Is Manray: Photography And Its Double Worth Reading?

Content Warning: This story contains mature themes intended for adult audiences. Reader discretion is advised. ***** The Manhood Diaries is an unfiltered secret collection of male confessions: raw, intense, and deeply personal. Told through the voices of different men, each story peels back the layers of masculinity to reveal desire, vulnerability, power, and hidden truths rarely spoken aloud. Through their experiences, the book explores manhood from within: the struggles, the secrets, the passions, and the contradictions. Bold and unapologetic, it offers a gripping look into the private worlds men live but seldom share.

I'm a private photographer. Many female college students come to me to get their portraits shot. In return, they choose to offer me their supple bodies. One day, I receive an order to take wedding photos of a couple. However, that night, the bride insists on having me sleep with her… Could it be that her husband can't even afford to pay me for my services?

On Valentine's Day, as my girlfriend, Christy Lawrence, and I stroll along a tourist hot spot, a photographer asks me, "Care to take a photo? Oh, you brought someone new again!" I brush it off as a joke, but Christy stops the photographer and says seriously, "He told me I'm his first girlfriend. How can you make up a lie like that?" The photographer snorts. "This young man here brings a different young woman with him to take a photo here every six months. I still have the photos to prove it!" He brings out his phone and shows us a photo of a couple—the man looks exactly like me. All of the surrounding tourists start eyeing me scornfully. I take my phone out and make a call. "Hello, I suspect that someone has stolen my identity. Could you please send a police officer over?"

Seven years with a photographer, and I don't have a single decent photo of myself. "I only shoot landscapes, not people," my boyfriend, Dwayne Norton, always tells me. He even claims he broke up with his ex because she kept forcing him to take her picture. So, for seven years, I play nice. I never ask and never push. Until today, when I'm scrolling through social media and see a post from my influencer best friend, Aviana Reed. "My personal photographer has been shooting me for seven years. Every single shot is a masterpiece!" In the comments, there's a reply, "It's an honor to shoot my muse." The profile picture is pitch black. The tone is so familiar it leaves me completely numb. He doesn't hate shooting people. He just hates shooting me. Dwayne, since there's no room for me in your lens, then this time, there's no room for you in my world either.

Meet Esmerelda Sleuth. Sleuth is her name and investigating is her game. (Paranormal Investigating, that is.) Esmerelda makes a good living as an investigator in a rather progressive firm. She lives a stable and sensible life until she meets Lance; an old money "hottie" who works for a real estate firm next to her building. After accepting an invitation for a weekend getaway party, she quickly discovers that Lance has a secret. He is wealthy. That part is true. And, yes, he's procured a job as a realtor in the building next door. His secret is that he belongs to an underground society of humans who didn't abandon their connection to magic centuries ago when religion declared it evil and he has traveled through time specifically to find her and bring her back to his time to marry him. If that isn't enough of a far fetched tale to absorb, he informs her that she was born in his time to a family belonging to that same secret society and was promised in marriage to him as an infant. When enemies who didn't want to see the union of families take place made attempts on her life, her parents sent her into the future and erased her memories of them as a precaution. Possessing virtually no belief in magic, ghosts, psychics, time travel, etc., it takes some doing on Lance's part to convince her to believe his story and go back with him. When she does, the lies, deceit and attempts on her life start all over again. Will she escape emotionally and physically unscathed? "The Other Side Of the Mirror" is a steamy-paranormal-romance- mystery-thriller and book one of the Esmerelda Sleuth series.

On the third day of our graduation trip, my childhood sweetheart finally agreed to take pictures of me. But after only a few minutes, she frowned in frustration and lowered her camera. "Not a single one looks good." A classmate looked confused. "How is that possible? Every picture you take of Ethan turns out great." It hurt to hear that, but I stayed silent. Mabel lowered her camera and looked at me. "Forget it. Let's not take any more. You're just not very expressive. No matter how I photograph you, you always look ordinary." After saying that, she casually stopped a girl by the roadside who was holding a camera. "Hi, could you take a few pictures of him for me? I'll come back and pay you later." Before the girl could even answer, Mabel grabbed her camera and ran toward Ethan. The moment she pointed the camera at him, her mood brightened again. "Turn around and lower your head a little. That's it. You look great..." I stood there quietly, watching how naturally the two of them worked together. Suddenly, I remembered asking Mabel a long time ago, "Why do you always make me look so good in your pictures?" Back then, she had smiled as she fixed my hair. "Because there's love behind the camera. When you love someone, every picture turns out beautiful." Now I finally understood. She didn't love me anymore. Mabel and I had originally applied to colleges in Northfield together. I quietly took out my phone and changed my application to a university in the distant city of Portwell.