The tomato came out of the front door of her small house and walked directly toward a Lincoln Town Car that was parked just beyond Lola. Nice jacket, she said to Lola as she passed by.
“Would you like to have it?” Lola asked in an awkward gesture of friendliness that she hoped covered her desperation to find out more about this tomato. She had heard that people did this in some other places – Japan, maybe? – and suddenly it seemed like offering another woman her red leather jacket on a hot summer day was a normal thing to do.
The tomato stopped, turned, and laughed, taking Lola in fully from head to toe for the first time. Lola wore a long black cotton skirt, a white shirt with her black lace bra peeking out, and heavy silver jewellery. Would I like it? The tomato moved closer and stroked Lolas arm, checking the fabric, checking Lola, deciding. Sure. It looks like a good fit.
“Thank you,” whispered Lola in her smallest voice, though she knew she was the one who was supposed to say, “you’re welcome.” But she could not keep her eyes off the tomato - she had long curly red hair down to her waist, large breasts, great cleavage in a tight black tank top, and black jeans that looked to Lola like they were just about a size 14, maybe even 16. She was almost, Lola realized, identical in body to Lolas new look, and if Lola dyed her black hair red, she thought she could almost be her twin.
“My friends call me Cherry,” said the tomato, slipping on the red jacket. And you are…?
“Lola Maria Estonia. Can I come with you?” Odd words were flowing out of her mouth, like someone else was writing them – better dialogue, she thought with a sharp twist of spite, than anything she had ever read in Keith’s agonized attempts at novel writing.
“Do you know where I’m going?”
Lola couldn’t guess, but she knew she wanted to be there. The curves on the tomato’s hips were hypnotizing her, and she thought that maybe she wanted to touch them.
“To meet a man?” she guessed timidly. “My boyfriend’s in love with you – maybe it’s him?”
Cherry tomato laughed again, a long rollicking laugh, a laugh that Lola wanted to climb inside of and ride on, knowing it would carry her to a new place. They’re all in love with me, sweetheart, Cherry finally said. “Let’s go eat meat.”
The steakhouse was wood-panelled with high leather booths, an old-style male bonding place, complete with a private cigar room. Cherry tucked Lola into the booth seat and then slid in beside her. They each ordered the 14-ounce prime rib, baked potatoes with sour cream and butter, no salads, and chocolate amaretto pie for dessert.
“It’s just phone sex for me, sweetheart,” Cherry explained between bites. “But as soon as I tell them I have long red hair and big tits, they’re in love. The attention is great, along with the money. It supports my other passion.”
“Keith has phone sex with you? Keith… pays… for phone sex??” Lola repeated in amazement.
“Keith? I don’t remember their real names very well -what’s he like?”
“Well, he’s really smart… and he talks a lot, but I guess everyone must to have phone sex. His words – they’re fancy, poetic, sometimes a bit over-the-top – he’s a writer.”
Cherry scooped up the last bite of pie and turned to feed it to Lola. “Open wide, sweetheart.” As it melted in Lola’s mouth, Cherry began to kiss her and lick her lips clean. “Yes, I know which one he is, baby,” she whispered through the kisses. “I call him ‘Bacon’ – I give them all meat names, my little joke, but they think it’s a macho compliment – he’s a bit… greasy, isn’t he? Doesn’t seem like your type.”
Lola couldn’t imagine why she should care, and could barely remember who he was herself. This woman, this tomato, this lovely plump mirror image of herself, was driving her wild with her lips and her fingers running up and down her legs. Maybe this is why I just keep eating so much, she thought, to be worthy of someone like her.
Cherry’s fingers were high up her thigh under her skirt, beginning to stroke rhythmically towards her clit, when the waiter reappeared with the check. “Thanks,” Cherry said to him, “we do have to hurry and we have someplace to be.”
Lola assumed it would be her bed, or the backseat of the car, or any place nearby where they could continue. “No, sweetheart, I’m an organizer,” the tomato explained to her on the way out. We have a demonstration this afternoon. Consider yourself recruited – I promise youll think of yourself differently after the day is done.
A group of about twelve women had gathered in the park just off of the Walnut Street open-air mall. They were holding signs, and there were hundreds of other people on the mall, most of them barely paying attention to the women. A few of the women were on rollerblades, one was doing tricks on her skateboard, and another had a baby on her hip.
Cherry parked the car and turned to Lola.
“They’re waiting for me… for us, to start, baby. Take your shirt off.”
“What?”
“Your shirt – take it off. Here, I’ll help.”
Lola decided this was a game, a tease, so she let Cherry unbutton her shirt and slip it from her shoulders.
“Nice, baby, good girl…” Cherry was unhooking Lola’s bra and kissing her nipples, sucking on them, pulling slow and hard, sending the tingle right down to Lola’s toes. “We should get them pierced,” Cherry told her between kisses. “That always stops the cops.”
“Cops?” Lola pulled away, just as two women with their picket signs approached the car and banged on the window for Cherry. The sign that Lola could see said: TOPFREE! TAKE YOUR SHIRTS OFF FOR EQUALITY!
“Yeah, you know, cops – pigs – that other mostly white meat around here,” the tomato answered. Technically, they can arrest us, but they rarely do, as long as we get the girls with the best tits to talk to them.
Cherry pulled Lola out of the car before she could answer, looping Lola’s shirt into her jeans belt beside her own top she had stripped off. “You’re a goddess,” Cherry said as they joined the group on the lawn, “and you have as much right to be shirtless as any man does.”
It was hot, and there were lots of men on the mall with their shirts off, and nobody looked twice at them. Lola watched as all the women around her took their tops off, in awe at the variety of breasts and backs and skin tones.
“They’re beautiful,” she whispered to the tomato.
“Exactly. So why is it that women have to keep their shirts on? Because they can feed babies from their nipples, a purely natural act? Or is it because women are nothing but sex objects to men, almost like pieces of… meat?”
Lola laughed and stood up a little prouder, her newly plump breasts perking up a bit more. “I’ve never even thought about it,” she confessed.
“I know. Yet if you go out and do it by yourself somewhere, even on a beach, it’s a criminal act. Equality for women is my passion, sweetheart, and nothing makes a stronger statement than this.”
Lola had to agree as they began their march down the mall. Some people cheered, some booed, and a lot of men hooted and cat-called at them. But no one stopped them – Cherry went in the record shop to buy a CD, and though the manager asked her to put her shirt back on, she said, “No,” pointed to a man in the jazz aisle with his shirt off, and then proceeded to make her purchase and leave.