Amazon
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

I was born in Morocco into a Moroccan Jewish family. My family had been living in Morocco for many generations after my ancestors were driven from Spain by the Christians. I have always considered myself to be North African.

My family were had been involved in growing flowers and I was brought up in a town called Migouna. I spoke Arabic and Berber as my native tongues, French, and I also spoke English. My mother had been educated at a Jewish school in America, and I had traveled there with my parents several times. When I was old enough I was sent to spend my later high school years in America.

For some reason I had looked forward to a career in law enforcement, and while I pursued a pre-law degree, I sent my details to the FBI. I received an encouraging response, but also an invitation to join the Central Intelligence Agency. It was only a few years after 9/11 and they were keen to recruit Arabic speakers for monitoring communications.

The CIA paid for my studies, and I worked for them in minor roles in the North African section. I told my parents that I had received a scholarship but I did not give them further details. When I went back to Morocco I kept secret all details of where I worked and what I did.

At the time I started in the North African section, Muammar Gaddafi was an enemy of the US, despite the fact that he had condemned the 9/11 attack as part of a wider plan to bring Libya back into the international community. It was soon after I started that Gaddafi’s regime was removed “State Sponsors of Terrorism” list, but agency plans to remove him remained in consideration.

In September 2009 I was part of a team that followed Gaddafi and his entourage which visited New York (pitching a tent at Donald Trump’s private estate and entertaining business proposals in return) to address the UN General Assembly. It was then that I first encountered Gaddafi’s “Amazons”.

From the 1980s Gaddafi began an internal campaign promoting equality for women, and it was assumed that his forming an unit comprised only of women was a part of that push. But in using them for his personal security, it was suggested that he believed that “assassins will not want to shoot at women”. Whatever his reason, he would always have a team from this Amazon Unit present in his home or wherever he traveled, including overseas.

The idea of infiltrating Gaddafi’s bodyguard to engineer his assassination is not unsound, but the idea of using a man to do it seems ridiculous. The problem was that our observations established that this was not just show – the closest bodyguards to Gaddafi were women. If you wanted precise removal, avoiding for example remote (drone) attack, then you had to get past them. Or be one of them.

Up until then we had assumed that the “Amazons” were just a gimmick. They were all hand picked for their beauty and Gaddafi was very precise in requiring them to appear glamorous, even in fatigues. They all had nice hairdos, makeup and nail polish, and were often dressed in what might be described as “Sexy-soldier” outfits. But these women were serious bodyguards.

We had verified that members of the unit had successfully defended Gaddafi during an attack by Islamic fundamentalists in 1998, at the cost of the life of one of them. Gaddafi was devoted to them. Maybe he just liked being surrounded by pretty women, but these women could do the job to.

I was on the panel looking to recruit a woman to take on this job. Based on Gaddafi’s requirements she needed to be African, Muslim, an Arabic speaker, beautiful, and a virgin. And she would have to stay a virgin while being a member of the Amazon Unit.

We were having problems and we started to discuss using surgery to beautify the one candidate that we had. We extensive briefings on what could be done. The physician we spoke with made the flippant remark that he could turn anyone of the panel (and we were all male) into a beautiful woman with the right procedures.

We all took that in good humor right up until our only candidate got pregnant and announced that she was no longer interested in deployment. One of the panel (I am not sure who) said: “Maybe it should be one of us. At least we are not going to get pregnant.” But nobody laughed.

It had to be me. I was by far the youngest, and the shortest – it was important that I be shorter than Gaddafi, even in heels. I was North African and a native speaker of Arabic. What is more I knew Gaddafi’s Bedouin people and felt that if I could get in front of him, I would be selected. The only obstructions were physical.

“Everything is reversible”, I was told. As a virgin it was expected that I could tuck my genitals away, and that I would simply need breast and butt implants. Even though young I did have a slightly receding hairline which would require surgery to bring forward the considerable volume I had at the back. Then, to make sure that I would pass the test, there would be work on the brow, nose, chin and throat. My voice could also be modified.

It could all be reversed when it was done – whatever that might be. We still did not have a kill order.

The real problem that I faced was how to behave as a woman. It was agreed that before any surgery was even considered I would complete a series of tasks to see whether I could “pass” in my raw state.

Believe it or not, the CIA retains behavior coaches to help operatives in the field in all manner of pretenses. I sat down with an expert for only two weeks and I passed the test. I say only two weeks, but it is better to say 200 waking hours of living and breathing as a woman.

Before we even passed our plan up the line, I was sent to Field Training Group 4, which was the group that specialized in training undercover operatives. The most important rules were (1) Never break cover; (2) stay in touch with a handler unless that compromises Rule (1); (3) If possible, carry out the objective without breaking cover. For me “cover” meant a whole lot more than all of the other guys I was training with, but none of us could disclose details of what we were each headed off to do.

My North Africa team received approval for the plan and I was personally commended by the Director for volunteering. I received my citizenship of the USA that day. My future in the Agency was assured, if I got through it. I also received what I was told was a winning ticket in the Vermont State Lottery nine months out – not a big win but a little “thank-you” for putting myself in harm’s way.

I presented myself for surgery. I have to say that any misgiving that I had were overtaken by the excitement of being on my first deployment, and it would be a big one. My face looked as if I had gone 12 rounds with a heavyweight, I could not speak from the throat surgery and my chest was uncomfortable for a while, but that was all bearable. It was the beauty treatment that was the killer. I had an all body waxing and a “face peel” which seemed to me to be 2nd degree burns administered even before the swelling had gone from my face.

I remember looking at myself in the mirror and thinking that if the plan was to turn me into an attractive woman, it was a complete failure. Where I was not bandaged, I looked beaten and burnt. I felt as if I was at least entitled to a purple heart in service of my country.

Then I went in for the extensions in my hair. Part of the surgery on my face brought forward my hairline, but although I had not cut my hair since the well before the whole plan developed, it was not long enough. The extensions were the finest available and would be undetectable to everyone except a professional, and I had a cover story for that.

My hair was to be quite long. I was told that Qaddafi preferred that. Some of his African bodyguards wore long wigs over short hair, but in my case, it was suggested that we go with my own hair and these extensions. I often thought later that if I had just been able to pull my hair off, I would not have done as good a job as I did. Having women’s hair 24/7 forced me to be more feminine. You always need to pay attention to it.

Then the lessons began – hair-care and deportment first, and then skincare and makeup when I had begun to heal. That was a gradual process but when it was over the transformation was amazing. I was indeed, a very attractive woman. I ought to be, we had the funding to do things right. Now it was up to me.

My cover story gave some protection. I was a village girl from the edge of the desert in Eastern Algeria. I had learned French and some English from the local school, but otherwise I had little knowledge of cosmopolitan life, other than from magazines. I could say that I had no real experience of more ornate hairdressing, makeup and fine clothes. But my story was that I had always dreamed of having all these things. It was a motivation for all the members of this truly elite group pf women, to have access to a life beyond poverty, seclusion and the absence of honor.

I knew how village women behaved from my own childhood. Muslim women need to be very reserved in public, but I often think that they were expected to make up for that in private, at least with other women. Convincing Gaddafi and the men around him that I was female would be the easy part. The hard part would be passing as female in close proximity to (other) women.

When it was felt that I was ready, I was sent back to Morocco as the female me, and I used an embassy staff member to help me mix with local women. I had a few issues, but with each mistake I improved. If mistakes were to be made, they needed to be made before I was fully immersed.

This was a long term project, so we had the luxury of time, but my own team was becoming impatient. I think that there may have been some suggestion that I was starting to enjoy my cover a little too much. It might be true that in becoming used to acting as a woman I was starting to enjoy some of the benefits, at least when I was “Stateside” or in the big cities of Morocco. I was attractive enough to earn glances if not stares from men. While it initially unsettled me, I started to quite enjoy the attention.

Once we arrived in N’Goussa, Algeria it was very different. This was a small village not far from the border with Libya and the town of Gadamis. If you look for these places you will see that there is nothing but desert, except that there is an airforce base at Gadamis. That is where the man posing as my took me to introduce me as a volunteer.

At the time, the Amazon Unit (in Arabic al-rāhibāt al-thawriyyāt or “the sisters of the revolution”) was expanding. It would soon be at its maximum number. “My father” was able to get a letter from the base commander and transport to Tripoli for us both.

I was put through a series of academic tests, which I was able to pass easily, even though I was feigning a level of education below my own achievements. Nothing much is expected from young Muslim women in reading and writing. I was also subjected to a physical check-up, but, because it was done by a man and in accordance with accepted practice in Islam, my secret was safe.

Within 6 days of leaving Algeria I was accepted and began training.

I hoped that very soon I would be in the position of being close enough to Gaddafi to kill him on command.

I was given only four passwords: “Desert Fox” was the kill order, “Desert Mouse” was to cancel the kill order, “Pink Roses” was to get out of Libya, and “Eleven Pink Roses” was to get out immediately.

Again, I had the advantage in training of some experience that I needed to conceal. That is not to say that I had a military background (I did not) but I had received some operational and combat training even while I was just an analyst, and that had been beefed up when I was chosen for the field.

When I arrived back from the training camp I was placed in a group under the supervision of Yasmin, a woman from Senegal. Her father had been French but she had been raised by her mother and her grandfather, who was a strict Muslim. She was genuinely devoted to Gaddafi. She called him “The first among Africans”. At that time Gaddafi had given up on the ideal of “Arab Unity” or “the Modern Caliphate” and was concentrating on “African Unity”. He liked to wear a big badge in the shape of the continent on his chest.

Like him (although he never said it), Yasmin disliked Arabs, but as I was Berber, I was African. I fell in with the notions she spoke about, and we had discussions about how we could help our great leader achieve his ambitions.

I was not long before I met the man himself. It is often said that he chose each member of the unit himself, but that is not strictly correct. After we had gone through training he would decide who would actually be close to him. Yasmin said that he was looking for devotion, but also good looks. The simple fact is that his Amazon Guard were a status symbol, and he simply liked to surround himself with beautiful women. Yasmin said that we would both need to go to the salon to make sure I got picked.

At the same time she warned me that I should not try too hard to please him. She suggested that I should explain to him that I was a devout Muslim, and if it we not for the requirement of the job, I would be covered. She said that he respected piousness, even though he drank alcohol and was probably guilty of other offences against Sharia. She said it had worked for her. I did not suggest that she was not as pretty as I was, but that should be obvious.

I was not at all nervous when we were both summoned in. To my surprise he was very relaxed and even charming. He spoke to me in Berber and asked me about my family. I had a complete story to tell. He asked whether I could look after a camel, and milk one. When I told him that I could he asked me whether I could kill one and butcher it. If it was a test, there was no sign of that. He seemed to have an easy nature. Not at all what I was expecting.

He said that he would prefer to live in the desert, and that he hated cities. I think that he was suggesting that I was heading in the wrong direction. I told him that I was a believer in African unity and that I believed that he was destined to achieve it. I told him that I was looking for the honor of being a part of that great enterprise, for the people of our continent, and for the glory of Allah to whom I have committed my life and my chastity.

To be honest, this was not my prepared speech. It had grown from Yasmin had told me. But to my surprise it rolled off my tongue in almost poetic Arabic. I could not have done better.

It worked. Or maybe it was when Yasmin whispered to me the suggestion that I play with my hair. It was clear that this man did enjoy the sight of pretty women, so I did my best with remaining demure and pure.

The following day I received orders to accompany the President on a trip to Benghazi. It was a trip he took almost every week, but it was a sign that I was in the inner circle.

The dominant Amazon in that inner circle was Fatima Baroud. She was devoted to Gaddafi in a special way. Yasmin said that it was very possible that she had a sexual relationship with Gaddafi. She was from East Africa (maybe Kenya or Tanzania, she never said) with an Arab father, but she spoke English better than she spoke Arabic. Yasmin thought of her as not religious, so therefore likely to engage in casual sex without moral convictions. I have no such views, but it was clear that she was closer to the President than most. The other sisters feared her. I simply gave her the deference that somebody with her status clearly deserved. We got on fine.

I think that she understood that my job was to be the eye candy, and her job was to be there for when the bullets started flying. She tended to stay back like a conventional bodyguard, watching for problems. She was happy to push me forward for appearances, But I was able to convince her that I was useful by pointing out things from that forward position. I slowly earned her respect.

The other thing that I could do was speak to Fatima in English. It was a little difficult to start with because I was pretending that my ability in English was very limited, but she corrected me, and I told her that I was using the internet to improve.

Gaddafi himself, sometimes spoke to her in English, especially if he thought others could not understand him. Because he had spent time in the British Army, he spoke English quite well and used it when talking to his good friends Silvio Berlusconi and Nicholas Sarkozy, as well as other world leaders, but not Americans. He used interpreters with them.

With an apparent improved knowledge of English and also French, I was a natural addition to the team for foreign trips. My first overseas trip with Gaddafi was on his visit to Russia, Belarus and Ukraine in 2009. This is a photo of me (wearing the beret) with Gaddafi and the President of Ukraine. On that trip Gaddafi was offered, and accepted, a team of “Nurses” to add to his entourage. Again, it seemed that these women were primarily selected based on their looks, with blonde hair and big busts being the key qualifications.

Fatima was less than happy about these new interlopers, but I was able to talk her around. It was always useful to have medical assistance on stand-by, and as it turned out, these women were qualified and useful.

I became quite close to one of them – Oksana Balinskaya. She actually procured and administered some drugs for Gaddafi, such that I formulated a plan to have him killed in that way, should I eventually receive the order.

But the order did not come.

In fact, shortly after that trip, Gaddafi went to address the United Nations in New York and I and 12 other Amazons were part of his approved delegation of 350 people. On that trip we kept our uniforms only for the camp that we set up. His organizers had tried to find somewhere in New York where could set up, but no reputable venue would receive the Libyan delegation. Instead we accepted the invitation of Donald Trump to erect Gaddafi’s Bedouin tents at his “Seven Springs” estate in Westchester. I actually met Trump, but Gaddafi declined to do so, despite entreaties. Gaddafi described him as “the worst kind of capitalist”. Instead Tump took the Libyan ambassador (Ali Aujali bin Hamid) to Mar a Lago in Florida, but he had no success in accessing investment funds from Libya.

However, it was clear that the administration did not need to dispose of Gaddafi. When I had been placed in his entourage to be in a position to eliminate him, he had been international public enemy number 1, but when I made contact with the agency in New York the message was that I should simply sit.

We toured Africa in 2010. Gaddafi seemed to be at the height of his powers. But at the beginning of 2011 things started to go wrong for the President. There were protests in Benghazi similar to the protests that that had occurred in Tunis and Egypt. This was the beginning of “The Arab Spring” which would see the downfall of several dictators

Gaddafi tried to pretend that it was not really happening. He had his police shoot into the crowd at the protests in Bengahazi in February 2011. Only a few months later he actually visited Italy as if nothing had happened, partying hard with his friend Silvio. On that trip he suddenly and inexplicably replaced Fatima with another Amazon, Fairoz. She had been part of the unit for some time but had only recently come to prominence. She was a very unpleasant person, and very suspicious of me.
Gaddafi and Fairoz in Italy 2011

But time was up for my target, and as it turns out, for me too. The formation by Gaddafi of his “National Transitional Council” was the beginning of the end. It was an admission that he knew that his days were numbered and that the best he could do was to negotiate with the NTC and find an exit for himself and his family. To do that, the best Amazons were people like me, who could speak international languages.

So, I found myself with him at “the Battle of Sirte” – his last stand. His last run for it left me behind as the soldiers burst in. At first I was relieved. It was over. A day later Gaddafi would be dragged from a culvert and killed by a mob, but I found myself a prisoner of Major Hassan Jaleef. Locked in a room in the mansion of the local administrator.

Major Jaleef burst into the room and closed the door behind him. “Your leader is dead,” he said, as if taunting me.

“I am glad of it,” I said to him. “I have always wanted him dead. I would have done it myself if had ever got him alone.”

“We are alone now,” he said. “What are you going to do to me?”

I was ashamed to be so weak, but the hormones had robbed me of all my strength. He had me pinned with one hand underneath me and the other in his powerful grip. With his free hand he was reaching for my panties. I knew what was coming next. I was going to die.

And then my panties were off, and I was exposed. My penis and balls, shrivelled by the chemicals and almost two years of tight confinement, were open to view. I looked at the ceiling and braced myself for the blow to the head or the hands at my throat.

He was not growling. He was laughing.

“Now, that’s a surprise!” he said. He released his grip, but I just lay there. There seemed no way of escape.

“So now you know what I am,” I sniffed. I realized that I was crying. I probably had been from the moment he started to attack me. “What are you going to do to me?”

“I am going to roll you over, Little One,” he said. “My cock is as hard as iron, and I need to put it somewhere.”

It occurred to me that I might get through this. I just needed to play this right. I said to him softly: “I have never done this before. Please be gentle.”

“It seems that there is lubrication here,” he said. He had found some hand cream, and I was glad he had.

And then he was inside me. And there was pain. But worse than that there was the humiliation.

I think that if he had been quick, that is what I would I would have taken away from the experience. A man raped and debased. But he took his time. He enjoyed himself. And he told me so. He sighed and whispered his approval of my assets, sometimes playing with my hair. The cream warmed in my ass and squelched as he moved, and I found that there was a strange warmth growing inside me. Against every belief that I had ever had about myself I realized that I might actually be enjoying this.

When he came inside me and I felt his hot fluid fill me, I quivered and out of my limp penis a thimble full of liquid wet the sheets.

He saw it and looked at me approvingly. I lay in front of him. Smooth pale flesh, perfect breasts, wonderful hair falling across the bed, and a tiny penis still oozing a little. I must have looked a strange sight, but the look was still approving.

“Are you going to tell anybody about me?” I asked.

“Well, how can I?” he said. “How can I put him to the shame of not being able to tell the difference between a man and a woman? Did our president know? I didn’t think so. He had many vices, but not that one. So you are a clever one, you. Too valuable to die, I think. Besides, I enjoyed that. I will protect you Little One. I don’t mind that little cock of yours. I don’t like the balls. They will have to go. And keep that whole area plucked or shaved. Understand?”

“Yes,” I said, as passively as I could muster. Survival, you see.

He had me wear a bourka for the trip back to Tripoli. Somehow this form of dress had re-emerged from nowhere in only the last few months.

My focus was to get back to the palace and re-establish communications with my handler. I never got there, but I did get a message. I was taken by Major Jaleef to his house near the palace and left there. He returned that evening with a bunch of flowers – eleven pink roses, several days old.

“These are for you,” he said. “I would have bought you fresh ones, but these were at the palace, with your name on them. They have been there for a while. The petals were falling off, but I shook them over the bed, and that night he had sex with me for the first time face to face. It made me forget about the pain of losing my manhood, watching his dark eyes look into mine as he brought us both to that sublime climax. Something he liked to do often.

I was thankful to have a protector, somebody who cared for me, even loved me. Some of the other Amazons had no such good fortune. Many were raped, I suppose as I had been, but I suppose that it was my good luck that we were alone, and that Hassan was of what you might call, flexible sexual orientation. I was happy to be his third wife for a while, until I was able to escape Libya.

I live back in Morocco now. Back in North Africa where I feel at home. I work managing “Le Clinique du Parc” established by the great French gynecological surgeon Dr. Georges Burou, and which continues the work that he pioneered in the 1950s. It seems like a good fit for me these days.

In 2015 I received a presidential commendation for service to the United States of America from President Barack Obama that mentioned “the great sacrifices” that I had made, but somehow now it does not seem so great a sacrifice. I am happily married now. I love sex as a woman. I am doing good work. Casablanca is a modern westernized city. I sometimes visit my home town which is more traditional, and where my family have (in the main) accepted who I have become. So have I. I will never be a man again, I know that. But I am a special type of woman. I am an Amazon.

The End.

© Maryanne Peters 2019