Outskirts Press, INC.

I have a secret. I am a secret.

I have a secret. I am a secret: I had to run away; Danielle wanted to get married. I got a job working on a project in Guyana- who ever heard of the place? My boss- an ex-military hard-ass- turned out to be CIA. You wouldn't believe the trouble I got into: kidnapped, held hostage in a military camp, a river accident when the piranhas almost got me, blackmailed by the PM's nephew, threatened with "disappearing" by paramilitary thugs.

While all this was going on, I was trying to deal with my secret sex life: I like men and women. I got my close buddy, Steve, to come down. We'd had a fling before, but now it turned into a passionate affair. You can't hide much in a place like Guyana, and the locals went crazy when they found out.

On Christmas break, I went back to New York and came out to Danielle. She dumped me; Steve stayed in the States; I returned to Guyana. When I got back I met a real hunky Guyanese guy- Stanley. We hit it off, and spent weekends with some of his friends at a secret jungle cabin, not a down-low scene, but a secret society.

Meanwhile, my boss forced me to snoop on some Americans building a cooperative in the jungle. Little did I know that I was witnessing the foundation of Jonestown. Yeah, that's when you've heard about Guyana.

Project over: I'd learned about the secret world of spies, and a helluva lot about myself. I'm a man's man.

Take a look at: http://www.trhanes.com/

We’ll try to swim, thrashing around in the dark brown water like a couple of panicked seals, but we’ll only attract schools of thousands of piranhas hungry for lunch. Each little fish will tear off and eat a tiny bit of our flesh with its razor-sharp teeth. They’ll leave when they’ve eaten everything down to our bones. They might have to work on Boyle for hours.

-Damn! Why don’t I do what I really want to do – sit next to Steve and put my arm around him.
-You can’t because you made Ellie think you’re her boyfriend.
-Asshole, you’re too damned scared to do what you really want. It was the same in the US!

The wave rolls up to the left side of our boat and gently, in slow motion, dumps us into the dark water. I’m paralyzed; I can’t move. The bottom of the boat rises over me. Panic races through my whole body. I almost black out and feel myself sinking into the water which now appears yellowish-brown to my open eyes.

“I don’t know….I have to tell you this or I’ll go crazy, worrying about it all the time.”
“TR, mon bebe, nothing can be that bad.”
“…I’m bisexual…”
-That was real clinical – kind of a copout. Don’t beat around the bush. Tell her in words she’ll understand.

He moves forward in his chair and looks me in the eyes. “We’ll be going to a small river town called Port Kaituma. Then we’re going to a jungle camp not far from there where some American hippies are setting up a commune.”
“Hippies? I can’t picture hippies living in a jungle in Guyana.”
“They’re not your regular hippies. They’re members of a church.”

This afternoon’s the first time in my life that I understand what all those “heart” phrases mean, like “heart break,” “heart throb,” “heart felt,” “given from the heart,” and so on. I can physically feel my heart beating, throbbing in my chest when I look at Stanley.