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Judith’s head was high, her eyes half-closed. The buggy rumbled down the hollow over a little bridge that led through a dense growth of spruce and cedar. Sven drew her suddenly into his arms, letting the reins fall slack over his knees.
“Damn — you’re beautiful, Judie!”
Judith smiled. Her body softened toward him. It rippled with strength. She was peculiarly aware of her strength. It seemed to flow upward from her spine in a powerful current and issue from her breast and her fingertips and all the sensitive surface of her body. A strange desire seized her. She could not free herself from the obsession . . . it had come upon her first the day she had seen Sven after his return.
“I wonder if I can throw you,” she said suddenly.
Sven laughed aloud.
“I’ll bet I can,” she asserted. “Let me try.”
“All right, some time,” he agreed, laughing still.
“No, right now,” Judith insisted, her eyes roving over the muscles that moved under his shirt sleeve.
It was warm and neither wore a coat.
Sven glanced at her and saw that she was in earnest. They got down from the buggy, tying the horse to a tree at the side of the road. Then they crawled through the fence into a little clearing among the cedars, where the sunlight lay in a warm pool on the ground.
“Kiss me first,” said Sven.
“No — after,” Judith said steadily.
So they wrestled. Judith was almost as tall as Sven. Her limbs were long, sinewy, her body quick and lithe as a wildcat’s. Sven, who started the tussle laughing, could get no lasting grip on her. She slid through his arms and wound herself about his body, bringing them both to the earth. As their movements increased in swiftness and strength, Sven forgot to laugh and became as serious as Judith. It did not occur to him that he might have to use his real energy in defending himself until he saw that the girl’s face was set and hard, her eyes burning. He realized suddenly that she was trying to get a head lock on him that he himself had taught her. He caught both her hands, twisting her right arm backward. She threw herself upon him violently, almost somersaulting over his shoulder, freeing her arm with a terrific jerk. Sven turned quickly, caught her about the waist with one arm and pressed the other against her throat, so that she was bent almost double and unable to breathe. He looked at her, saw her eyes were closed and her face almost scarlet and dripping with perspiration.
“Had enough?” he asked, slightly loosening his hold.
Judith took advantage of the moment, and with a twist of her head was out of his grip like an eel. Her eyes were blazing, her breath coming in short gasps. She lashed out with her arm, striking him full across the face. While Sven, half stunned from the weight of the blow, was trying to understand the change in the issue, she hurled herself against him and he fell to the earth under her. Then something leaped in Sven. They were no longer unevenly matched, different in sex. They were two stark elements, striving for mastery over each other.
Sven crushed the girl’s limbs between his own, bruised her throat, pulled her arms relentlessly together behind her until the skin over the curve of her shoulders was white and taut, her clothing torn away. Her panting body heaved against his as they lay full length on the ground locked in furious embrace. Judith buried her nails in the flesh over his breast, beat her knees into his loins, set her teeth in the more tender skin over the veins at his wrists. She fought with insane abandon to any hurt he might inflict, or he would have mastered her at once. The faces, throats and chests of both were shining with sweat. Sven’s breath fell in hot gusts on Judith’s face. Suddenly her hand, that was fastened like steel on his throat, relaxed and fell away. Her eyelids quivered and a tear trickled down and mingled with the beads of perspiration on her temple. Sven released the arm that he had bent to breaking point. He was trembling.
“Judie,” he muttered, “Judie — look at me.”
Judith raised her eyelids slowly.
“Kiss me — now,” she said in a breath.
