Mantis

Mantis Steve Boiseman All rights reserved.

Copyright ©2006 Steve Boiseman

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Mantis I watched with anticipation while The Bandit inserted the vibrating egg between the lips of Su Shen’s pussy. I had named him The Bandit; everyone was anonymous here at the Hellfire Club. He wore the dark five o’clock shadow beneath his black eye mask like a cloak, and he’d left his mark on Su Shen when he’d enthusiastically licked her clit to orgasm. Kneeling behind her head, I stroked her brow while she rocked with violent spasms. My gaze wandered down the length of her body like an explorer traveling along some sensual landscape. A shadowy sojourn through the deep valley between her full breasts brought me to the gentle swell of her stomach. The slightly concave plane heaved at every contact of tongue on her throbbing nub. It was as if a great earthquake was shuddering beneath the surface. My odyssey ended at the apex of her open thighs, and there I watched him, the cause of the violent tremors. Like a thief peering over a wall, his emerald eyes shone luminously from the shadows of the mask. While his tongue explored the wet recesses of Su Shen’s cunt, his eyes were fixed on mine. I imagined my friend’s taste on his lips. As Su Shen’s initiate, she’d long ago introduced me to the joys of the female body. It is a myth that women instinctively know how to please other women. Like anything, it takes practice. She’d taught me everything I knew. She was still teaching and I was still learning. Su Shen’s special diet ensured she had the sweetest of juices and I indulged myself often. Countless times I’d been where The Bandit’s enthusiastic tongue now lapped and probed, guided by her sensual wisdom. The Bandit, if Su Shen’s quivering body was any indication, was an expert. He knew exactly what a woman’s cunt wanted, needed.

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He, on the other hand, wanted me. The perversity of men fascinates me. Even with his mouth clamped over a most tasty pussy he desired another. Having taken Su Shen beyond the edge of orgasm, even while her body shuddered and quaked as she flew through the sensual abyss, he was looking at me. His piercing eyes drank in my lips, my breasts, my hairless cunt, still unbreached by man or woman in this palace of pleasure. He looks at me as if he knows something of me. His expression is one of recognition. That perhaps he sees in me something he knows about himself. I resist looking into his mind. It’s too painful, afterwards, if I’ve seen their very soul. The stranger I sense approaching me from behind is different. To him, I am a piece of meat, good for fucking and nothing else. He, too, is a piece of meat. I care little about his fate. But The Bandit? His eyes lure me into their deep, green depths. I am in his mind before I know it. He’s from Dante, a hellish mining world in the Ebony Triangle. Like me, he is a runaway. He’s looking for something, someone. Someone to end his loneliness. He thinks he has found me. He is captivated by my eyes. They are sad, he perceives. He thinks I am lost, looking for someone too. He’s half right. I am looking for something. I’m looking for Heaven. He is special, this man. Though they number in the trillions, spread as they are across the galaxy, empathy in mortals is rare. He is pained by my sadness. He likes Su Shen too. But not in the same way. He is caring, he wants her to orgasm and is pleased she has, though he has no idea what an orgasm truly is. Only we immortals know that. It is ironic that the Little Death is the one thing immortals cherish. The one thing I, a fledgling immortal, cannot attain. Su Shen thinks it is my upbringing. “You inhabitants of Jokada are too uptight,” she says. “Too anal.” We are taught to be reserved, self contained, to control our every movement lest they cause offence. We do not know how to let go. She is right.

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She is confident I will, in time, attain Heaven. Time! Of that I have plenty, but she assures me I will eventually find the one. The man who can take me to Heaven so I can soar with the Angels of Light. It has been my curse that my orgasms are pale imitations of the real thing and that I can only attain them with the addition of one little, oh so insignificant ingredient; blood, and most recently, that has only been at the death of my lover. Who am I? This wretched soul who needs death to give her just a taste of the ultimate pleasure? I am an initiate. I am both no one and everyone. I know nothing, yet have the potential to know everything. I am Su Shen’s devotee. I am her Lamasta, her apprentice Lamastu. An eternity ago, it seems, a thousand light-years away, I was known as Nina. I was a virgin when I met Su Shen, the beautiful scholar visiting from across the stars, a guest in my father’s house. She liked me, taught me the hidden philosophy of womanhood and I was an agile learner. When she discovered I was promised in marriage to an old, ripe philosopher who salivated at the sight of my young, nubile body, she was appalled at my future enslavement. She offered me the universe and an eternity to learn everything in it. I accepted her gift, of course. A poisoned chalice I’ve heard such things called. If left to my mortal life, I’d be now long dead. If I’d known that I would be denied the greatest pleasure, I’d have gladly chosen that mortal’s death. The Bandit’s eyes, still fixed on mine, reacted to my despair. He was linked to me, somehow, and I felt a flutter in my breast. I looked away and after a moment he returned to the quivering thighs he tantalized so expertly. Before Su Shen had descended from the giddying heights of orgasm, he’d reached into the drawer beside the love couch and extracted the golden egg. At his touch, it commenced vibrating with a low, dull hum. Su Shen gasped when he touched her swollen lips, the vibrations reigniting the neurons that had all but discharged their fill.

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I watched from behind my mask while his sinuous fingers parted her moist, red labia lips. The golden egg slid into Su Shen without resistance. She shuddered at the gentle invasion. Her hands gripped mine. Her breathing, which had begun to settle, resumed its short, raspy gasps. She locked her ankles behind his head, readying herself for another wave of orgasmic flight. I was envious. The musky miasma of her pheromones wafted up to me and her fingernails bit into the flesh of my hand. I didn’t react to the pain. Pain, like good food, Su Shen had instructed, was simply an experience to be savored and the Hellfire Club was a veritable smorgasbord of sensory delicacies both painful and delightful. With my heightened Lamastu senses, a blessing from Su Shen, I studied her reaction. Her golden skin was flushed, hot blood coursed through her veins, her arteries throbbed in rhythm with her pumping heart. I could smell her heat, feel the tremors in her cunt, taste the rapture in her brain. Without permission, for within the velvet curtains of the Hellfire Club, none was required, the firm masculine fingers of The Stranger touched me. The knowledgeable hands massaged my shoulders, the sensual fingers softly traced the line of my collarbone. I sensed The Stranger was a traveler too, like Su Shen and I. His scent was artificial, sprayed on his hair and skin. He was a Solaran then. From the blue skied inner worlds. Questions rose unbidden to my mind. What was he doing here on the outer rim? What unquenched desire had brought him to this, the most debauched of worlds? Questions, alas, I had no interest in answering. I had only my desire, my quest in my consciousness. And yet, The Bandit drew my gaze once again. Those perverse eyes from between Su Shen’s thighs flared jade while The Stranger’s fingers trailed over my shoulders. With darkening eyes, he followed them as they traced the line of my neck, caressed my throat before sliding down the contours of

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my breasts. Once there, the stranger opened his palms, cupping their fullness, measuring their weight. Keeping my eyes fixed on The Bandit’s jealous orbs, I gasped loudly and threw my head back in mock rapture. Encouraged, the fingers sought my nipples, which responded to the touch, as nipples do. The Stranger repositioned himself, bringing his warm body hard up against my back. The solid weight of his erection pressed into my buttocks. I noted the extent of the pressure. His shaft was long and thick. The heat from his ball sac radiated to my pussy. The glands within reacted and my cunt moistened. With my eyes still on The Bandit, I gave a little whimper, as if in pain. Beneath us, willing victim to the ministrations of the golden egg, Su Shen was writhing in unconscious pleasure. The Bandit reached into the drawer again, withdrew a six-inch gold vibrator and, without losing the contact of our masked eyes, withdrew his lips from Su Shen’s pussy. He inserted the humming device into his mouth. After coating it with his saliva, he brought it to her cunt, and slowly, inexorably, slid it in. Su Shen groaned from deep within and her body shuddered as it was fed into the depths of her pussy. My hands were numb from her intense Lamastu grip. My knees were at each side of Su Shen’s head, and with the stranger behind me, I was locked into an open pose of wantonness. The fingers, having worked my nipples into a state of throbbing erection, began their inevitable journey down the taut skin of my stomach. They paused at my pelvic bone. From each side of my pussy, the fingers exerted pressure and my lips opened obediently, exposing the glistening pink interior. The Bandit’s shadowed eyes widened while he followed the progress of the stranger’s fingers toward my cunt. With a sense of detachment, I noted the touch of the cold air on my inner flesh and emitted a short, raspy gasp. His eyes, full of longing and regret, returned to mine. The fingers, like soldiers under the command of a skilled generalissimo, approached my clit in a flanking movement, stretching the skin on either side, peeling

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back the fleshy hood and exposing my swelling nub. The Bandit’s mouth set in a tight grimace. His full lips fixed in a thin, hard line. I tried to look coldly on his jealousy, to discourage him, but I felt his pain. He saw in me a soul mate and my reaction cut him like a knife. I despaired at my cruelty and at the same time joyfully cursed him, for he had stolen my indifference, my self absorption. He reached into the drawer and produced another vibrator. This one was slim and metallic blue. Once again, he went through the ritual of wetting it with his tongue and, without breaking our gaze, took it down to Su Shen’s anus. Su Shen gasped as he circled the puckered ring before teasing it open and pushing the vibrating instrument inside her. She arched her back and brought her crossed legs down hard around his neck. With both hands he busily worked the vibrators inside her, alternating one and then the other. First the gold one into her pussy until its vibrating point met the thrumming egg, then thrusting the blue one up to the hilt in her ass. He altered the rhythm of the vibrators, withdrawing one, while plunging the other into her. He accelerated the tempo, and all the while, his eyes never left mine. With the combined action of the tip of his tongue teasing the head of her clit and the bold thrusts of the vibrators, Su Shen shuddered in paroxysms of pleasure. Her moans were continuous now. The sounds of her joy becoming high pitched when each climax arrived, dropping an octave while she launched herself into the abyss of orgasm, her whole body convulsing at the magical frequency of eight tenths of a second. Then, as each orgasm concluded and she built to another one, the pitch of her moans rose again. I knew what was happening in her mind. With each climax she leaped off the brink into the orgasmic abyss, falling headlong into the chasm of pleasure. In this glorious flight, she was escorted by the Angels of Light who swooped and hovered encouragingly around her. Then after her fifth orgasm, her body tensed. She stopped moaning, her back arched and she became catatonic, frozen in the mother of all orgasms. In her mind, she

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was suspended in the clouds of lust, the Angels supporting her, caressing her, loving her. She held herself in that state for a dozen seconds. I was with her, in her mind. To Su Shen, each second had become an hour as she swooped and wheeled about the heavens with her winged companions. It was beautiful. I wished I could soar like that. Suddenly she screamed. The Angels had released her, so she could return to this barren world of banal existence. The piercing scream continued and then slowly subsided, diminishing to a whimper. As her orgasm declined, her tense body relaxed and she collapsed back onto the couch. She unlocked her ankles and her legs flopped down on either side of The Bandit. Her body shuddered one final time. The orgasm no longer consumed her. Her crushing grip on my hands relaxed and she returned to me. With great care, The Bandit extracted the vibrator from her anus, putting it carefully in the receptacle by the couch. Then he withdrew the golden vibrator from her pussy. She whimpered when the device left her. Slowly, for she was only semiconscious, she tensed her internal muscles and the golden egg, still vibrating, emerged halfway from her swollen pussy lips. The Bandit, his eyes still locked on me, plucked out the egg with his mouth, taking it in completely, rolling it about, washing it of her juices. He took it out of his mouth and, without releasing me from his jade gaze, offered it to The Stranger whose busy fingers had resumed their uninspired massage of the flesh surrounding my clit. I sensed The Stranger moving his head in the negative, and The Bandit stood up and stretched out onto the bed beside Su Shen’s comatose body. His cock, though of above average length and thickness, had an elegant, refined shape. Curved like a scimitar, it was an ideal instrument for anal penetration, and, I wondered with a pulse of desire, if that was his intention with me. The Stranger’s fingers moved lower and opened my pussy wide. Through an

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unspoken agreement, a nod of the head, the raising of an eyebrow, the two men had decided to share me, to cooperate in their use of my body. They imagined sharing my pussy and my ass at the same time. The Stranger’s breath was hot on my neck. That sent a shiver through me. Using Su Shen’s hands for balance, I bent my head back. And so, flamingo-like, we twined our heads and kissed. His lips were soft but firm and insistent. They opened mine and his tongue began an urgent exploration of my mouth. He tasted sweet, like honey. The Bandit had seen my reaction. His sharp intake of breath reminded me of his jealousy. I wanted him to hate me. I needed him to hate me so that when the time came, his inevitable death would be easier on my conscience. The Stranger, while we kissed hungrily, continued massaging my vulva, concentrating on keeping my pussy wide open. I felt the moisture there as my body responded to the rhythmic motion of his fingers. Then, before the egg touched me, my heightened senses felt its vibrations. I focused on it, sensing the frequency of its oscillations. It was too slow, on idle, and its frequency was at the very threshold of detection. With anticipation my temporal perception changed. Time slowed and I became aware of every beat of my excited heart. It was as if a minute separated each solid thump and not a mere moment. My heart thundered languidly in my chest, pumping my blood, rich with oxygen, and now carrying something else; the chemicals of lust. Each beat transported these molecules of passion through the rivers of my arteries, the streams of my veins, to flood my sex, to activate the biological mechanisms of my arousal. The first touch of the egg sent a bolt of sensation through my moist flesh, exciting millions of neurons in an instant. I sensed the electric impulse as it sped along the nerve fibers, seeking out the reflex center of my spinal chord. It reacted like I knew it would. My muscles relaxed and I saw in my mind’s eye the surging river of blood from my arteries which poured like molten lava into my labia. My lips swelled and heat radiated from my center to every part of my body like an atomic wave.

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The Bandit moved the egg so that it touched the tight sensitive skin between my pussy and anus. The bolt of electricity speared into my brain, hitting every synapse in my limbic system along the way, caressing my hypothalamus, kicking into action my autonomic nervous system. I cursed my Lamastu senses. They were too detailed, too clinical. I yearned to forget my chemistry, and feel only the pleasure as mortals do, to know the whole and not merely the sum of the parts. He massaged that place between my pussy and anus until moisture from my cunt flowed down my thigh and pooled beneath my ass. He placed the egg between his lips again, tasting me. I looked at him, expressionless. Confusion crossed his face, his eyes implored me for some sign that his desire was returned. But I would not, could not, give him that sign, else his future pain would be too much to bear. The Stranger continued massaging the hood of my clit, careful not to touch the nub. It was fully extended now, throbbing, sending waves of molten heat up my spinal chord. I sensed the Oxytocin being drip fed into my bloodstream. I was now attuned to every molecule in my body. Every cell was lusting after orgasm and that elusive jump into Heaven. Oh, Heaven! My body craved that which I could not have. Every fiber of my being cried out for release. Please, let it be this time! This man! The Bandit took the glistening egg from his mouth and placed it at the opening of my cunt. Its vibrations reset themselves to the frequency of my body, I felt in sync almost instantly. The micro-pulses of my labial muscles fell into line even before the egg touched my flesh. That touch was electric. The Stranger moved closer to me, wedging his cock in the cleavage of my ass. His body was hot, flushed with blood. I sensed it coursing through his body as well. His throbbing phallus was a flaming sword inside me. The Bandit withdrew the egg and, placing it once more between his lips,

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dropped his face into my sex. He inserted the humming egg into my wanton cunt with his mouth. As he pushed it deeper, his lips came in contact with my flesh and my loins erupted with a wave of searing heat. He released the egg and, with his tongue, pushed it completely inside me. Its vibrations initiated secondary waves that rippled along the inside of my cunt. Then he switched his tongue to my clit. The Stranger obligingly held the hood back, exposing it to the tip of that agile organ. For the first time that night, I closed my eyes in bliss. The prickles of his stubbled chin stabbed my flesh, punctuating the warm blanket of his breath, electrifying my loins. His tongue teased me, played with my clit, approaching and then withdrawing. I’d been right. He was an expert. He knew what pleasure a tongue could give and he delighted in giving me that pleasure and, oh, it was as if my heart leapt from my breast and went out to his. I opened my eyes as he looked at me and, for a moment, we knew each other’s soul. Again and again he took me to the brink of the abyss, but every time, unlike Su Shen, I couldn’t jump. Though every fiber of my being demanded I launch myself into the chasm of release, I was unable to take that ultimate step. As good as he was, he wasn’t the one. Not yet at least. I needed to be fucked. I needed to feel the fullness of a cock in my cunt, a prick in my ass. Perhaps that would launch me into the sky so I, too, could fly with the Angels. I indicated I wanted more. I heard him opening the drawer and extracting another vibrator. Within seconds, it was probing my asshole. I knew he was preparing me for what he and The Stranger wanted. He eased the humming vibrator into me. I willed my ass to relax and let it enter. When he was satisfied the throbbing device had reached its maximum depth inside me, he returned to licking my clit. The fullness in my rectum set off a whole host of new nerves firing in staccato rhythm, feeding the continuous buzz of electricity flooding my cortex. I was on fire, slippery with sweat. But the chemicals coursing through my blood,

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the vibrator in my ass, the egg in my cunt, the tongue at my clit were not enough to take me to the edge of Heaven. Su Shen had regained her senses and, detecting my frustration, motioned to the men that I needed to be filled completely with cock. The Stranger released the hood of my clit and, as Su Shen pushed me back on the couch, he fed his prick into my mouth. After the initial surprise at how soft and smooth such a hard, ungainly organ could be, I realized The Stranger’s prick was not unique. It was no different from the countless other cocks I’d sucked. The Bandit grunted, disappointed that another was fucking my mouth. But Su Shen knew best and she opened my thighs, like the Stranger had done earlier, holding my pussy lips open. The Bandit was quick to accept the invitation to spear me with his hard and agile lance. His cock fit snugly, and he knew how to use it. He didn’t thrust mindlessly like so many inexperienced men. He adjusted his angle, rotated his hips, allowing the head of his organ to rub the sensitive patch on the roof of my cunt. He knew when to thrust deep, when to withdraw and caress the outer lips with its bulging head. He was in tune with my body. I prayed he was the one. Every nerve in my body was firing madly. He was good. Very good. But after a few tantalizing thrusts I knew with certainty, he wasn’t the one. The peak of the mountain was still so far away. As well as he’d anticipated my needs, as technically perfect as his cock-work was, he couldn’t take me to the edge or beyond. I could see the ledge -- so close, but just outside my reach -- but he could not take me over the precipice. He’d failed, like so many men before. I was so close. And then, as if Heaven sought to punish me with what I couldn’t have, in the corner of my mind’s eye I glimpsed the momentary flash of an Angel’s wing. As always, Su Shen was alert to my needs and whispered something to The Stranger. Suddenly I was picked up off the couch. The Bandit was thrown aside but his

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anger disappeared as soon as he saw what Su Shen intended. As the Stranger slid onto the couch under me, I extracted the vibrator from my asshole. I turned so my back was to The Stranger and, with Su Shen’s guidance, I lowered my ass over the throbbing head of his cock. My anus protested, the monstrous thing stretched me so wide, but the pain was nothing. I needed it to fill me so when the Bandit fucked me, his rapier would fill me too. Once the full length of The Stranger’s throbbing shaft was embedded in my ass, I laid backwards over him, opening my thighs wide so The Bandit could step between my legs and feed his cock into my wanton cunt. The two cocks fit my lusty body perfectly. They alternated their thrusting, and the head of the Bandit’s rapier again touched that perfect spot. My blood was racing, my heart pounding, my loins pulsing. Surely, this time… Su Shen was kissing me. Her beautiful tongue explored the cavern of my mouth, urging me on, as her fingers squeezed my nipples. I loved her more than ever as she wished me, willed me, to that sacred orgasm. This time? her thoughts asked. Please, this time! I replied. But my Oxytocin was as weak as it had been these last few centuries. Everything my Bandit had done to prepare me for that magical moment wasn’t strong enough to let me climb to that mountain ledge. My body tried, but the orgasm, as always, was denied. The twin cocks thrust relentlessly inside me. The rapier of The Bandit was twisting and thrusting inside my cunt, the ridge of its head rubbing the sensitive patch on the roof of my cunt, sending shock waves of pleasure through my whole system. The Stranger’s blade, wedged deep in my anus, sent icy slivers of pleasure straight to my spinal column, and the egg, throbbing inside me at the mouth of my womb, kept my whole gut vibrating close to that elusive frequency of orgasm. My brain was awash with neuro-chemicals, my body flooded with adrenaline, my skin slick with sweat, my nose swamped with pheromones. But it was not enough.

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Not this time? Su Shen asked without speaking. She sensed my body was close to peaking but still short of its ultimate goal. Her sadness was complete. Let’s not waste it, she thought. She bent her head and kissed The Stranger. He moaned with pleasure. His thick cock, jammed in my asshole, swelled as he climaxed and at that moment, with Su Shen’s teeth at his throat, he died. His cock pulsed and then was no more. Su Shen groaned again as her tongue lapped at his bloody face. Her mind exploded with orgasmic pleasure, though not quite of the sexual kind. The Bandit, his rapier thrusting and sliding inside my cunt, continually found the spot but I was still frustratingly teetering on the edge of the abyss of ultimate pleasure. Too soon the peak began subsiding. He had missed again. I had missed. We had missed. Su Shen’s coppery breath on my cheek was searing hot. Her mind whisper, thick with satiated blood lust, echoed in my brain. Not this time? I fought back a sob. She sat up, took The Bandit’s face in her hands and kissed him. He moaned lustily, at first. Then the strange taste on her lips made him open his eyes. She disengaged from his mouth and fixed him with her mesmerizing gaze. His eyes, his glorious jade eyes, became languid and vacant. Su Shen lowered her mouth to his throat. I saw her mouth stretch impossibly wide as she prepared to rip out his larynx with one savage grip of her teeth. So it had been in the past. Su Shen had killed the failures, ripping their throats open to allow their Oxytocin to give me a parody of orgasmic flight. No! my mind screamed. Su Shen snarled as she looked down at me, angered by my presumption. Her jaws realigned and her expression softened. “No?” “He is the one,” I said. “With training, he’ll take me to the Angels.” She entered my mind for a moment, assessing my motives, feeling my sadness

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and fear, but sensing also that achingly cruel emotion -- hope. “Very well,” she said and returned her canines to his neck, this time only to nip at his flesh. A rivulet of blood slid down his throat. She sucked at the wound fiercely, then bent her face to mine and let his blood gush into my open mouth. His essence, his Oxytocin, flooded into my body. The steaming blood coated the inside of my mouth, sliding thickly down my throat and filled my stomach. His cock was still hard and the shock to his nervous system sent it into instant orgasm. As his cock pulsed inside me, the walls of my cunt matched it, pulse for pulse, and as the chemicals in his blood infused my system, they were sent speeding through my veins. And then, transported, I was on the edge of the great mountain abyss. The olive sky opened above and the green verdant valley below welcomed me. In the distance, the winged Angels of Light fluttered away and without hesitation. I launched myself after them into the abyss. The flight was short, a matter of moments, a matter of heartbeats and I flew alone. The Angels, as I’ve discovered, dislike blood. Later, as we walked carelessly through the halls of the Hellfire Club, the semiconscious Bandit supported between us, Su Shen winked at me, a gentle smile on her ageless lips. “I’m glad we kept this one, my love. I sense potential in him. Perhaps he is the one to take you flying with the Angels.” “Not perhaps,” I replied. “I know he will.” She laughed ominously. “For his sake, at least.” I tightened my grip on his arm. He will be the one, I told myself. He is special, this bandit who has stolen my self absorption. He will be the one who’ll love me and live to tell the tale.

The End

Steve Boiseman “Romance is Universal,” says Steve Boiseman, whose first story -- written as a overly serious 14-year-old -- was about a robot who fell in love with a scientist and sacrificed his existence for her. Suffice it to say, Steve grew up on a healthy diet of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein. An avid romance reader as well as contributor, Steve is a member of Romance Writers of Australia and has had his work selected for inclusion in several of the group’s short story competition anthologies. Steve is also a Book Reviewer for a major Australian regional newspaper and is a regular contributor of stories to magazines and periodicals.