to him. "You said you were a box mix kid
right?"

Derek nodded his head.

"Then to do what I have in mind I need it," she said turning to the next
bag and starting to empty it. He walked close behind her. She reached her
arm up around his neck and leaned back to give him a quick kiss again.
"Trust me," She said to him.

She finished putting everything away and started balling up the empty
bags into one bag. "Where do you want me to put these?" she asked him
holding it up. "Under the sink for now I suppose," he said.

Derek looked at his watch. "I need to get over to the shop," he said.
"I'm going to have to open it up late as it is." She closed the cabinet
under the sink.

"Just call Mindy," she said. He looked at her.

"Do you seriously think that he wouldn't already be on his way there
today," she said at his slack expression. "He just won the pool on us, of
course he is."

Derek called up Mindy and found out that he was indeed, already almost
there. Jenny listened to Derek talking to him for a few more minutes from
the kitchen, before she heard Derek tell Mindy to bite him in that
comfortable way they had together before he hung up.

"He's already there isn't he?" she said when Derek put the phone down.

"Not yet, but he'll be there in a few," he said. "Did I just miss some
giant conspiracy?" he asked.

"Well I don't think there was an official meeting, but yeah, I think we
both did," she said.

----------------------------------------------------------

1 A.S. Day 151

"I must say that this is a positive development for you Jenny," Dr.
Warren said to her. She was sitting across from him in the other leather
chair today. She wanted to have today's conversation like this, rather
than on the couch, even though that may have been a little more
comfortable for her now.

"I think it is too," she replied to him. "I really do. Ever since I
recognized that this was the right thing to do, I just feel better about
finally taking this step a little more each day."

Dr. Warren could see that as well. He had gotten used to seeing her with
Derek when he brought her in for her appointments and based of the
conversations they had over the last few weeks he was not surprised to
see her giving him a passionate kiss goodbye when he dropped her off
today.

"And have you felt any feelings of conflict once you made that decision?"
he asked her.

"Not about making this choice no," She said. "But I am still bothered
about some of the things that I felt in that dream I had just before I
realized what it was I felt for Derek while I was thinking it through."

"And what is it that bothered you so much as you see it?" he asked her.

"I guess it's really the same thing it has always been," she said. "I
don't want to lose myself in becoming that kind of woman."

"And do you see that happening in some way?" he asked her.

"Only in very small minor ways," she said. "And even then I'm not really
sure that I would consider those as things to really be worried about,
but even then it's still on my mind.."

She and Dr. Warren spent the next half hour going over what she had
picked out about herself when she was thinking about it during the
aftermath of her dream. All of the things that bothered her about it
across the length and breadth of it; everything that played out just
before the end when it had woken her screaming in her bed. Dr. Warren
listened carefully to her, especially when she was describing her own
inner monologue leaving the altar and how she had reacted to the mental
presentation of the dream life she walked into as Derek's wife. She spoke
quite a bit about how she didn't see herself as that kind of woman. Let
alone as a wife that would submit to a life spent having so many children
and bound by her role in the home. She didn't see how she could have
internalized that kind of subservient acceptance of what being a wife
should be.

"I don't want to be doing that with Derek, I want to be his partner," she
said. "There are things that I know I should do in our relationship as
the woman, but I don't want to be like that. That's not the kind of
person I know I should be."

Dr. Warren put down his pen and looked up at her. "You really shouldn't
take dreams literally in some of the details you've related to me," he
said.

"I know that," she said, "but the image is just so hard for me to shake."

"Jenny intense dreams like you have told me about are very common in
pregnant women. And in relation to what you have told me about this one,
I don't think that it should be understood as some sort of warning from
yourself or a desire you think you developing now that you have accepted
who and what you are becoming."

"Then what do you think it is?" she asked him adjusting herself in the
chair.

"I think that there is a degree of fear there for you. Becoming a woman
that you don't want to be is very much related to what you told me early
in our sessions about not wanting to become someone else and have
yourself disappear," he asked her if she would like some of the tea that
he had. She told him thanks and maybe later.

"And perhaps how you viewed yourself in this dream state is some form of
resolving this conflict. I do know that from what you have told me about
that part of your dream that those symbols are for the most part
positive."

"How can that be positive?" she asked him.

"Positive in that, this sort of dream is frequently seen as your inner
self preparing you to take on a role of mother to your children. You said
that all of the children were happy. Yes?"

"Yes they were," she admitted. "But the part that bothered me most wasn't
really the children or how many of them there were. It was how that kind
of desire seemed to come from inside of me. Like in some little dark
corner of me, that's who I really was inside."

"Jenny," Dr. Warren said, "I'm saying this to reassure you, but I really
don't see this outcome happening to you."

"From what you have told me you have not been slipping into that kind of
position in the choices that you have been making. Instead it seems
rather the opposite."

"When you related how you implemented your decision to accept your
feelings for Derek and act on them, you described to me the actions of
someone who was taking the dominant position in what you did do after you
decided to act on your decision. Yes, you did step back and adopt the
role of follower later. Yes, you allowed Derek to take the lead, but only
after you had made the choice to do so. You were always the one setting
the tone and tempo of your relationship and you only slipped into a
passive role once you had made your intentions and desire clear to him
and he reciprocated your invitation."

"And what you have described to me in the time since then has not been
the actions of a woman who is allowing herself to become that kind of
submissive person you say you fear becoming either," he said putting his
writing pad on the small table next to his chair.

"Yes, you have taken on the role of the woman in your new relationship in
a somewhat traditional form, but how is that different from how you
viewed what a woman should do when you were a man?" he asked her leaning
forward with his hands clasped on his lap.

"Not really that different," she admitted. "I've mostly been doing what I
saw my mom do before and what I would have expected from Sonya or any
other woman that I dated seriously before her."

"And that was?" he asked.

"Well, I wanted any woman I was with to have her own career," she said.
"I didn't want her to feel that she was dependant on me that way as a
condition of being with me," she said.

"And how about how you have conducted yourself in other ways than
professionally recently?" he asked her.

"Well I always felt that whoever wasn't working should do more in the
house than the person who was working, it's just fair, is how I've always
viewed it," She said. "Ever since I've been at Derek's home, I've been
the one doing what some would consider the woman's job, I don't really
look at it like that though. It just needs doing and I have more time
than he does. But I've still slipped into letting Derek pay for
everything most of the time, I have to admit that," she said.

"But you also said that you understood how he could feel that way. That
you would have expected to do the same in his place. That you had
accepted that acceding to courtesies offered to women was part of what
you had to do now, and even then you have the option to veto that
action," he said. "Even now that you have already taken these steps you
are still the one who is setting the pace in your relationship."

"You said that you have been doing as your parents have done with Derek
when you cook in the evenings now," he said.

"Well yes," she said. "Why wouldn't I do that? That's part of what I
always thought couples should be together. Sonya and I did the same thing
before the Shift."

"Jenny that is your real answer to this fear you keep feeling," he said
to her. "And that answer is no, you are not going to be that kind of
woman."

She looked at him as he continued.

"You have had, when you were growing up as a man, examples of strong
women in your family life; your mother , your grandmother and your
sister. And the romantic relationships you have had before, have also
been with similar strong women. But you also have a somewhat traditional
view of the female role in that romantic relationship, even as you tried
to be more involved in an equal fashion as the man in the relationship."

"Now that you have begun to feel out how you will fill that role  as a
woman in your own life, what you are doing is utterly to be expected. You
are, like any daughter, looking to your mother as an example of what you
should do to fulfill that role in what may become a marriage with Derek,"
he said looking steadily at her.

"You are looking at what you had with Sonya as how you should be a woman
and a lover to him and when the time comes for you to be a mother I feel
confident that you will reach into the same well of experience that you
are already drawing your direction from to meet that challenge."

"And what I see from what you have told me of this young man is that he
is not someone who is trying in any way to make you over into that sort
of woman you fear becoming, but instead he is a man who has been very
patient in restraining himself and letting you be the one to choose the
path you take. Not many younger men would do that," he said.

"I don't think that you should fear this as a possibility Jenny," he
said. " Based on what you have told me and what your choices have been, I
feel very confident that you are already choosing to imitate the family
template you are familiar with and comfortable becoming. So the real
question is then. How do you really feel about becoming that kind of
woman?" he asked.

She looked at him for a few minutes while she thought it over. It seemed
that it could have been a long few minutes and at the same time not
enough time to think it through. But when she answered, Dr. Warren could
feel that she did know just how this answer reflected her inner thoughts
on the matter.

"I'm happy with it," she said. "Being like them is what I would choose to
be every time. That is what I want to be when I think about being the
woman in Derek's life."

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1 A.S. Day 154

Jenny put down the knife she had been chopping vegetables with. Derek had
been gone for a while to get a couple of things she asked him to get from
the grocery down the road. Tonight she was walking him through making
chicken cacciatore and she needed mushrooms for it. The last few days had
been better and better she felt. Except to get some things that she had
needed from her trailer or to go with him to Java Jolts, she had for the
most part never left Derek's home since she had come here and they had
spent that first night together.

There were more flowers in the vase now. Derek had been replacing them as
they became too wilted and their perfume flavored each day that they
spent together. The knocking at the door came again. She knew it wasn't
Derek of course, but she knew that he wasn't expecting anyone today
either. She wiped her hands on the towel and made her way to the front
door. She wished Derek was back already, but he'd be back soon enough and
when he got here she planned on giving him a big welcome home kiss.

Jenny opened the door and asked if she could help whoever it was. There
was a tall man wearing a dark suit waiting there on the other side. "Good
afternoon, Jenny, isn't it?" he said.

"Yes," she said. "I'm Jenny."

"I'm looking for Derek, I was hoping to speak with him about a few
things," he said.

"He just stepped out," she said. "He went to get some things from the
grocery."

She looked at him, she knew him from somewhere.  After a moment she knew.
"You're Brother...Brother Paul, isn't it? We met at Java Jolts once. You
were talking with Derek."

"Yes, that's correct. We did meet briefly at the coffee shop that once,"
he said.

"Well like I said, he just stepped out, but he'll be back pretty soon. I
think," she said.

"If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to wait for him if I may."

"Sure, of course. Come in." Jenny stepped aside and the tall man entered.

"Ah yes," he said walking through the door. "Our congregation has known
Derek and his family for quite a long time." He looked around the room.
"His parents were at one time quite zealous in the Church, before their
unfortunate demise and frequently offered their home for our bible study
groups. They were pillars of our little community and their absence is
sorely felt."

Jenny offered him a seat at the table and asked if he would like some
tea. Brother Paul said he would enjoy that and thanked her for her
hospitality. While she busied herself in the kitchen he suggested to her
that if Derek were to ever change his mind and choose to rejoin them
regularly, that she would of course be welcome among them as well.

Jenny brought two mugs of steaming tea into the room with a small sugar
bowl. She handed one to him and he thanked her for it again. He reached
for the sugar spoon and paused to ask if it was possible to have a little
milk with his tea.

Jenny said it was no trouble and went back into the kitchen to get some.

Brother Paul watched Jenny as she went back into the kitchen to get the
milk he asked her for. When she passed out of sight, he quickly dipped
his hand into his jacket pocket and emptied a few drops of pale liquid
from a tiny bottle into her tea. He quickly stirred it into the steaming
beverage with the handle and then more loudly started stirring some sugar
into his own. She came back with the milk a minute later. He thanked her
for getting it and explained that his grandmother was English and that
they had always taken their tea like this since he was a boy.

They continued to speak about different things for a little over twenty
minutes. He noticed that she began trailing in her answers and knew the
drug was starting to take effect. "Jenny," he said watching her reaction.

"What Brother Paul?" she answered a little distantly.

"Could you please stand up?" he asked. He watched as the pregnant woman
stood up slowly.

"That's good," he said. "Could you please sit down again?"

"Jenny, I believe I found something of yours, when I was walking to your
door," He pulled a dark bottle of gelatin capsules out of the bag by his
side.

She looked at them in a distant fashion and said she didn't recognize
them.

"These are some of your pre-natal vitamins, Jenny. See, there is your
name in the prescription box right there," he said in a level calm voice.
"You mustn't neglect to take them now should you? You do want to be a
good responsible mother now don't you?"

"Of course I do," she said, "I want to be a good responsible mother."

"Now remember to take them regularly in the afternoon. You should take
them when you are alone so you don't bother your husband. You know they
make you a little dizzy when you take them and you don't want to bother
him. That's not what a good wife does."

"All right," she said agreeably. "I'll take them regularly and not bother
him. I want to be a good wife."

"That's good of you Jenny," he said. "I know you want to be a good wife
to Derek." He got up to leave.

"Thank you for your hospitality, Jenny. I'll let myself out and not
trouble you. I'm sure you want to think about how you want to be a good
wife and a responsible mother now."

"Yes, I do," she said softly.

"Good bye then, Jenny. We'll talk again soon."

"Good bye, Brother Paul," she said and stared off in the distance for a
while after he quietly left the room.