Chapter 3

When the girls joined me, they had several bags. I bought them all a lunch and we acted as if we didn’t have a care in the world. While we were eating, I had a text from Abbas to go and see him in the afternoon. We took the bags back to the hotel and then took a taxi to the Museum. In his office, he sat us down and showed us some paperwork.

“Firstly, Sandy, one of the newspapers has had a look in their files and found that photo of you at the dig with the other men. We’re lucky that they called you Sandy and that you looked like a woman with the gallibiya on. They have asked us to give them a current picture of you for their paper, before the opening, so that will accelerate your make-over. Heba has been given three days off to help you get transformed. The display is her baby, after all.”

Then Abbas looked at some more papers.

“I’ve put the word out among the crooks in the market, and, so far, none of them have come back to me to say they’ve seen any of the jewels. What I do have, though, from our Embassy in London, is this.”

He showed us a photo with one of the men who had taken over the dig. It was from a gala event and the woman by his side was bedecked in the best of the items from the dig.

“He has answered our invitation to the opening and will be attending the event. I have arranged to have him arrested for the theft and exporting ancient artifacts, the property of this country. I have friends in the government who have seen this picture, along with the pictures you took. He is travelling alone, and when he is arrested a search warrant will be asked for to see if these turn up in his home. I expect that his wife will be unhappy when she loses her collection. The wives of the other two men have no photos with anything from the collection, so we may be dealing with one man who worked alone. He was the one in charge, so may have gone in to remove the jewels before any of the others saw them. If they did take part in the theft, they may have shared the figures, so there’ll be a search of their homes at the same time. This is likely to ruin reputations, but it can’t be helped. Wrong was done and some will now suffer the consequences. None of them will be allowed back into the country and there will be a notice sent out to the archaeological community if we do recover all the items.”

I sat down and pondered what he had said. If I was known to have been the one to have brought this man down, my name would be mud in the Society, notwithstanding that it had been his own actions. I was likely to be stuffed, no matter what I said.

“Is there any way of keeping my name out of the case?”

“Well, we could say that you had given us your report of the chamber, and that it was us that found the discrepancies. I suppose that would work. If the arrest is done quietly, and not reported until after the searches and the grand opening, the spotlight will be on them, not you.”

“I hope so. I would think that the worst that the Society could do is remove me from the list. The only thing that it would make a difference to would be my CV.”

“Anyway, Sandy, how is Project Eve going?”

“Ha! That’s a good one, Project Eve has had some preliminary measurements and is waiting to be cosmetically altered. I think it would be suitable to reveal in a few more days. If Heba has the contacts, the physical changes will not take long. It’s the mental changes that might be a bit longer. What worries me is how I’m going to get on a plane back to Britain with my old passport not exactly like the me that presents itself to the emigration counter.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll come along to see you all off. I’m well enough known that the officers will just glance at the name and stamp the right page. When you get to Britain it will be your problem. If you travel as Eve, you can just declare that you’re transgender. It’s not a crime there.”

Stella laughed.

“The Head will be happy if we get back with a genuine Miss Saunders. She will do her best to alter any records we have to say that Eve has always been female. She doesn’t have to even change her name. The school doctors can attest that she is far enough along to ask for a new passport before we come back.”

I looked at her, trying to look stern, but her grin was infectious.

“All right. I seem to be moving along a path which hadn’t been on my radar a few days ago. If I don’t want to go along with this when I’m home, I’ll just have to send you three with the class dig and stay at the school. You will be able to report to me regularly by email if there’s coverage.”

“Sorry, Eve. No coverage in that remote area. I’ll be supplying you with a couple of satellite phones for communication.”

I just looked at Abbas when he said that. My options were being bulldozed as we spoke. We went to find Heba, who was tidying her desk and issuing orders to her staff. On the way out, we went by the display, and she showed us the latest additions to the set up. Where we had just gone through the door into a short passage and then into the chamber, the passage had been clad to now look like the actual entry to the chamber, only a lot shorter.

There was now a booth outside the door, where they would be issuing lights. The idea was that the chamber would be restricted to six visitors at a time, with no lights in the passage and chamber, with the only illumination being what was taken in. This gave an authentic experience. They did have several low-light cameras in the chamber to monitor the visitors. No bags were allowed, and all items now had a tiny unit, hidden, that would activate alarms embedded in the passage. I looked at what they would be charging for this authentic experience and realised that they would be making good money if they only had a half a dozen groups a day and would only need a single attendant.

Heba had her own car and took us back to the hotel, where I had to put the panties and the gallibiyas I now owned into a bag. We went to a café where we had a light lunch, and then to a private house where she rang the bell. I could see the camera in the climbing plant beside the door. The door opened and we all went into the house.

The woman who had welcomed us looked closely at me and smiled.

“This one will be easy.”

She told Heba what it would cost and Heba gave her the money. After that I was taken into a small windowless room with a high bed on it and various machines scattered around the walls. Heba and the girls were taken off to somewhere else to wait for me while I stripped completely and laid on the bed, as instructed.

When the woman came back, she had another with her, and they were both in scrubs with masks on. They went over my whole body, one each side, with handsets that I was told was for laser hair removal. They were very thorough, and I became indifferent as they handled various parts of me that no woman had touched. One worked on my eyebrows with a much smaller unit, and then the other came back into the room with a bag of ice which she placed on my groin.

I was told to relax as they pushed my testicles up into my body, then pulled up a fold of skin either side of my penis, carefully glueing them together to hide it completely, just leaving a gap for me to pee through. After the glue had dried, I was subjected to more glue around my breasts and a pair of lifelike breasts were placed on my chest. I was told to hold them in place and they both left the room, leaving me with no penis and holding on to my own breasts.

When they came back, they had the bag I had brought, as well as another that Stella had been carrying. Before long, I was in one of the pairs of panties, with a matching bra that was now needed to hold my breasts in place. I was finding the change of my center of gravity to be a little odd. One of the gallabiyahs was chosen, and the final thing, for this stage, was a pair of women’s sandals with a small heel.

They took me to where the others were sitting, reading magazines, and drinking tea. Heba had a big grin on her face as I walked in.

“Stage one completed, Eve. Now for stage two.”

They gathered their things, and we left the house to get into the car. I felt different, with a new feeling around my groin and the new weight on my chest, but I didn’t complain. We went to another private house with similar security to the first one. Inside, I was taken to a replica of a beauty salon and sat in a chair. Stella helped the girl as they gave me a jet-black hair colour and extensions. Then one worked on my fingers while the other did my toes. Then they conferred about my palette, whatever that was, and proceeded to work on my face, including some injections around my lips, before ending with me having my ears pierced and studs inserted.

When I looked in a mirror, I didn’t at first recognise myself, with the look of a long-haired woman. I looked for a while and thought that I didn’t look too bad. Certainly not the ugly bitch that the bearded one had seen. When Heba inspected me, she smiled.

“Welcome to our world, Eve. You look good, even your Adams Apple is small enough not to bring attention to it. All that remains is for you to learn how to speak as a woman and then we go shopping. There’s enough money for you to get western styles at the places we get our own. Places the Morality Police don’t visit, in the better suburbs. By the time we get there, you’ll be able to make everybody believe that you’re Evelyn Saunders, the archaeologist who is here to open our display.”

She turned to the girls.

“Veronica, we need to get you checked out of your current hotel and into one which the Museum is paying for, seeing that your party are our guests. If Eve and I wait in the car, do you think that you can pack up your things, as well as Eve’s, and check out?”

At the hotel, Heba parked in some shade, while the girls got out and went in, with my key. For a half an hour, Heba and I talked about things – the display, my part in the school visits, my thoughts about life. All the while we spoke quietly, with me trying to follow her inflections and sounding womanly. When the others came back, the bags were put into the back and Heba took us to a much nicer hotel, close to the Museum. It was a place where tourists stayed. Our new room was a suite, with three bedrooms. I was put in one, Veronica had another and the others shared the third.

Over the next day, we moved on to stage three. Heba had spoken to the clothing shop in the reception, and I was given free rein to choose. It was all clothing that the locals would wear, if they wanted to look like western tourists, and I only liked a few of the things. I was still a little unsure, so chose only long skirts and sleeves. When Heba saw me in one of the dresses, she laughed.

“That is so tourist wanting to look Egyptian! It does look all right, good enough for us to go to a much better shop tomorrow.”

The next day we went to one of the better suburbs, where there was a shopping mall that was as big as the few I had been in at home. There, I went from a lingerie shop to a dress shop and then on to a shoe shop. After a couple of hours, my companions were laden with bags, leaving me with free hands to look at things. I now had several sets of underwear, packs of tights, camisoles and slips, skirts and dresses that revealed more of my limbs that I had previously dared. I also had a range of nicer rings and bangles to augment the ones I had bought earlier.

We ate in a food court after we had taken the bags back to the car. I had arrived in a long-sleeved, full-skirted dress, and was now sitting in a slim skirt that stopped above my knees and a sleeveless blouse. I was feeling more like a female, and my actions had changed since the first visit to the laser place. I found that I was copying the girls in my hand movements and body language. We even discussed the men we saw, especially here where most of them would be rich and powerful. When Tracey made a comment about a rich man pinning her to a bed, I had an involuntary shiver as I imagined the feeling of a man, heavy on me. At that time, I didn’t go any further with the rest of the concept.

When Heba dropped us off at the hotel, she helped us carry our bags up to the suite. She made us stand, one by one, in front of a blank wall while she took pictures of us. I took my bags into my room and hung some things in the wardrobe, now all female clothing. When we went down to the dining room for dinner, the three had changed into good dresses and I had been instructed to do the same. It was odd, to say the least, to be sitting at a table with me only different from the others by being a few years older.

After dinner, I discovered that there was going to be a dance in the hotel ballroom, as I was pulled there to join the merriment. That evening, I danced with the girls for a short while, until we were joined by four Americans on a bus tour. Later in the evening, I found myself shuffling on the dancefloor, a handsome man holding me to him, as the band played love songs. After an initial reluctance, I had decided that I had to do this to fit in with the female half of the world that I was now part of. When he kissed my neck, I realised that I didn’t just fit in, I was happy to be part of that world. When the band played its last tune, he kissed me on the lips, and I felt his tongue in my mouth. I also felt another part of him against my groin.

As we parted, I was joined by the girls and Veronica told him that we had work to do in the morning. He gave me another kiss and we said goodnight. Back in the room, the girls were bubbly and asked me if I had enjoyed myself. I told them that it had been a very new experience. We then went off to bed, where I had the dream which added a kiss to the weight of a man holding me down.

The next morning, Heba turned up as we were having breakfast, with a lanyard for each of us, with our photos on an ID card. We were now officials from the Museum. We were close enough to walk there, waving at our companions from last night as they boarded their tourist coach. At the Museum, Heba said that she had work to catch up on and put us in the hands of one of her staff. With our new IDs, we were now able to go places that were out of bounds to most people. We were taken to big rooms where the actual chariots from the Tut dig were being conserved, to smaller rooms with drawers full of amazing jewels, figurines, tiny animal mummies, and then to an area where they were trying to translate pieces of chamber walls from digs where all they found was a vandalised chamber.

I had been to a few of these places while I was studying before my assignment for the Museum, but it was all new and wonderful for the girls. I thought that if our larger party was given this kind of treatment, it would advance their studies by months.

At one point, we were joined by Abbas, who took a few minutes to figure out that the fourth woman in the group was me. That’s when he hugged me and gave me a double cheek kiss.

“Eve, you look magnificent! The project is a genuine success, with you as our genuine female guest of honour. The man from the Society arrived yesterday, and is sitting in a cell, telling everyone that he is a big shot and to talk to me so that he can be set free. I haven’t heard how the searches went but expect some information in a couple of days. I have a journalist coming to my office this afternoon. Do you feel up to sitting in on it as our celebrity?”

“It has to happen, sooner or later, my friend. We may as well see if we can pull the camel hair over his eyes, yes?”

We all met in the café for lunch, with Abbas sounding very jovial. In the afternoon, the girls went off on another voyage of discovery, while I joined Abbas in his office. We talked about the opening and the future dig until the journalist arrived. He was happy at getting an interview with Abbas, a rare event, and even happier when it was revealed that I was Evelyn Saunders, the leader of the dig that found the chamber.

We discussed the finding of the chamber, a little about what had brought me to Egypt, a bit more about the work I had done for the Museum in Britain, and what I was doing now. He wrote a lot of notes and then asked to see the display. Heba joined us and we showed him the whole experience with just lamplight, as it had been when I first saw it. I told him how we had dug away the sand at the entrance, opened the door and how I had gone down the corridor to find this chamber at the end. For me, it was recreating that first look. Except that the first look didn’t include a man close to me and a hand on my butt.

I kept my cool but was flushed when we emerged into the daylight. After the journalist had left, Heba told me that I had just passed one of the biggest tests for a woman in this country, a close-up fondle from an alpha male. It must have made him happy as his article, a couple of days later, was full of praise and a recommendation to not miss one of the most authentic displays that the Museum had to offer.

The opening ceremony, when it came around, wasn’t a huge affair. There were a few Ministers, an Imam to do the proper religious introduction, and about forty other guests. After I had cut the ribbon, we took them through, six at a time. The Ministers all had a feel, the Imam wanted me to tell him what the hieroglyphs said, no doubt to test me as he just nodded as I translated them, talking in Masri. Up, at the entrance, Heba, her staff, and my girls were acting as hostesses, all speaking Masri if needed. I was proud of them. The three of them seemed to have grown while we were here. They could talk to the high to the not so high and proved to be very popular. The ceremony went well, Abbas and his Minister were very happy, and there was an avalanche of congratulations as they all had their last drinks and left.

Afterwards, Abbas told us to go back to the hotel and put on our glad rags. He would be hosting a dinner at one of the best restaurants in Cairo. He had arranged a limo to pick us up. The four of us had an hour in the hotel salon to be properly made up, and I wore a dress that had been something that I never thought I would wear, but one that Heba had insisted I buy. I guess that she had foretold a celebratory dinner.

When the limo arrived to pick us up, we were four good looking females in evening dresses and jewels. My studs had been replaced with drops, I had rings, bracelets, a couple of amulets and a make-up job that would look good in a magazine. The meal was at a dinner-dance, with Abbas, his wife and two sons. The Minister was there with his wife and two sons, while Heba had her husband. It looked almost like a set-up.

The meal was wonderful, the conversation happy, and the dancing later in the evening saw each of us girls paired with the sons on the dancefloor. My partner, Khepri, was a son of the Minister and worked with his father. He was urbane, funny, and full of stories about being in power in a country split down religious lines, but still welcoming westerners on a constant basis. Like me, he didn’t dance much, but we made a good stab at it. He had been at the opening and had been amazed at the experience in the chamber. He wanted to know about what I was doing next, so I told him about our plan to have some schoolgirls working at a dig. He told me to let Abbas know that he could organise helicopters if we needed them. By the end of the evening, I had the impression that I had made a friend.

When it was time to leave, there were hugs and cheek kisses. I told Abbas about the helicopter offer and he told me that he would follow that up. We had a couple of days off, just lazing around the pool. I had found a one piece that looked all right and covered the right places. On the third day, we had a message to wear jeans, boots, and long sleeves as we would be leaving the airport on the next day. That, for us, meant a shopping session for dig outfits.

The next day, we were picked up and taken to the airport where we were flown to Luxor. There, we joined Abbas and Khepri in a military helicopter. We flew over the Valley of The Kings and then across the Nile to where Abbas had decided we would set our dig. When the helicopter touched down, we all got out and surveyed the scene. It was bleak, it was beautiful, it was dry and hot. Abbas had far more experience at a place like this, so we all listened as he explained his thinking. He had a theory that the depth of the watercourses had been because this area must have had regular rain at one time. He wanted us to see if we could locate a settlement, as he doubted that there would have been burial chambers at the time he was thinking of.

Marianne Gregory © 2024