Hannah smiled and bounded off. She didn't know why, but she loved making sudden departures like that. She probably should've said goodbye to Keith, though. She was impressed; out of all the people to whom she played informal counselor, Keith had made the fastest progress she'd seen in the entire six months she'd been here. There's always room for improvement, though, and in his case Hannah felt that he still saw the world as a sort of Vast Male Conspiracy. Not to that extent, of course, but still...She'd picked up a few hints about Keith's past that gave her some idea of what went on in his mind, but for the most part he didn't want to talk about it.
What she did know was that Cathy had been painfully single all her life, and she'd picked up hints that Cathy had spent most of her career playing underling to various men. That, Hannah supposed, would leave one a little biased, but she hoped that he'd eventually get past that notion and see that life was really more of a power balance between the sexes, depending on the culture. That had been part of her motive in trying to arrange a meeting between the two panthermorphs. Mostly it was for Jackie, who needed to come to terms with her new identity;; Hannah figured Keith could function as a clear example of someone who had clearly done so, and hey, it couldn't hurt if a relationship formed between the two...but it had also been partly for Keith, who needed to learn from a male or once-male that manhood wasn't the solution to every problem.
Hannah smiled to herself. She was excited about the prospecting of staying on as a transgender counselor, but she hoped that if it did work out they wouldn't put her under too much scrutiny. She understood that psychological professionals frowned on using patient interactions for treatment purposes, but on the other hand, she felt that it was pretty absurd to think one could isolate one's patients from each other, especially in an environment like this, so wasn't it better to harness those interactions for the mutual benefit of all involved? Besides, who would expect an electronics engineer turned doe morph to know anything about psychological ethics, anyway?
Hannah was distracted from her thoughts by a noise off to her forward-right. Walking over to investigate, she beheld a handsome young buck, wandering aimlessly. He wasn't the most powerful-looking stag she'd seen, but he was attractive nonetheless, rather lightly built but still muscular. A six-pointer, too. Hannah knew that it really didn't have anything to do with anything, but she'd discovered that she really did find a buck with a full rack more attractive. At least, she did when he wasn't swaying his hips in a comical fashion.
"You're still walking like a woman," she laughed. "Tell me, did you decide to experiment with being male, or did the 'random' button give you a surprise?"
The buck turned at the sound of her voice. "H-how did you know?" he asked. "Um, and it was the button."
"I told you," Hannah said. "Your walk is giving it all away. You'll want to fix that pronto, unless you want even the people who haven't sex-changed to figure out. And trust me, you don't."
"Everybody who hasn't sex-changed?" he repeated. "Then...?"
Hannah nodded. "Yep. I got smote by the Random Number God, too."
She waited for a response, but the buck was occupied in staring at her. Hannah had been checked out plenty of times in the past six months, so it was nothing new. But this was the only time she could think of where the guy didn't seem to be leering at her and her sizable breasts; despite his minor yet visible arousal, the buck seemed to be mostly just curious and confused by his new feelings.
When she felt it had gone on long enough, she gave a slight cough. He immediately snapped to attention in the classic back-rigid-shoulders-squared-stare-straight-ahead pose, but instead of the usual nothing-going-on-here look, he appeared to be embarrassed. "I...I'm sorry," he said.
"It happens," Hannah shrugged. "You're new at this, I'll overlook it. But you'll want to work on not doing that, mister...?"
"Sally," the buck replied. "It won't happen again; I'm really sorry."
"We'll call you Sam," Hannah said. "I used to be Harry, but I go by Hannah now. And it's fine, really. Everyone in our position has some trouble getting used to it at first."
"'Sam?'"
She nodded. "I make it my prerogative to give new names to the gender-changed guests. And speaking of getting used to it, I run a sort of support group for sex-changed guests. We meet nightly on the big freaking rock along the park fenceline. We'd love to have you."
Sam smiled sheepishly. "Get used to it? I'm not sure I-"
Hannah cut him off. "Nobody's saying you have to embrace it, but we can help get through your stay with a minimum of trouble, anyway." She smiled at him. "Please?"
"Well," he began, "I...well...all right."
"I'll see you there, Sam," Hannah called as she bounded off, excited. Finally, a buck who didn't appear to be angling for random sex! That had been her pet peeve during her whole stay. Thanks to the stag's reputation for potency, it was a form chosen pretty much solely by frat boys and shabby forty-somethings undergoing mid-life-crises, both groups hoping to get laid. A lot. And so, as both one of the few does in the park (few ladies chose to be deer, precisely because of the type of guys who did) and one of the more 'stacked' girls in the park (truly a mixed blessing,) Hannah got propositioned fairly often. Sometimes they'd even just assume she was looking for a good time and start putting the moves on her in front of God and everybody. It was like one antler held excess ego and the other excess lust. But this new guy...well, not only was he embarrassed to be staring at her rather than embarrassed to get caught, he actually apologized for it! Hannah smiled to herself. She wasn't going to rush things, but she thought that maybe she'd finally found someone she could have a relationship with.