THE GYPSY DUEL

The sun was already high in the spring sky at ten in the morning. It's going to be hot today, Karen Swensen thought, as she walked down the dusty main street of the nearly deserted Nevada town. Already, the white cotton blouse she wore stuck wetly to her darkly tanned skin. Her long legs were clad in sun-faded Levis that molded like a second skin to her sleekly curved buttocks and slim hips. She was tall and beautiful, as strong and graceful as a young lioness in her movements.

She turned into a doorway and entered a shadowy room. Karen's eyes adjusted quickly and she looked around what she could now see to be a large room. There were several tables scattered throughout. Standing behind one of the tables was a very beautiful woman, playing solitaire.

She was wearing a low-cut, sleeveless dress that was barely able to contain the melon-solid breasts that thrust out against the silken fabric. Her skin was swarthy. Karen realized that this magnificent Amazon of a woman was a gypsy.

The woman had not looked up from the table. "So, you decided to come?" The voice was heavily accented, low and husky.

"Yes", Karen replied, in an equally low tone. The gypsy looked at her and smiled slightly. "Good," she said.

She reached under the bar and pulled out a whiskey bottle and two glasses. She started around the gaming table toward a smaller, two- person table. Karen followed, her eyes carefully examining the woman ahead of her. The woman was tall, as tall as Karen herself, and had the same strong figure; wide and powerful shoulders, and an impossibly narrow waist. She had strongly rounded arms that revealed well-developed musculature.

Karen brushed back her hair, which sent her own sculptured bicep surging up into sudden bold relief. She sat down across from the other woman. The gypsy's eyes glanced at the sudden flexation in Karen's arm, and a slow smile of anticipation stirred the gypsy's lips. The woman filled the glasses with the whiskey and slid one toward Karen. The blonde picked it up and tossed it back, matching the movements of the gypsy woman, who immediately refilled the glasses.

"I have been told that you own land. A considerable amount of land," the woman said. "I want to buy it."

"It's not for sale," Karen replied, sipping the whiskey this time.

"I will give you an excellent price."

Karen shook her head. "No."

The gypsy woman sat back and sighed, her eyes locked with Karen's. Karen felt an almost hypnotic pull from the other woman, yet refused to look away. "I am a Romany. Do you know anything about us?" Karen nodded in the affirmative.

The gypsy pulled up a medallion which hung around her columnar neck and showed it to Karen. "Do you recognize this?"

"It means that you are the queen of your tribe."

"It means that I resolve all disputes in my tribe and between my tribe and those from the outside."

"That is the custom," Karen replied. She began to feel a curious sense of tension and excitement, one that was almost sexual.

The gypsy nodded approvingly. "You do know something of us. I chose to deal with you, myself, because I heard that you were a woman much like myself. You know the way gypsy women settle minor disputes?"

Again Karen nodded. "I know exactly how."

The gypsy leaned forward, intensity on her face. "I want that property, and I'm prepared to fight you for it. Do you dare to test your strength against mine?"

Karen's heart was now pounding and her mouth felt dry. She felt the quick shiver of excitement course through her body.

"What do you have in mind?" Karen asked the gypsy, even though she already knew what the answer would be.

"We will wrestle . . in the gypsy way!" replied the other woman in a quiet, intense voice.

Karen nodded slowly. Such a challange was not at all strange to the tall blonde woman. Although she had been taught all kinds of holds and grips by her brothers while a teenager, Karen had really only wrestled with another woman twice before. Once with the woman who taught her about the way gypsy women wrestle, and once with the young woman on the wagon train whom she had accidentally offended. The one who had made it necessary to learn the unusual gypsy custom.

Her gypsy teacher had been a woman in her mid-thirties, named Tamara. She, too, had been beautiful; the same height as Karen, but with a slightly more pronounced muscular build. They had gone together into the woods where they had stripped out of their confining clothing and prepared to wrestle one another, naked.

"It is my task to teach you to be the best that you can. Physically, you are very strong. I can see that. Hopefully, I will be able to train your spirit, despite your age. Vida, too, is young, but her eagerness for the duel shows the lack of spirit. But her mother is the queen of the tribe, our best. And she will be training your rival in the use of spirit, as well as all the sly gypsy holds and grips.

"The strength of the body is very important. But so is the strength of the spirit. A test of strength between women is meaningless without it. The spirit causes the competition. When you lock your eyes on your rival's in the beginning of the test, you should feel her desire to defeat you. When you do, it should cause your own desire to grow more intense. A tension will develop between the two of you. No one else will matter; nothing but your strength and hers, your will and hers, your wrestling skill and hers. It becomes a love-hate affair. Her strength and spirit complete your own, and you love her. Your desire to win, to prove your strength is greater, will make you hate her. The woman who wins will have to defeat the other's full strength. There are four tests. Perfectly matched women will each win two, but only after a struggle so long and even that neither is sure until the last moment who will win. They will love each other and hate each other at the same time, never knowing peace until they meet in the final duel."

Tamara started to slowly circle Karen, her muscular arms held out in front of her. "As you and I do this," she had said, "if you have the true female spirit, it will take all of our will not to truly hurt each other. You and I are very close in physical size, and when our spirits clash, we will begin to feel the question between us . . . which one of us is the stronger, which is the best wrestler. First we will begin to feel the sense of competition, then the hatred."

Their eyes were locked, and then their magnificent bodies came together. Karen felt the excitement and the desire of the older woman for real combat between them, and then, each felt the hatred of the other just as Tamara had predicted. Their two naked bodies wrapped tightly around each other; muscular arms and thighs interlocking, bringing crushing strength into their quick preliminary holds. For several moments the two women strained furiously in an upright position in dual bearhugs. Their naked breasts quickly became slippery with sweat as they were mashed together, nipple to nipple. Then, without warning, Karen felt the other woman suddenly release her holds and pull away from her.

The gypsy woman gave a deep sigh of disappointment as she stepped back.

The tall blonde felt let down, saddened, as though something had been lost. She sensed the same feeling incompleteness in Tamara. As their eyes met again, each knew that the love-hate relationship would not take full hold of them. This wrestle was a learning experience, not all-out womanly combat. And so, there in the silent woods, the two women wrestled one another for hours as Karen was taught all of the secret Romany holds and grips that would be necessary to defeat her young Gypsy rival.

And now, several years later, she was once again about to wrestle with another gypsy, a woman who was every bit as strong and muscular as herself.

"I am Yolanda," the gypsy said.

"I am Karen."

The rituals were completed. All that was left now was to fight, woman to woman, where the only measure of superiority was strength. From their previous judgement of each other, and their eye contact, each knew that the other would never give up. The losing woman would have to be wrestled into submission, finally squeezed into unconciousness.

Breath came in short, strong gasps as each tried to get more oxygen to fuel her effort. Each felt the sweat forming, beginning to trickle down her face and her back. And then they slowly took each other within their arms, hugging one another tightly in dual bearhugs . . . then they wrestled!

At first the exertion, like all exercise, felt good. That changed quickly. It seemed like an eon, but actually only two minutes had passed when Karen moved Yolanda's upper body backward half an inch. Her shoulder muscles were shrieking for release from the tension, the muscles in her arm bunched, beginning to spasm, but she refused to let up. She never saw that same flexation in Yolanda's arm, because their eye contact had never broken. Karen saw the resolve in Yolanda. There was pain there, too, but the gypsy refused to surrender. If anything, she felt Yolanda was trying even harder to make up the ground she had lost.

Slowly, though, Karen continued to gain. The two women were grunting now, each using the reserves neither would have thought she possessed. In another two minutes, Karen had Yolanda's body drawn backward as tight as a bow. Their solid breasts heaved and strained against each other. Sweat was now pouring down between the big globes, making them slide and slurp together until their nipples were hard and throbbing. Yolanda's grunts were now half-sobs, and her face was a mask of agony, just as was Karen's, who was now uncertain that she would ever pin the other woman's hard-muscled body.

It took two more minutes of agony, pure determination, and pure hatred, pushing the two women beyond the efforts of even the ancient Olympic athletes, before Karen could finally claim victory. At long last, Yolanda lost her balance and fell backward to the bar room floor, with Karen riding her down. Once on the floor, Karen made short work of locking her long legs around the gypsy woman's head in a strangling scissors. Then, as quickly as it had begun, their savage wrestle was over. Yolanda's eyelids fluttered, then closed a she slipped into unconsciousness. She had been wrestled into defeat.

As the blonde Amazon lay there, still locked into place around the gypsy's sweaty body, she found herself surprised by the strong sexual fellings that their wrestling had produced. Karen almost shivered with excitement as she realized that there would be three more tests of their strength yet to come. This was but their first wrestle. Their magnificent bodies would strain together three more times before the final victory could be achieved. Karen smiled with joyful anticipation.

A moment later, Yolanda regained consciousness, and realized she had been beaten by the blonde cowgirl. They lay there, breathing hard for some time, too weak to release their grip on each other.

There was hatred in each woman's eyes, but there was a respect for each other as well. Karen could see it in the gypsy's eyes. It had begun. Their first test had ended. After two or three minutes, the women were recovered enough to unlock their still tightly clasped arms and entwined legs. They ever so slowly released their grips from around one another. Karen found herself almost reluctant to pull away from the hot, muscular body of the other woman.

Yolanda finally rose and looked at Karen for a long moment, rubbing her neck where Karen#s powerful thighs had scissored her within their strangling grip. She walked over to the bar and grabbed another bottle of whisky, returning to her seat. After a few moments, she poured two more drinks.

"I have never been beaten before," Yolanda said, calmly.

Karen nodded. "I can understand that. But neither have I."

"Next time we meet we will wrestle one another for a final fall, with all the glorious strength of our naked bodies. We will forego the other two preliminary contests, and get right to the final match. Do you agree?"

Karen smiled at the gypsy Queen and nodded. And then the two magnificent women parted without another word.

Two months passed, from a hot April to an even hotter June. Karen was pumping water from the well, getting ready to slosh the cool water over her nearly naked body in a "horse-trough shower".

She was clad in nothing more than a pair of Levi cutoffs that clung to her hips and buttocks like a second skin. She was bare to the waist. As she pumped the iron lever, muscles coiled and wriggled along her arm and powerful shoulders. Her splendid bicep arched upward, the solid deltoid bunched, the great sinews across her back twisted like snakes beneath the heavily tanned flesh.

She saw a buckboard moving along toward the house, and was surprised. The wagon was still too far away for her to see the driver. Suddenly aware of her near-nakedness, she returned to the house, a peeked through the lace curtains to see who it was.

She was not really surprised to see Yolanda stepping down from the buckboard. Karen felt a shiver of intense excitement, an almost sexual excitement!

The Romany woman stood there waiting for her to come out. When Karen walked out the door, still stripped down to her shorts, the gypsy woman's eyes glittered with anticipation as they slid across Karen's splendidly muscled torso. Karen smiled as their eyes met. She sensed a strange energy in Yolanda.

Without a word, Yolanda began to slip out of her own clothing until she faced Karen completely nude. Karen nodded, and then slithered out of her shorts until she, too, was facing the gypsy Queen, ready to wrestle.

Yolanda drew a line in the dirt with the toe of her left foot, stepping across it with her right foot. She had kept her eyes locked with Karen's, waiting. Karen felt the same sense of excitement that she had in the casino. She stepped forward, not crossing the line with her left foot, but placing the heel of her right foot against the heel of Yolanda's. She felt the calf muscles of the gypsy tense against her own. She flexed her own in return. The thighs, pressed side by side, were both hard, like rock. The two big women could feel the ripple and crawl of each other's hard-flexed sinews. And they felt the trembling excitement of the other, each breath pressing them closer together.

"Now, we shall wrestle like true women", murmered Yolanda in a strained voice. Yolanda looked at Karen without smiling. "Are you ready?"

Karen had nodded. Their flashing eyes met as they carefully fit their bodies together, leg against leg, thigh against thigh, breast against breast. She felt Yolanda's spirit meet and challenge her own as their bodies interlocked, feeling the excitement in the other woman. Their arms clasped around one another in dual bearhugs, and each felt the trembling muscles of the other as their contest began. They were locked together as tightly as lovers. Karen's breathing hardened as Yolanda's solid breasts swelled and slid wetly across her own.

She and Yolanda were gripped together in their hatred, giving their naked muscles full vent as they each knew they would fight to the finish. Each woman could feel the sweat building. Each felt the hot, slick skin of the other, pressing her breast ever harder against the other. Their muscles hardened ever more as the hatred between the two women grew. They grunted loudly, and their breath hissed thru clenched teeth. Their eyes were wide and staring unfocused, alone with each other and their test, lost to the rest of the world in their savage intensity.

Yolanda was astonished at the depth of the hatred between them. She had fought many gypsy wrestling matches before, yet never had she ever felt such a strong spirit. She had never lost a test before, yet now she felt as though she was being pushed beyond her limits. And the gypsy felt something else as well . . . a strange and powerful sexual yearning to possess this magnificently muscled woman with whom she wrestled.

She found herself locked in between the blonde's powerfully scissored thighs, their loins jammed together as tight as lovers. Yolanda's muscular arms slid around Karen's back and her fingers knotted together. Then, with a grunt of effort, the gypsy crushed her solid breasts against the other woman's and bore down on her bearhug with all her might. Her mighty arms bulged with effort, her bicep knotted and bunched. Slowly, she felt the blonde's sleek-sinewed body giving way, that terrible strength waning against hers.

She felt Karen's muscular body strengthen, accompanied by a sob of pain and effort, but she held her advantage, though not without a similar cry of her own. Karen's arm separated from hers, bending against the pressure of the Romany woman's strength.

They locked eyes once more and Yolanda was astonished at the agony on her rival's face, never dreaming that her own agony appeared just as intense.

She felt Karen's body stiffen, the leg thrust between hers hardening as the hatred grew even more with the eye contact, and the arms actually began to close once more. Breast heaved against breast and the two women screamed as the last of their reserves went into the struggle.

Once more the bodies separated. Yolanda's knees buckled as Karen's strength overcame her own. Their naked, slick, sweat-drenched chests separated as the gypsy began to sink.

Karen's hatred grew as she slowly, agonizingly forced the other woman first to her knees, then slowly down onto her back. Karen straddled the gypsy Queen's naked body, knees on either side of the gypsy's heaving chest, her hands gripping the woman's wrists as she pinned them to the ground. Both women sobbed with effort as their test of strength and wrestling ability began the final seconds. For a brief second it seemed as if Yolanda would squirm free, and then she suddenly exchanged positions with the blonde . . . but only for an instant. Then their two bodies rolled slowly over and over in the dust.

But in the end it was Karen's youthful strength that prevailed. With all of her magnificent muscles rippling and flexed to the limit, she finally squeezed Yolanda into submission.

Several minutes later, the two sweaty, dust-covered women were standing at the well, sloshing water over their over-heated bodies. Not a word had been spoken by either woman since the end of their wrestle.

Karen turned and stared deeply into Yolanda's eyes. They knew it wasn't quite over yet, despite the outcome of their titanic wrestle there on the ground. There was one last contest to be engaged in.

"I'm the strongest woman you will ever meet," Karen said, exhaustion causing her to slur the words.

"I hate you," Yolanda said.

"No more than I hate you," Karen replied.

"I love you," the magnificently muscled gypsy whispered.

"No more than I love you", replied Karen.

Both womens' eyes gleamed with excitement as they walked into the house, hand in hand, their bodies still naked from their wrestling. They moved slowly and purposefully toward the big bed, lay down, and slowly wrapped their splendidly muscled bodies together. Then they began to grapple again, in erotic slow-motion.