A "Winds of Change" Story

By Jon Sleeper

"Hey Buck! See you next week!" said Greenwind (a green parrot) over from the next row of lockers. I really wish sometimes that they wouldn't call me "Buck" (it's even on my name tag, damn it: Jonathan "Buck" Sleeper). But it is rather appropriate in my case, so I guess I really don't mind. This was the last day of full-day police duty for me. From now on I'm only on half-duty, with a couple days off until that starts. With more than one partner, too.

Mike had recovered amazingly fast from his wounds. He'd returned to duty last week, two months since the Change. And, tomorrow I'm going back to work at the store. My old boss had called me last week and said he was about ready to open it up again. They've opened a temporary post office (the old one had burned to the ground). I'm not sure about that. I'm going to have to sort the mail again, and it'll take a while to relearn the boxholders' locations.

One nice thing about being a cop in an emergency situation: the pay. Last month I had enough to buy a new car. Or I would have, but the thing is, my antlers are now so large that no unmodified car or van will fit them (not to mention having to duck through doorframes). I've been using the bus for long distances, and a Honda Solarmax scooter (with a "tail groove" in the seat) to run other errands.

I think they're about full size, and I've got a pretty good rack, I must say. Four points on each antler. So I'm a good eight-pointer. And I look rather magnificent, (at least that's what the whitetail doe I'd met the other day said). Before closing my locker, I munched on a bit of alfalfa. One bad thing about being a herbivore. Unless your mouth is full most of the time you feel like you're starving. But it seems that deer's stomachs can hold a lot of food. I usually load up before work and spend the rest of the time on patrol chewing cud.

Yes, chewing cud. Talking while doing that is quite a skill. But it makes me look relaxed when I pull speeders over.

There are still not enough police to go around. I was kept on because of my Power, I'm really not suited to be a police officer. But I do my job. I've been unscathed in the two other gunfights I've been in since then. Can't say the same for the gunmen, though. And I've found that I can turn my shield on and off at will.

Anyway, I took the bus home to my apartment in Carlsbad. I'd gotten the apartment instead of a car. I'd moved out of my Mom's condo because, frankly, she made me nervous. It was the constant predator-scent. It made it impossible for me to sleep at night even though I knew she did not think of me as a food source.

It's a nice place, one of those eco-apartments with lots of skylights. I've sort of taken up indoor farming, a common practice, really. One room is a greenhouse space. This body gets some weird food cravings. Ever tried maple buds? They're quite sweet. There are some water plants that are rather good, too. I grow those in a freshwater tank. (And I drink a lot of milk for my growing antlers. A LOT of milk) But otherwise I munch on grass and leaves with some of my grazing buddies who are also deer or antelope. (I can eat some meat, and still do occasionally. I still love pepperoni pizza, but THAT cud can be quite gross.) After making sure my plants were OK, and giving Cleo a bit of food, then walked out to the grass and changed forms.

While grazing I normally reflect on the previous day's events. It had not been a very good day, I'll have to admit. I hate all the paperwork. Even though it's all computerized. It just takes so much time, a full two hours, really. Packing boxes and sorting letters again will be much easier.

The owners of the Mail Boxes Etc. store where I work had Changed, of course. Marcus is an avid bodyboarder. Now he's a sea lion-morph. Don, his dad (who had been going bald) is a cockatoo-morph. He does not have wings, but he can change forms like I can, making up for the fact that he can't fly otherwise. They'd been easy to get along with before, and they're even better tempered now.

I can't really say the same for myself, at least some of the time. When I'm with my friends, I always feel like I have to act really macho for some reason. I was never like that before. I'll have to wait and see if the book I ordered about whitetail behavior tells me why I act that way. There's been a bit of stress in the group lately. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's because the rut is coming up. I shudder to think what might happen if we started antler sparring…

None of my friends were out at the public grazing field that we use that's been set up for herbivores like me. There were a couple of horses that I know, and they nickered at me when I did my shapeshift into my norm-shape. I've done it so often now I don't even have to think of it. But I sometimes get disoriented and confused for a moment as the "voice" in my head changes from a whisper to a shout. It's often impossible to ignore when I'm in norm-shape. And always impossible to control any bodily functions (you know what I mean). Not that that's a bad thing. It keeps the pasture fertilized.

At least this isn't one of those rental pastures that has popped up where you pay for a plot of ground, or a certain amount of time. I've even slept here in norm-shape once or twice. The well-kept grass is quite comfortable. And for me, norm-shape is actually easier to sleep in because of my antlers. I've even got a special bed I'd improvised at home.

As I grazed, my ears flicked towards a sound -danger?- I quickly raised my head and looked in the direction of the noise, ears pointing the same direction, sniffing the air, tail flicking up and down. I was only one of the horses nickering. These ears are almost more trouble than they're worth. They still bug me sometimes (about their size), and It really doesn't help things.

But like I said, when in norm-shape it's almost impossible to ignore It. Sometimes I hear a sound and am off running, bright white tail straight up waving like a flag before even thinking if it's a danger or not. These ears are incredible. They are more flexible than I'd originally thought they were. I had the semi-conscious control over them (they auto-flick when I do not think about moving them, and show how I'm feeling as my face shows little expression). They can move up, down, back, forward, and rotate all over the place. If I flick them upwards a bit I can feel the curve of my antlers. I have stopped feeling so self conscious about their size, mostly anyway.

It was getting dark, and I was losing my color vision, (deer can't see color in dim light. It's not quite so bad in morph-shape, because my eyes are a bit more human) so I shifted back and walked home. I change forms often enough so I only use clothes that can be taken off easily. My police uniform consists of a dark blue vest with my badge and name tag. Among other police things like my communicator. I don't carry a gun (don't need to. Anyway, I hate guns. I have incredible control over my kinetic pulses) As for pants or shorts… I've really stopped wearing them. I change forms way to often for them to be practical.

I'm that sort of person. I'll do something because it's practical, but for no other reason most of the time. It was kinda embarrassing at first. But I've got enough hair down there to hide anything. So other than the vest I wear no clothes (and sometimes not even the vest). It is not as embarrassing a thing as it could be. The concept of "modesty" is really quite dead. For some, like most bird-morphs, it's entirely unnecessary. Then there are the practicality reasons like I told you about above. And lastly, those who'd Changed mentally that modesty is a concept so foreign that it's impossible to explain it to them. As it nearly is with me…

I walked back home and decided to watch a bit of TV, then check my email. TV'd recovered from the Change much faster than I'd suspected. Of course, there were shows that did not return, but Tim Allen had to adjust his "Men are Pigs" concept a bit (guess why). Most networks show nature programming, with commentary by well-adjusted guest hosts that resemble the featured animal (as a public service), along with advise for dealing with certain undesirable instincts; "How to avoid predatory urges". Other shows included diet advise. A special serious episode of "America's Funniest Home Video's" was very well done, and focused on the obvious subject. (Bob Saget turned into a hyena!) Seeing it all over again on video brought it all back for me.

When that was over my favorite new sitcom came on. "Kevin and Kell", based on a different comic by the guy who does "On the Fastrack", Bill Holbrook. The main characters are Kevin, a rabbit-morph. Sysop for the herbivore forums on a online service. His wife Kell, a wolf-morph. Her job was altered to from a professional predator in the comic, to a "ecopoesis engineer" in the show. And their kids, adopted Lindesfarne, a 17 year old porcupine-morph. Rudy, 14 and at the beginning of his Change (surprisingly, into another wolf-morph. In keeping with the comic.) And their baby, Coney (human, of course… or maybe not). It's very well done. And very funny.

Email wise I heard from Brian Coe. I was very happy for him when I got a hold of him again. He's a bald eagle-morph. I can understand his delight when he threw away his glasses. I used to wear glasses too, but deer vision is quite sharp anyway. A good thing too. My last pair would never fit on this muzzle. He told me in his mail that he'd like to come down for a visit. Said he's aching to try out his wings on a long distance flight. I can't wait to see what he looks like. If he looks as cool as my sister does, then I'll be happy for him. (I might have to stock some steelhead in my freshwater tanks).

But as for Bryan Derksen… I've had only intermittent contact with him. Mostly through his father. Seems he had this strange urge to go somewhere. I wish him luck. Maybe he'll end up here at some point… His dad never told me what he was, and I did not think to ask. Maybe I'll get a surprise.

And of course the TSA mailing list was still abuzz with stories of peoples' own Change experiences. Thomas had not revealed to any of us what he is yet. I think he's saving it for some reason.

I munched a bit on some duckweed before bed, degaussed my antlers of excess KE, changed forms, then curled my long legs underneath my body and rested my head on the soft fake grass cushion and slept.

Reluctantly, I pushed myself up when the alarm went off and went through my morning routine. Dave Smiley had come back on the air finally, and his DJ prowess woke me up quite fast. He now used this coyote howl as his call sign. It woke me with quite a start. I almost hit the ten-foot ceiling! I'm going to have to change stations, it looks like.

Shower, brush teeth (god what a long brush!), comb hair with a horse brush, check velvet. I had my normal big breakfast (nuts, a bit of meat, milk and calcium supplements for my antlers, and a big "Browse Salad" for later cudding. I must have eaten a couple pounds.) Then out for my morning run.

I was never this athletic before. But the first running experience had shown me just how fun it can be. I get up to ten miles a day, and I'm fast too. I cruise around 15 mph in norm-shape, the shape I use for all distances longer than a kilometer. I've even been able to make a small modification to it so I can talk (though I tend to speak with a lisp when I do. No upper incisors, you understand. I've got small ones in morph). How I stumbled upon it is rather funny… but that's another story.

It was a nice morning that morning. It was very clear last night, humid enough to make some thick fog towards the early morning. Though the weatherman said a Santa Ana might start up later in the week.

I passed others out for their morning runs, including the local "running herd-club" of horse-norms. Most of them are training for some kind of new horse racing sport. Others I saw were a cheetah, trying to increase his long run endurance. An opossum, several rodents, and a few low-Degree near-humans on bikes. I envied them sometimes, but not often. I'm quite happy the way I am, thank you.

I stopped to browse a couple times on a particularly succulent plant that I found I had a taste for, filling my first stomach completely for later rechewing. I spent a too long at it. I'd wanted to go home before I went to work, but had no time so galloped to the store.

Luckily I did not have to pick up the mail any more. I surprised Marcus when I walked carefully, hooves clicking on the cement walkway, in the door. He smelled positively surprised! "Can I help you?" he asked tentatively.

"Whath? Oh, thorry, I thorgot," I lisped. So I changed back to morph, and was on my hands and knees.

He almost jumped out of his streamlined hide. "Jon? I didn't know you could do that!"

"Sorry, guess I should have told you I could. It's no big thing. At least I can run fast." I approximated a smile, my ears getting into it too. Then he laughed. "What's so funny?"

"I'm sorry. You have such big ears, and look at me." I gestured towards his tiny ears and laughed with a kind of barking sound. He was a shiny black in color, and his hands and feet were nearly flippers. He was probably high-average Degree for his type. He wore a pair of shorts and a tank top, and over that was his MBE apron. I almost felt renewed embarrassment over my hearing equipment, but I was sort of used to the good-natured teasing. I thought they looked rather good myself. "The mail's where you normally put it, by the way. And there's quite a bit. You'd better get started. Don will be here in a few minutes, he wanted to fly. And Christie is coming in at eleven."

"Christie? How… what, is she?" I was quite worried about her. I'd heard that someone in her family had gone nuts. We aren't involved in any way, but I was still curious.

"She's fine, and you'll see her later. Now get sorting, it'll take hours as it is." He was right. Before the Change the normal amount was one tub of first class, one of junk and magazines, and one of parcels. It takes about an hour to sort. There was about three times that. Marcus said he'd help once Don arrived.

Nice thing about working a job daily. Some things you never forget. It took some getting used to, sorting with only four fingers, and I fumbled once or twice because I thought I'd grabbed onto the letters tight enough. My wider field of view made up for my fumbling, I hardly had to move my head to put the letter in the right box. It would have taken me only two hours, but customers kept arriving and I had to help them. I wore my blue MBE apron too. (I also had my police ID in my stretch belt pocket. Even when I'm off duty, I'm on duty. The Situation demands that police be on call at all times.)

I'll tell you right now. I saw some strange stuff on duty, but nothing like what came in the door. To my delight (at first) a dinosaur morph came in. I actually scented him way before I saw him. It was like nothing else, and had a predatory connotation to it that chilled me.

The man was a T-rex.

And he was your stereotypical "difficult customer".

I almost Shifted forms and dove for cover. I did not do the former, but I did do the latter. At that point the compulsion to find a place to hide I was inclined to submit to, I found a place where I could watch them, too. The scents coming from the room were strange. Marcus has an amazing ability to remain cool under stress. But I still scented his nervousness. And so did the customer. Then the customer saw me. "Why do you have a deer-man hiding in the back?" His rumbling voice asked Marcus. I ducked my head quickly, but he'd already seen me. Deer (I learned later) will keep any potential danger in sight if they can, and I'd been keeping a careful lookout.

"Oh! Come out of there!" He said. "I'm tired of people reacting like that! I'm not a monster. And I'm sorry if I'm such a difficult customer. Everyone seems to react that way to me, and that's why I act the way I do. You would, too." He was right of course. Everyone reacts nicely to me because they think of deer as "such peaceful animals". No one is afraid of me. So I usually get good service (And a compliment about my antlers. Talk about ego builders…).

My tail was high in the air when I crept out, flagging almost, I nearly bolted. But I clamped down on my instinctual reaction and said shakily, "I'm s-sorry. I c-can't control it sometimes."

His tail twitched reassuringly. "It's OK. You'll be seeing me around, however. I'm renting a mailbox." He was a big man, almost ten feet tall with an incredibly long tail. He must have weighed a ton. And once I got to know him, quite pleasant to be around. Reassured, I said "See you later Mr. Edgers!" with gusto. But not before something else happened.

There had been no one else coming in the store but one other while he was here. I heard the customer coming down the sidewalk a full ten seconds before he arrived. That person (a chimpanzee-morph) brought in a large strangely shaped object wrapped in brown paper, put it on the counter and said to me, "I'd like to ship this to my brother in New York. What will it cost?" I started to go through all the shipping options, picking up the heavy object and moving it to the packing area. (one thing I found out: hoofed feet are not the best type for lifting heavy objects. Not that much leverage.)

Then while he was filling out the shipping forms I unwrapped the object to see what I had to do. I let out a startled gasp, and almost fainted. It was a stuffed and mounted whitetail buck's head, complete with antlers.

And it was very close to myself in color pattern and antler size.

And it was REAL.

As I steadied myself against the counter, feeling quite woozy, the ape-man asked stupidly, "what's wrong?" Mr. Stanton replied, "ARE YOU BLIND?!" with a growl behind his voice. That's when I started to like the dinosaur-man.

The ape looked the stuffed head, and at me, then back again, his eyes went wide. "Oh God! I'm sorry! My brother's a wolf and I just thought that he'd like this because deer are…" he broke off.

"Get out of this store RIGHT NOW!" continued the dino-man.

Marcus nodded agreement, "You're welcome back if you can show that you paid proper respect to the animal when you killed it. If not our Jon there is also a police officer, and he can arrest you for not having the right information."

But he did, I could see the papers taped to the antlers. Marcus picked up the buck's head and gave it back to the man, who rushed out the door noisily. The bell rung twice, once for him, once for someone else entering the store. "Hiii!" said a familiar high voice. It was Christie, but my eyes were closed so I could not see her. "Hi Christie!" said Marcus. I could feel my tail flip from side to side.

"Is that Jon?" she asked surprisedly. She smelled strange, almost predatory but that did not make me nervous. I could tell she meant me no harm somehow. I pulled up a bit of cud to chew on, it would calm me down. "Yeah, that's him. He looks pretty cool huh?" replied Marcus.

"Sure does. Love the antlers." I opened my eyes.

God did she look great! She was not her favorite animal (tiger) but she was a feline of some sort, Lynx maybe. She was also one of those very-low Degree people, with a clawed hands, pointed tufted ears, slit pupil eyes, and slight furriness being the extent of her Change.

She was also quite naked.

I almost fainted again. I mean, I know that modesty is dead, but this was a person I've been working with for almost a year! (and I was pretty much naked myself, but for my apron and stretch belt) This was too much for one day. I sat carefully on the packing counter to avoid hurting my tail, holding my head in my hands. Don chose that moment to fly in the door.

He landed on a perch set on his desk in norm-shape and asked, "What's wrong?" in a high parrot voice. Unlike me he did not have to make any modifications to his norm-shape to talk. Marcus told him.

"Go home. Go home. See you tomorrow!" He started to break open a nut with his beak, crest twitching.

Before I left Christie asked me, "what are you chewing on?" I had mastered the art of speaking over cud chewing (else I'd never be able to talk, with my mouth full 80% of the time).

"Cud." I said simply. I heard her say, "Cud? Eeeeeewwwww!!" as I changed forms and bounded out the door towards the mall. I'd decided to go there first before I went home.

The mall is only a couple miles from the store. I saw a sign when I trotted up, it said: "Pardon Our Dust! Due to the complaints made by our hoofed customers, we are now coating the floors with the new breakthrough: GripKote, anti-slip material." Well finally! I've slipped so many times on that floor my tail aches just thinking about it. And I almost slipped again once I walked inside, damn it.

The mall was relatively crowded with a veritable zoo of people. And the normal scents sometimes almost give me an overload. I could smell an almost gross mix of cooking food from places like Thai Hut, McDonalds, Carl's Jr., a couple pizza places, among others. There's the acrid taint of freshly dyed clothes, and new knickknacks and whatever. But there are pleasant smells to, like chocolate from the Sweet Factory, and potpourri from a few of the other stores. I love this nose. It's opened up a whole new world for me. I drunk in the air like wine.

I continued to chew, but did not bring up another cud in the mall. I try not to chew so much in public, it's impolite. The mall was a symphony of sounds, too. I could pick out and focus on any one of them. I know it's eavesdropping, but I really can't help it.

I walked by Macy's, briefly scenting something strange from the perfume counter, I did wave to the doe at the counter, but I moved on to the arcade instead. But the feeling of the scent lingered with me, and made me feel bizarre.

My favorite game is "Marvel Super Heroes". A fighting game based on the comics. My favorite character to use is Iron Man (Iron Wolf, now), he has a "Proton Cannon" infinity move that I love. When I went inside the scent of friendly competition bombarded my nose. This was a great place to test one's new reflexes. But I have a problem. I can filter out specific noises, but the general clamor in a room can be overwhelming, this because I'm so aware of EVERYTHING that goes on around me. This is true of sight, hearing, and especially smell. I'm supposed to be watching for predators I guess. I guess I'm lucky my human side is (mostly) in control.

But the only real predators in the arcade are the video machines themselves, they like to eat tokens. There were few inside the place at the moment, I noticed a cougar, a chipmunk, a jackrabbit, a fellow whitetail buck, and a couple others. I did not know why, but when I scented the other whitetail I started to feel just a little bit belligerent toward him. -rival?- I unconsciously started to pose, displaying my ample headgear. But he was only a six-pointer, -ignore- so I don't know what I was worried about. I got change and hoofed it over to the machine.

I'm really good today, I thought as I got to the next to last boss, Dr. Doom. I heard him coming before he arrived, and knew he wanted to play, -fight- an unbidden, sudden image of the two of us locking antlers (with him losing hugely) appeared in my head. My tail flipped at him dismissively, "join in if you dare." Was all I said. I did not even think that perhaps what I was doing was not what I wanted to. All I saw in him was a potential rival that I wanted to blow into the dust.

He joined in as Spider Man, and promptly put me to shame. I barely got a punch in on him, and more images of locking antlers as normal deer invaded my mind, distracting me more. It was embarrassing! Humiliating! I spent all my cash on just trying to beat him, which I did on occasion. I'm an eight-pointer! He's only a six! This should not happen! My pride (and when did I have pride like that?) was hurting, and I felt a desperate need to hit something, and I must have beaten the machine up pretty good. -fightfight!- He beat me again and again, and when I ran out of money I stormed out the place, not trusting my reactions. I was sooo close to doing something physical to him, I know not what. I was pissed off, my temper was wearing thin. My antler velvet itched for a moment, and my ears were plastered against my neck.

As I walked, hooves clicking (and almost slipping again), towards the Dairy Queen, I realized what had just happened. That stopped me in my tracks. Ohmygod. Whatinell did I just do? In response the Voice "said", -Herivalfightrival AntlerssoSmall-. That answered my question.

As I drank my cold drink and thought of what just happened, I decided to go up to Waldenbooks and see if my book had arrived. If it had, then hopefully it'd answer some of my questions. God did I need them.

The book had arrived. Way of the Whitetail, Magic and Mystery, by Dennis L. Olson and photography by Stephen J. Krasemann. The spotted margay cashier gave me a snide look when I bought it. "What?" I did not care for her self-important scent, so I left quickly. My ears, which had come forward again, went back against my neck.

I wanted to take a look at the book immediately, but all the benches were taken. Then I overheard a bit of conversation about a new store called the "Hoof Care Center". I was curious, so decided to check it out. Perhaps I'd be able to look at my book in there.

It was a nice place, and I saw an antelope or two sitting in the waiting area, along with a horse-morph that looked like he had a split hoof. Ouch. I picked up a pamphlet and looked it over. It was a nice place, they offered hoof trimming and pedicures for rather cheap prices. They had stuff for finger-hoofs (like mine) too. I decided to have mine looked over, just in case. Besides, I was still disturbed over what'd happened in the arcade, and I thought the book might have an answer.

As I waited to be helped, I glanced through it. The photos were beautiful, many bucks in it had antlers I could only dream of. I noticed that the bucks in rut had swollen necks, it looked uncomfortable. Then on page twenty-six I found a photo that was almost like looking in a mirror. The buck was an eight-pointer like me, laying in grass with his head up. He was looking at the camera and the face was so eerie that I gasped. I smelled someone walk up, one who had hooves by the click of them, muffled by the GripKote on the floor.

"Are you okay?" said a concerned female voice. I looked up. She was a zebra, I gestured at the picture. "Oh! Wow, spitting image! Sure you didn't do some modeling work?" she smiled. "Well, come back here and we'll have a look at those hands and feet of yours. You couldn't imagine what we see in here, even though we've been open barely two days!"

As she looked my feet over I thumbed to the section on the rut, and read a bit.

I had a problem.

Well, looks like I'm in for three months of being rather touchy. I thought, referring to the short-temperdness written about in the book. I was going to have to try to stay away from norm-shape as much as I could, I did not like many of the behaviors that I read about. My velvet should start to go any day now. I rubbed the space between my eyes, and rested my muzzle in my other hand.

I knew there are lots of whitetail behaviors that have been incorporated in my day-to-day life without conflict with the rest of my personality. I was always a cautious person anyway, now I'm even moreso.

The book cleared up lots of stuff about what this tail of mine does, which I've confirmed from my own experience. Tail bobbing with rising hair on the rump means "unsure of danger". A full rise means "danger here, but don't know where". And then there's the familiar flagging "on the run" that most people know, because that's what's seen the most among the natural deer populations. Incidentally, natural whitetails will stay away from those who had become morphs of them, I'd heard. I sighed. "What's wrong?" the zebra woman said.

"Nothing. I'm just in for a bad time of year."

"The rut? Why is that bad?" I quoted some of the stuff from the book. "Oh. Um… I must say though, your hooves are quite healthy, but there's a smell here between your toes that is kinda strange. Do you know what it is?"

I did not, but the book did. Turns out deer have all these scent glands on them. The first is between my toes, and the book said. There's a kind of waxy stuff that I'd noticed during my showers that gets deposited on the ground. In theory it leaves a scent trail as I walk so other whitetails could follow it even hours later. The second gland (the metatarsal), a white patch on the outer lower leg, emits a garlic-like scent (I'd actually noticed this) when I'm alarmed which sticks around for a while to warn other deer of danger.

Inside my hocks near a greasy-looking tuft of white hair is the tarsal gland. It supposedly emits a pheromone. Whatever, I couldn't smell anything. Maybe it only affects the opposite sex… There is another gland above the anus, the book said "the deer know what it's for." Yeah. Right.

The last major ones are the preorbitals, right in front of my eyes, the book said they'll be drippy during the rut, which worried me. These drippings were supposed to be put on branches and such as kind of an advertisement to does, and as territory markings to other bucks.

Now, I would not be spending so much time on stuff like this, but the rut was rather in the front of my shrunken mind at the moment. This was my very first time, and I really did not know how I was going to deal with it. I put the book down and she examined my finger-hoofs, and pronounced them fit. Then, to my surprise, said that they had a horn and antler expert too. "Just hold on a few minutes and he'll be here. Just relax."

It seemed the theory that the glands between the feet leave a trail was right, because the whitetail-morph I'd faced in the arcade walked right in, sniffing. Then to my dismay, "Ah! Here's our own 'Dr. Antler' right now. Mark, this is Jon." Surprisingly he did not make an issue of what happened in the arcade, and we shook hands. There was a brief and quick -rivalfightSIXpointer!- that I quashed with a SHUT. UP!!!! I got a satisfying -(!!!)- in response, and it shut up.

"You have a bit of a problem, don't you?" he said, surprising me.

I nodded numbly. "How do you know that?"

"I'm an Empath. I can sense your internal conflict. I can't do anything about it, but I can tell you that you have a big choice coming up. Your human and animal mental parts are imperfectly joined, which is why you're getting these outside-seeming impressions. It's the deer mind trying get through, to dominate over your human one. You have to find a way to incorporate that other mind into yourself, or the rut might possibly give you mental problems. It will be hard, I can tell you. I did already know that you were here, by the way. I smelled your scent trail.

"But enough of this gloomy talk. Lemme see those antlers." He gave them a clean bill of health. Clean symmetrical growth. The calcium supplements worked! He also said the velvet was going to come off in a day or two. Mark and I actually became friends, pretty good ones too. It was nice to have one that I did not have to act macho around. (I was seriously thinking of leaving my current graze club. All except for Nick seemed… well… dumb.)

I picked up a pump spray bottle of GripKote anti-slip hoof spray, and put a bit on my own hooves. Then I asked the desk clerk how much I owed. "The first examination is free, and it's $10.99 for the spray." Free? Perfect! I paid with my debit card for the spray. I left the shop a satisfied customer (I knew I would return), but still rather afraid. What if the animal side won? I bought some celery seeds at the nursery store, and headed for the entrance I came in. I also had to pass by the Macy's perfume counter again.

The scent I was getting was strange. I stopped and, licked my nose, then for some reason curled my upper lip in what I learned later was called a "flehmen". It enhances the sense of smell (boy does it!). The voice in my head started to shout -doe?doe?Doe?!DOE! doereadyNOOOOW!!! TaaaakkkenoooowwwwWWWWWW!!!!- Whatever the scent was (I was in no condition to think about it. The battle had begun.) it sure excited my animal part. I felt a the weight shift associated with the form change, and It made a lunge towards the scent. The only thing I could do was basically paralyze my body.

I can't really describe in words what happened in my mind, but perhaps it's enough to say that it was the HARDEST thing I ever had to do in my life. It really did not occur in words. You see, my animal side is also me, and I basically had to convince myself to join the rest of my mind. It was a tough battle, but he finally relented, and I brought him… me into the rest of my personality, now able to pick and choose MOST of how I behaved. That other part is still, there, just in a more subtle and conscious way. I'm not a mindless animal, after all. No reason I have to act like one simply because I look like one.

I felt my consciousness slowly take control of my norm-shape body again. Opening my eyes I saw that quite a crowd, Mark had kept them from calling paramedics, and I dizzily stood up. "Thanks," I said. "I'm OK now." At least I thought I was. I walked up the perfume counter, that scent in my nostrils but no longer causing me to go nuts with… never mind. Lucky I'd been able to stop myself before there was further embarrassment…

"What the HELL is that stuff?" I asked angrily. Interestingly enough, the girl behind the counter was also a whitetail.

She said, "It's supposedly made from doe sex pheromones. It's specifically for does like me. The package says it's supposed to 'bring out the inner animal'."

"You're telling me!" Looked like I was going to have to write the company and complain. They're going to need to do better research on what pheromones like those actually do to the species it's meant for. I just hoped in the future I could control myself more.

I got a strange feeling the next morning. I had a feeling of completeness in my mind that I'd lacked before. Whatever it was that happened in the mall yesterday had cured my near-schizophrenia. I went to work with new confidence, and itching velvet that by the end of the day would fall off completely. I was complete mentally as well as physically.

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