Special Agent Mom
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

I was good at languages, as it turned out. I joined the Army looking for excitement and for some reason I agreed to sit the DLAB language aptitude test. Despite having no other languages, I scored 100%. We were active in Afghanistan at the time and for some reason it was decided that I should learn a regional language for an area we were operating in – that language was Uzbeki. I mastered it even before we hit the ground over there, but I was better than good at it. I was so good that the Agency came calling – you can guess which Agency.

I then went on to learn Russian, and I mastered that as well. I have no idea why. It is just a memory for words and sounds and a way of thinking. It is like music - some people can learn it and for a few it just comes naturally. I ended up in clandestine operations in Central Asia, where I picked up the Turkmen language as well, but I was in the Caucasus when I met Helena, the woman who was to be my wife.

It was not supposed to happen because we both worked for the Agency and we both loved our jobs, but we fell in love and Helena got pregnant. We moved home and got married and our daughter Soraya was born. I worked at the Agency and Helena remained only on call, because she was pregnant again, with twins. Six years before my story, along came Byron and Bryony, our little redheads.

It seemed like domestic bliss, but we remained committed to our country and the Agency. So, when Helena was called back to active service, there was no question that she had to go, and when she died on that mission, we had to accept it. It is like combat – you care deeply for the person beside you, but you need to clear your head and get back to the mission, and in my case that was the kids.

The Agency was very supportive. After I dropped the kids off at school I worked the Central Asian Desk before leaving home early to pick them up. At home with the kids including school holidays, I could do unclassified work, reading up and staying abreast of general news within my area of interest. But like Helena, I was on call. I was always ready, as was my role and responsibility.

Then the call came, and it was a strange one. I can’t go into too many details, but enough to say that this was a task only I could handle. The Agency had intercepted a Russian agent who was active in Uzbekistan and involved in the politics of water in Central Asia. I am sure that more will be known about this in years to come, but it concerns the Amu Darya River which passes through Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and empties into what is left of the Aral Sea. That sea has almost ceased to exist in the last 50 years because all the water is taken. It is an environmental disaster. People go to war for water.

“This agent has arrived in the US to provoke a war through agitating in local Central Asian communities to try to return these nations to the Russian fold,” I was told. “We want you to impersonate this agent to disable these efforts. We understand that you can pass as Russian and you speak all the languages.”

That was true. The languages spoken along the Amu Darya were Uzbeki, Turkmeni and the language most of their population had in common, Russian.

“There is just one problem that we need to address,” said the man in charge – I will call him Smith. “This Russian agent is a woman.”

“Well, that is a big problem,” I said, trying to be serious. “Can we turn this agent?”

“That we will never know, as she died during interrogation,” said Smith flatly. “No, in order to impersonate her you will have to be able to pass as a woman. We believe it can be done, if you are ready to do that?”

“I serve,” I said. It was not intended to be trite, because I believe in service. “I will do whatever I can, but I have a family.”

“We are aware of that,” said Smith. “The good news is that you should be able to live a normal life for the several months of this operation, in between meetings with the several groups that the Russian agent has contacted, but the disguise we have for you will not be something that you can put on and take off. It will need to be semi-permanent. You will need to … change gender, at least for a few months.”

“Is there no other way?” I had to ask it, but it was clear that this had been well thought through.

While it may sound like a corny spy movie to say it, the Agency has a whole section with skills in disguise. But the heart of any effective disguise is that it must be lived. Yes, I could pass as a Russian speaker, but that meant being so totally immersed in the language that if I jammed my fingers in the door, I would scream out a Russian curse word. The same thing would apply. I would need to become a woman.

Nothing permanent though. There would need to be some surgery to slightly reconstruct my face and give me a feminine hairline, and to give me breasts and conceal the male genitals should I be subjected to any full body search. My voice could be adjusted to, and like all of these procedures, they would be reversed when the task was completed. I was also to be put on “Hormone Replacement Therapy” to suppress male hormones and replace them with female ones. The HRT seemed as if it would be the least invasive thing that would be done to me, but now I wonder if it acted like a trigger, or a catalyst promoting a reaction that could not be stopped.

But for me, in that moment, explaining it to my kids would be the hardest thing. Soraya was a surprisingly mature eight at the time, and the twins at six, were halfway through their first year at school. As they say in the army, in most cases the best way to attack is up front and immediate.

“I have something on at work, so for the next few months I am going to be dressing up as a lady,” I said. You can call me Mom if you like, but if anybody asks you should say that I am an auntie – your father’s sister – filling in for your father who is away on business.”

“But you don’t have a sister.” That would be Byron, with a tendency to be direct.

“Well, you know I don’t like lying, but every now and then, people need to have secrets, and this is one of those.” It was not the first time that I had said as much, given my job. “I am going away for a few days to get ready, and my work will be sending over that nice Mrs. Thompson, who you will spoil you like last time. When I get back, it will be like having your mom back, at least for a little while.”

I had no idea how this was going to work. I had no idea that the physical changes were going to be the easy part – the hardest part would be behaving female, or rather not slipping to let the male side show. It was like a full-immersion cover, but far more difficult. I understood completely the need to have to live in this disguise 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. To do anything else would betray me not only to the Central Asians I would meet, but to everybody else. To hear the words “that’s a guy over there, dressed as a woman” would be a failure, and potentially blow up the whole operation. As was explained to me, the trick was to appear feminine, but not overdo it. I had to live with the physique I had, which thankfully was the size and shape of a good number of Russian women my age.

A shortish hairstyle was suggested, with bangs. It was not overtly feminine, as a man pretending to be a woman might choose. It said - “I am a big woman and proud”. I had been given the shape to match with implants in my chest, hips and buttocks. It turned out that I had naturally good legs, one the hormones had softened them a little. But I suppose that my best feature was my eyes, a darkish blue that only really shone when I wore eye makeup below shaped brows.

Soraya reacted first by saying that I looked – “beautiful, like a princess”. Bryony said that I certainly didn’t look like a dad, so she would have to call me Mom. Byron nodded to that.

For a few days nothing much changed to my routine except that I was now female. I got up in the mornings and sat down to pee with my concealed and redirected penis. I showered my new body, washing under my new breasts, and I washed my hair - the only shaving I did was my legs. I blow-dried my hair as I had been shown, to give it body. I put my bra on cupping my still growing breasts, and with panties on I checked my shape from behind. I applied my make up as I had been taught. I then dressed in one of the many outfits the Agency had provided, and added a little jewelry if appropriate, before packing up my handbag for the day. I might receive a compliment from the kids before dropping them off at school then driving to work. There I would do everything that I did except I would share coffee with the women working there, who might offer advice on my actions and appearance. It was a case of constant improvement and refinement. The agency was there to assist and support me, and they did so by treating me as female. It seemed to work. By the time I had my first call to action, I was feeling very comfortable as a woman.

In the meantime, the group that had “accidentally killed” the Russian agent, were able to communicate with her handlers in Moscow that she had now fully infiltrated the United States and was ready to receive calls to the first of a series of burner phones. The first call had come in and the phone was handed to me.

The caller spoke first in Russian, but we soon switched to Uzbeki. A meeting was to be arranged where discussion could be more open than any telephone. The following evening, I was to report to a place from where I would be taken by a series of vehicles to a secure place.

I was equipped with a transmitter, so that once activated (after any electronic search) the control center could listen in and locate me. I would be followed, but at a distance, to relay the signal and be close at hand for backup. This was to be my first test. I needed to pass as a woman. But first I needed to find a babysitter.

Soraya didn’t much like the Agency appointed lady, and she had a friend who absolutely adored her babysitter, a sixteen-year-old girl who seemed to relate to young children. I felt that that my kids should have somebody they liked, so I arranged for her to come around before I went out. I gave her the number of the Agency as my contact.

I went to the appointed place – a hotel lobby in Tysons, Virginia. A man appeared only seconds before the appointed time, addressing me in English. We went outside to his car, and got in the back seat while he got in front beside a driver. We headed west, and I was told to lie down across the seat. We were not driving for long, although there were some turns and doubling back, that must have been to throw off any tail. We arrived at a home in a wooded area that was totally private. There were cars parked. I was searched in the porch by a young woman, and only then did I activate my listening device.

It was a group of men and just one woman, who was the only one who eyed me suspiciously. These were people primarily from a region of Uzbekistan called Karakulpoghistan, that was dependent on water from the dying Amu Darya River. Would the Russian Federation, openly or secretly, fund a war to secure the river as the nations upriver could not agree to share?

“Please understand that my first loyalty is to Uzbekistan,” I told them. “Russia will support a war but not officially, but I should ask you, is that what you really want? Is there another way through this. Which of you believe that Moscow is best placed to push the way forward?”

My purpose was to identify which of these people were agents of Russia or supporters of Russian involvement in the Central Asian Republics and Afghanistan. I would have exactly the same discussion with a group of Turkmens in the weeks to come – more than one meeting with these small groups and larger groups, in an attempt to thwart Russian ambitions in the area, to identify Russian agitators and promote peaceful dialog instead. But from that first meeting I knew that I was doing good work and the Agency was too. This is the kind of thing that made me feel good about my job.

Of course, there were Russian sympathizers, so news would get back that their agent had gone rogue. Perhaps if a photograph of me was taken it could get back to Moscow and it could be revealed to the FSB, our corresponding agency in Russia, that I was an imposter. I forbade images for that reason, but I knew that my position had risks. I just needed to do what I could while I could.

But then came complications that I was not expecting. It was clear to me that I was going to be living as a woman and being a mom to my kids for months rather than weeks. I could not hide myself from the world outside my operation and my office, but on the very night that I got home after that first meeting, things started to get weird.

It was not that late when I was dropped back at the hotel lobby, but I decided to postpone the debrief and get an Uber home. They had the recording and I decided that it was better to order my thoughts for the morning. I was on a bit of a high from the success of the evening, so while waiting for the uber I made some notes and ordered a large shot. When I got home, I realized that it might be irresponsible to offer the babysitter a lift home.

“That’s okay, I’ll call my dad to pick me up,” she said. So, I checked to see that my kids were asleep and I had another drink.

I answered the door with a drink in my hand while the babysitter packed up her things.

“I’m Maurice Callaghan,” he said. “I’m here to pick up my daughter.” I was immediately struck by how good-looking this man was. I spluttered a little while I invited him inside.

“I am sorry, I have had a tense meeting tonight, so I needed a drink,” I blurted out. “I would invite you to join me but … you’re driving.”

“I would like to join you for a drink,” he said. Could he see that I was strangely attracted to him? “But you’re right. I am driving. Perhaps some other time. I understand that we are both solo parents.”

All kinds of strange thoughts were going through my head. He was available. He was interested in me. We shared an experience. But I should not be attracted to him. Was it the hormones coursing through my body? Or was this whole change of gender affecting me in some way?

When they were gone, I was relieved, and then even more confused. It was as if I was disappointed that he had got away. But what would I have done if he had stayed.

From that point on, I suddenly became aware that men were looking at me. Men rarely experience women looking at them, but when you are a woman, even if you are not the best-looking woman in the world, men do look. And women are aware. I was aware. I liked being looked at like that.

Then, I earned the attentions of one of my targets. Baghiz, the leader of that first group of Uzbeks I had met, asked me whether I was with anybody. He used a rather quaint phrase in Uzbeki, but it was clear that he was looking for a physical relationship. And again, my response was not revulsion. I was pleased to be noticed, and perhaps desired. I smiled and told him that we had work to do.

I arranged to go out with Maurice. It was just that apart from time with my family, work was taking up every moment of my time. I just felt that I needed adult company that was not associated with my job. He seemed interesting and interested. It was a no-brainer. It was a wonderful evening. It should have ended with a kiss, but it seemed awkward for him, and it certainly was for me. But when he had left, I regretted not kissing him. It seemed wrong not to have done it, or at least let him do it to me.

On the other hand, to let Baghiz kiss me was probably wrong. It was just that we had met in private to discuss his concerns that one of his people was definitely communicating direct with Moscow and it seemed to me that he would be more inclined to work with me against this man if we were intimate. That was certainly how it turned out.

When he took the extra step of eliminating that problem, it seemed only natural to go a little further to reward him. I simply said that I was saving my vagina for a husband but that we could do it “the Azeri way” meaning I could receive him anally. Agents must be prepared to do such things. It gave me a little time to prepare myself, not to mention convincing myself that this was my duty in helping with world peace, but what I now know is that once you have opened yourself to penetration then there is no saying that it never happened.

It made it easier for me to allow things to progress with Maurice. In his case I told him that I had internal issues that needed surgical intervention before we had sex, but later I felt that I had to tell him what was closer to the truth – that I was a transwoman – a father who became the mother who had died, and somebody who was falling in love with him.

The operation was a success, at least so far. There is no war in Central Asia. The Russians were frustrated and sought to track me down. Baghiz was killed in their efforts to do that, and it was deemed time for my mission to cease, or at least my involvement in it to be deferred until needed.

Which lead me to spend more time as a mom, and (after my surgery) a wife and a stepmother. But I will always be a special agent – they say that you can never truly leave the agency.

Maurice understands. It turns out that he also works for the US Government, for a similar organization, even more secretive. But, of course, I can’t say any more than that.

The End
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© Maryanne Peters 2026