New England is a very special place to be during the Christmas season.  There's always snow and sleigh rides.  Parts of the region are very hilly, meaning there are several places to lose the kids with their sleds for a day.  Inland, particularly in Massachusetts, and Vermont, there are numerous ski resorts whose owners, while rueing the normal loss of income between Christmas Day and New Year's, are decidedly happy to see the arrival of the season.

While the Christmas season, and winter in general, is a very pleasant social time, there is a another attitude unique among New Englanders.  It's not really hard to understand, in an area which boasts such a large tourist industry.  When the tourists arrive, all of the residents, even those not directly involved with tourist industries, welcome them with open arms, and they are genuinely happy to see them.  Until those tourists buy local property and become summer residents.

The local residents will make a new full-time resident feel very welcome, but if there are suspicions that a homebuyer may only be buying a place for vacations, they tend to dislike that person.

Melinda had suffered such a fate, when she first arrived in Brattleboro, Vermont, two years before.  She was leaving New York, following a bitter divorce, which had been surrounded by the fact that she had been so highly successful in her advertising career. After her divorce, she had left the advertising firm and had moved to Vermont, in the hopes that new surroundings would give her a better attitude.

With the advent of electronic mail systems and the Internet, it was no longer necessary for her to remain in the city to work. She had established a high-speed T-1 connection to the Internet and did consulting worked for her old firm on a consulting basis, earning more than enough to pay her living expenses, including the T-1 line.  Now, she pretty much worked only when she wanted.

But there were still trips to be made to New York from time to time, some of them fairly lengthy, especially in the time immediately after she had moved.  This caused the residents to think that she was a summer resident, no matter what she said, until she spent her first winter there.

Melinda was a beautiful brunette of thirty-six.  Her black hair was worn long, framing a slightly oval face, highlighted by almond-shaped hazel eyes and full, sensual lips.

Carol was from Maine.  She had moved to Brattleboro when her husband had taken a job at a nearby nuclear plant, where she had taken a job in the Visitors Center.  Later, when he wanted to move to Florida, she balked, fearful of leaving her native New England, and they, too, had divorced.

Carol had made many friends in Brattleboro in the last three years of her marriage there.  She had flirted briefly with the idea of returning to Maine, but, upon reflection, she decided that she would rather remain with her newer friends, like Melinda.

Carol was thirty-four, with short red hair, green eyes, and beautiful features on a slightly round face.

Betty had been born and raised right in Brattleboro.  Her father had been an engineer at that same nuclear plant.  After he graduation from high school., she had taken a job at a local restaurant as a waitress, and had never looked back.  At twenty-seven, she was a brunette with blue eyes and the smiling face of a movie star.

Shelley, a thirty-three year old, blue-eyed, long-haired blonde beauty had moved from New Haven about a year before Melinda. She didn't work because her deceased parents had been very wealthy.  Shelley had never been married because she was a lesbian who had avoided long-term committments.  And, although the lesbian community in Brattleboro was small, Shelley had never suffered for lack of attention. Outside of that community, only her closest friends knew of her orientation.  Those friends were Melinda, Carol, and Betty.

The four women were all the closest of friends.  Once a week, they bowled together, often demonstrating the competitive nature that each possessed.  This might be followed with drinks in the bar, and pool playing, demonstrating that nature even more.  Usually, when the weather was warm, there was a barbeque at one of their homes, sometimes twice a week.  At least two of them would be running together in the afternoons.  You would find them together at parties, in restaurants for dinner, sometimes at movies together.  The social life of each woman usually involved one of the other three, with the exception of Shelley's sexual escapades.

But the one place that you would always find them all, six days a week, in the local gym.  If you made allowances for skin tone, covering their heads and hair, you would never be able to tell them apart.  Each of them was around five-seven, not varying more than a quarter inch from that mark.  Each of them weighed one hundred and forty pounds, not varying more than five pounds.  Each of them had the same measurements, down to their shoe sizes, not varying more than half an inch.  And each had a thirty-eight inch bust, which, as we will soon demonstrate, was her pride and joy.

Each of them also possessed the same passion for fitness, pushing each other to lift more weight, run further or faster, increase flexability, something.  One might think that, with this passion for strength between them, they might be inclined to frequently test their strength against each other.  Such was not the case.  The subject never came up between them.

Well, almost never.  Four years before, the four of them had a party at Shelley's house.  Each was dressed to kill, in a minidress, heels, and stockings.  After several drinks, Shelley staggered under the mistletoe and turned around to look at her friends.  She saw Melinda first, who laughed at the idea that her friend was going to try to kiss her.

Melinda got down on her knees at the cocktail table and put her elbow down.  "Tell you what, Shell.  If you can take me, you can kiss me."

Laughing, Shelley got on her knees on the other side of the table and the two engaged in the most difficult arm wrestling match that either had ever had.  At the end, the two sweat-soaked competitors were not smiling, not giggling, and were completely sober.  Shelley had won and she and Melinda had kissed for an eternity.

As the kiss broke, Melinda took a deep breath and smiled at her friend.  "Well, I'm not ready to switch yet, but that's one of the best kisses I've ever had!"

And that was the start of the annual Christmas Party.

Two women would pair off, as soon as one stepped under the mistletoe.  The woman who walked under chose her opponant, and those two engaged in some sort of test of strength.  The second set of women, as soon as one of them walked under the mistletoe, would also engage in a test of strength.  After that, there would be eating and drinking while the two winners recovered. There was also a consolation contest between the first two losers. Then, when one of them walked under the mistletoe, the final, and longest-fought contest of the evening would occur.  Thus the pecking order for the next year was established.

Sometimes, particularly when Shelley walked under the mistletoe, the contests took on a more sensual nature.  After all, all three of her friends were beautiful and reluctant to deny each other anything at this party, except victory at their own expense.  More than once, the women stood under the mistletoe, chest to chest and eye to eye.  And strangely, to their own way of thinking, each of them enjoyed it immensely.  In fact, the contests were now all breast to breast.  Each woman was proud of her breasts, each saw it partially as a source of her power, both physical and sexual.  Because of this, each was particularly pleased to match this portion of heself against a rival.

Each of them, over the years, had been defeated by Shelley - she had claimed her kiss from each as a prize.  The sexuality of their annual duel had grown to the point where all the normal societal rules were gone, at least for that one evening.  Kisses now passed freely between the women after their struggles and, more than once, a hot passionate kiss between two contestants had actually become part of their duel.

Two years before, the two winners, Shelley and Betty, had agreed to meet bare-breasted under the green sprig.  Each held the strength of the other in check for twenty minutes.  Their wills had clashed as mightily as their breasts and their muscles.  Last year, it had been Betty and Carol.  They, too, met breast to naked breast.

This year, with the party at Melinda's house, three rounds of heavily-spiked egg nog made the circuit, and the women were laughing merrily, as only friends can.  It was especially strange, given the tension that always cropped between them on this particular night.  Perhaps it was beecause all four knew that, no matter what happened between them tonight, their friendship would endure.

It was nearly eight o'clock when Betty rose from the couch and put her glass down on the cocktail table.  She smoothed down the dark green minidress that matched her eyes, so that the hem covered up the garter belt which held up her nude stockings.  She walked toward the front door on her black high-spike heels, with her friends watching the play of the muscles of her strong calves with each step.  She stepped into the narrow archway where the mistletoe hung above.  Stepping underneath it, she turned and look squarely at Melinda.  "Come on, girl.  Let's get this over with."

Melinda nodded and rose, smoothing down her own white minidress as she walked over to join Betty in the archway.  Betty watched her rival's leg muscles as she moved.  As Melinda approached the archway, the two women locked eyes.  Suddenly, as the green eyes and the blue eyes clashed, the others could see that they were no longer friends, but deadly rivals.  Their eyes remained locked as they began to press together in the archway, each intent on nothing less than the defeat of the other.

With the two full-breasted women standing in the archway, there wasn't room for much else.  The two women pressed together, breast against breast, each with equal firmness, each yielding only as much as her rival.  The two flat somach's pressed together now, the calf muscles beginning to bulge as they pressed harder into each other with their legs.

Each woman could feel the thigh of the other against her own.  Slowly, their hands began to move out from their sides, stretching to their full length.  With a sensuality which had to be seen to be believed, the fingers of the two women began to interlace.  Their eyes were still locked, and each was breathing deeply, forcing her breasts even more tightly against her rival's.

Each woman slowly pressed herself even closer, as the arms began to strain, both to press the other back, and to try and bend the other's fingers back.  Melinda's head went over Betty's right sholder, and Betty's did the same.  The women began to breathe harder, each gasping slightly as all of her strength met all of her rival's.  Both women turned their faces up slightly, eyes closed, teeth bared, as each strained against the other.  Two beautiful faces, made even more beautiful by their efforts to defeat each other.

Melinda let out a quick, strong grunt, which broke the silence and the two competitors let loose with a torrent of grunts and squeals as their long duel went on.  For five minutes, these two beautiful, remarkably conditioned women stand dead still in the center of the narrow archway.  Sweat covers their faces, matting their hair.  Their clothing sicks to their skin, dark spots forming on their backs and under their arms as the signs of their efforts appear.

Shoulder muscles stood out on both women, forearms flexed like corded steel cables.  Calf muscles stood out under their hose, with devastating sharpness and, the longer they pressed, the tighter and harder their thighs appeared to be.

Melinda pushed Betty back half a step, against the frame of the archway,as the two women strain onward.  Betty cried out, shaking her mop of red hair, causing it to fling sweat in all directions.  Her face became  even more distorted with effort as she pressed her brunette rival back to the center, then against the far end of the archway.  Now the two women were sobbing, as though their very lives depended on the outcome of their duel.

Suddenly, Melinda began to force Betty's hands back.  Screaming, crying, sobbing with effort, Betty slowed her rivals' progress, then sank to her knees.  But it wasn't over yet, and both women know it.  To end their duel, Betty must give up, ask for "Mercy".

The redhead continued to cry, continued to strain, for a full minute, then, in a voice barely above a whisper, said "Mercy".  The brunette immediately eased up and fell to her own knees with her rival.  After two minutes, they had the strength to release each other's hands and embrace each other.

Three minutes later, they were in chairs on opposite sides of the living room.  Tomorrow, they might be running together.  They would definitely be in the gym together, but tonight, the competitive juices between them would be running too high.  Once the environment changed, everything would be all right between them.  But not tonight.

Carol slipped out of her navy dress and walked over to the archway in black bra, panties, garter belt, hose, and navy blue high heels.  Once there, she slipped off her bra and tossed it to Shelley, who had watched her opponant's muscular legs stride into the archway with great interest.  "Come on, baby.  Let's see if you hug as good as you kiss."

Shelley rose and slipped off her red minidress, revealing a red bra and panties, garter belt, nude hose, and red high heels. She slipped off the bra and stepped into the archway with the brunette, who watched the muscle play of the blonde's incredible body.  They locked eyes as the previous competitors had, with much the same expression.  Breasts began to challenge breasts as did their eyes.  Nipples brushed together and both women moaned slightly.  Then Carol brought the nipples into full contact.  Both women felt them harden at the other's touch.

They each brought their high-heeled feet into contact at the toe, then they slowly increased the pressure between them, leaning forward slowly.  Each woman brought her hands up, and behind them, so that their hands would not touch.  Their breasts began to flatten, and each felt the other's nipples boring against her own.

Slowly, they continued to press together.  Thigh pressed against thigh, stomach against stomach, until the only thing keeping their shoulders from pressing together was the pillow formed by their breasts.  At last, each woman moved, finally breaking their eye contact, to put her hed on her rival's right shoulder, as each began to slip her right arm over her rival's left shoulder, and bring up her free hand to grasp her own right wrist.

Each woman grunted as her rival squeezed with all of her strength.  The contest between the two perfectly-conditioned challengers was one of endurance - which woman could take the pressure on her torso longer, while still keeping the pressure on her opponant?

Thigh pressed against thigh, stomach against stomach, and still, neither woman would concede.  Breasts were completely flattened together, and each woman felt pain there, as their long struggle continued.  Each of them felt her arm muscles beginning to cramp.  Neither was able to take a deep breath.  Their grunts grew increasingly gutteral, deeper in tone, as their air became less and less able to supply their needs.

After  nearly seven minutes of this dueling embrace, Carol's arms fell to her sides and she slumped.  Shelley let her sink to her knees, holding her in a more gentle embrace as she joined her there.  Carol looked into her rivals eyes and smiled tiredly, then moved her mouth to the blonde's for Shelley's victory kiss, which was long and passionate.

The two women separated and returned to their seats, getting dressed quickly.  All four women enjoyed more eggnog, in the silence which can only be borne by friends.

Finally, Carol began to move back toward the mistletoe, and Betty felt herself beginning to tense for her last contest of the night.  It was a tradition that the more recent combatant offered the challenge when she was ready to go.  Carol removed her blouse once more and stepped under the mistletoe, turning her gaze on Betty, who quickly joined her, in a similar state of undress.  The two beautiful women moved together slowly, sensually, until their nipples met, causing each to shudder.

They held each other's eyes for a long moment as they stood there, each taking the measure of the other.  Finally, the redhead placed her hands behind her back.  The brunette followed suit and the two began to lean into each other, bracing with their legs to force the other back a step, against the door jamb.

Breasts were pressed flat and each woman moaned as the pressure on their mammaries increased.  Breathing became harsh and labored, calf and thigh muscles grew to diamond hardness as their duel continued.  The sweat ran down each body, mingling where they were in contact.  Their heads were side by side on the other's right shoulder, the power of their legs holding each other in check.

The pain increased where their breasts were pressed hard together, and the moans which each had emitted only moments ago were rapidly becoming sobs.  Rock-hard abdominals pressed together as each of them sought to get move pressure on the other, and less pressure on her own breasts.  But it was to no avail.   There was no escaping the agony.

Carol pushed Betty back a step, drawing a cry of anguish from the brunette.  Another step.  Betty's back was against the door jamb.  Carol pressed even closer, putting more pressure, more pain on her rival, and absorbing more herself.  But she was close to victory.  It took three more minutes, but finally Betty cried out in surrender.  The two women fell to their knees in the doorway, sobbing in pain.

Finally, Carol rose and offered her hand to Betty, who took and allowed the victrix to help her to her feet.  The two women embraced, and moved out of the doorway in each other's arms.

The final contest of the night was about to happen.  Melinda looked at Shelley for a long moment.  Shelley looked back, the expression between them difficult to read.  There was definitely a sexual attraction, a sexual tension between them, along with the intense flashes that come from a terribly fierce rivalry.  Every year, when these two met, the tension between them grew, much more than it did between any other combination of the four.  Not surprising, really.  Melinda was the first to receive Shelley's victory kiss.  The two of them had battled year after year, never really able to decide which was truly stronger.  And the objective observer might wonder if Melinda didn't harbor some attraction for the blonde.  It was no secret that the reverse was true.

Melinda smiled beautifully, rising and stepping strongly under the mistletoe.  "I might have a Christmas present for you this year, Shelley."  She took off her blouse, revealing her naked breasts.

The blonde rose and joined her rival in the doorway, her answering smile every bit as bright.  "What's that?" she asked, removing her own blouse.  She closed half the distance between them.

Melinda closed the remaining distance and the two stood nipple to nipple, each gasping slightly at the contact between them.  "This year," she whispered, "if you can take me, you can have me.  I'll go willingly and give you the best night of your life."

Shelley felt her knees weaken at the suggestion.  She looked deeply into her rival's eyes, looking for any suggestion of deceit.  "What do you want if you take me?"

Melinda smiled even more brightly.  "My brother's coming for a visit over the New Year's holiday.  If I'm stronger, you're his date for the holiday.  You know he's always had the biggest crush on you."

Shelley felt the distaste rush through her.  "Do I have to sleep with him?"

"If he wants you to."

Shelley froze with indecision.  The chance of getting Melinda in bed had always intrigued and excited her.  Now, here was her first chance.  She knew that her friend would be a terrific lover from the intensity of the kisses they had exchanged over the years.  But she also knew that Melinda was no lesbian, and would find, at least before it started, lesbian sex to be distasteful.

Melinda's bother, Kevin, was a handsome man, who had shown an inordinate interest in Shelley.  But he was fully capable of capturing the attentions of any woman he wanted.  No doubt, if Melinda was willing to offer these terms, he did undoubtedly want Shelley, but Melinda was not making this offer simply to get her brother a date.

Each woman knew that the other would use every ounce of her power to avoid losing the duel between them.  Suddenly it struck Shelley with the force of lightning - Miranda had offered a declaration of war between them.  The tension between them had grown so great that this was offered to cause each of them to fight to the absolute limit of their power.  This was no friendly competition anymore.  Each woman, if she lost, would have to do something she hated.  It was to be a real duel of strength between them.  Would they, could they still remain friends when this was over?  Would either care?  She took another look at the brunette, considering the condition of both bodies.  Both of them were incredibly well conditioned, perfectly fit, honed by countless hours in the gym, preparing for this very night.  Shelley could not say which of them would win.

Melinda's eyes bored into hers.  "I challenge you, Shelley, to the most intense duel you've ever had.  Woman to woman, and mouth to mouth, the whole time, so you can even get a taste of what you might win.  It'll be the most physical, most sensual duel any of us have ever seen."  The brunette's voice was breathless, rushing through her challenge before she could change her mind.

Shelley's throat was dry as she ran the odds through her mind once more.  "I accept," she croaked.

As they drew tighter together, flattening their breasts against each other's, each flipped her long hair over the other's left shoulder.  Their right arms went around each other, slowly, sensually.  As one, the rivals raised their left arms over their heads and, with a slow sexuality that was painful for the other two women to watch, they interlaced their fingers.  "Why?" Shelley asked, as their faces drew closer together.

The strength of their hug increased, and the pressure of their hands to bend each other back increased as well.  "Because the question of which of us is the stronger has stood too long," Melinda answered.  "If both of us are forced to win or do something that neither of us wants to do, then the truly stronger woman will come out.  We get our answer, but at a cost."  The two women gasped as each increased to full strength.  "This won't- end things between us, but, if- we're going to be the kind of rivals- we were becoming, there should be a- reason for it.  And- for the moment- at least- one of us- will prove her- supremacy."

Melinda could feel Shelley's breath on her lips as she spoke the last words until the duel was completed.  "Mouth to mouth- best kiss- against best- kiss."  Their mouths came together and the duel began in earnest between them.

The arms over their heads were trembling within seconds.  The grip was white-knuckled as each woman put forth all of her power into the contest.  Air was increasingly more difficult to come by as the one-armed hugs, though of limited damage, constrained their demanding lungs.

After two minutes the women were soaked in sweat, and only the grips that they held on each other kept their bare skin from sliding apart.  Their stomachs were pressed together and each felt the hard abdomen of the other.  Waists were locked tightly together and thigh pressed against thigh as they struggled against each other.  Toe to toe they stood in their high-heeled shoes.  Moans and gasps escaped their fused mouths and neither woman had a muscle that was not full engaged in defeating her rival.

There was one area, however, where the combat was quite different.  Each woman used her tongue to devastating effect in her rival's mouth.  This was definitely a sexual battle.  Some of the moans that each women gave were due to the arousal brought on by the other.  Each woman used the kiss to try and cause her rival to forget about the physical duel between them.  Tongues caressed each other in a love war which threatened the other more than either would have believed.

Shelley was astonished that a woman so averse to lesbianism as Melinda would be able to offer another woman a kiss that was so potent.  She felt her breasts swell and nipples harden as the duel progressed, and she felt the blatently sexual challenge that the brunette offered her, and returned it in kind.

Which was something that surprised Melinda.  Not that the challenge was there, but her own response to it.  She had always found lesbianism vulgar, in her own mind.  She had been willing to kiss Shelley as part of their annual duels for these past years, but she derived nothing from it.  Now, suddenly, when everything rode on it, she was feeling a sexual response growing in herself.  She used that, throwing it back at the blonde, using her strength, her will, her sexuality, all in an effort to defeat her rival.

Pain began to set into their breasts, from both the hardened nipples and the pressure.  The right arms began to tremble as they continued, the muscles on fire.  The miniskirts were soaked with sweat.  The left arms were nearly convulsing over their heads, and each instictively knew that it would take some time for them to separate their fingers once they were through.  Six minutes had gone by.

The two women teetered where they were standing, as their weakness grew.  The right legs of each, nearly simultaneously, drew back from the thigh muscles of the other.  Neither would give up the struggle and both were of the same mind.  Win, even if you had to finish the duel on your knees.  Slowly, hands still locked overhead, right arms in their death embrace, and the unending kiss of either's lifetime, the two strong, incredibly matched women sank to their knees, once more resuming their thigh-to-thigh contact, each demonstrating the muscle in those powerful limbs.

At ten minutes they were sobbing in pain, still fighting with all their remaining strength.  Yet the kiss continued as before, sensual, enticing, the one thing in this incredible duel that never abated.  But at twelve minutes the kiss ended and each woman rested her head on the other's shoulder, eyes closed, face a mask of agony as the duel now consisted of strength against strength, heaving breast against breast.  The two women screamed as they fought on, incredibly matched.

In the who fourteen minutes of the duel, neither's left hand had wavered, had lost any ground over their heads.  Now Shelley's was bent back slightly and she screamed again, fighting the hand back to a neutral position against an equally screaming Melinda.  Slowly, her hand was forced back again, and again, she returned it to the neutral position.  The third time, she could not fight her way back.  Her hand was bent backward and she sobbed, offering her surrender to her brunette rival.

Immediately, Melinda released the pressure against the blonde.  Their joined right hands fell to the tops of their heads and they sagged against each other, both sobbing.  Within seconds, their left arms were numb.  It took five minutes for any feeling to return while they waited, tears streaming down their faces, heads on each other's shoulders.

When the feeling did return, it was agonizing, pins and needles beginning in their fingertips and moving up along their arms.  The women moaned in pain.  It was another five minutes before they had the strength to separate their fingers.  They fell apart from each other, on opposite sides of the doorjamb, where they locked eyes once more.

"My brother will be ecstatic," Melinda said.

Tears filled Shelley's eyes, tears of both distress and anger.

Betty and Carol looked at the other two and realized that between them, there would be an ongoing war.  Those two would kill themselves in the gym, to try and surpass the other.  Christmas would never be the same again.