Night's fierce, cold wind raged against the picture window. Mania sat at the bar sipping coffee, his back to the outside; a cigarette burning in the ashtray to his left. Holding the cup in both hands, Mania began to sing; his softly seductive whispers filling the desolate diner, "You make it hard to breathe. It's as if I'm suffocating." He sipped out of the bottomless coffee so perfectly bitter drinking it burned like sweet torture. "But when you're next to me I can feel your heartbeat through my skin."

He didn't hear the door rattle softly as Naivete glided gently into the room.

Mania continued oblivious to the intruder, "I wish there was a way; a way for you to see inside me. I've never felt this way about anyone or anything tell--"

"Ugh," muttered Naivete breaking Mania's chain linked mental process.

Mania recovered and sipped his ever-full coffee.

"Why do you always have to sing such horrible songs?" Naivete plopped down on the stool next to Mania.

"They're not horrible," uttered Mania into the cigarette he held loosely to his lips.

"Oh, don't be silly, they are too, those horrid songs about death." Naivete glanced around deciding the room needed flowers. And she wanted a milkshake; a strawberry one with whipped cream and a cherry.

Mania blew out the smoke, "It's not about death, Naivete. It's about love." He put the cigarette down into the ashtray, scattering others away.

Naivete laughed her high sweet melody, "No," she cooed. "I want to lay you down on a bed of roses," she sang. "That's a love song."

"Naivete, the next line of that song is while tonight I sleep on a bed of nails."

Mania looked to Naivete for a response but she was too busy spinning on the red leather stool. Her soft giggling made Mania smile.

Naivete began slowly, "What's the one that Michael always sings?"

Mania cringed.

Naivete tapped her foot against the stool, "Oh, what is it?" She plucked the cherry off the top of her strawberry shake and ate it silently. "I like it so much, too."

"How can you even think about him?" Mania growled

"What do you mean?" Naivete pulled the straw from her shake and licked it.

Mania tried desperately to hide the disdain in his grating voice, "How can you still think of him like that?" He picked up the cigarette nervously.

Naivete looked at Mania sideways and frowned, "Sometimes I just don't understand you."

Mania sighed, "What don't you understand?"

Naivete returned childishly to her milkshake and giggled, "Remember how Marie met him? She was alone drinking coffee and he said--" Naivete mocked a deep voice, "The answers to life aren't in the bottom of a coffee cup." She giggled, "You remember?"

Mania closed his eyes and gestured aimlessly with the cigarette, "What don't you understand?"

Naivete sat, swirling her straw in her milkshake, and sucking on it vigorously to bring the thick shake to her lips.

"Naivete. Naivete Goddamn it! Answer me!" Mania snubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray.

"I just don't understand you, that's all." Naivete stood and walked over to the bouquet of flowers on the table. She began to fluff and straighten them. "You never want to see the good in things." She looked happily at the flowers, "What do you think?"

Mania stared coldly at her.

Naivete waltzed in giant loops, "Don't you see? Michael loves Marie. He loves her and she is so happy. Michael and Marie--" Naivete continued to dance in giant circles singing innocently, "He loves her, he loves all of her, he loves--"

"He Fucking Raped Her!"

Naivete screamed and ducked as the coffee cup shattered on the wall behind her.

In a few seconds Naivete opened her eyes. Mania was sitting just as placidly and pensively as before; coffee in hand and a cigarette smoldering in the ashtray. Naivete stayed down, her knees pulled close to her chest. Glancing behind her, she noted the cup gone, along with her flowers.

"He raped her," Mania spoke softly. He raised a shaky cup to his lips, whispering into it, "He fucking raped her."

"No, no, you don't understand," Naivete tiptoed behind Mania. "Michael loves Marie."

"That," Mania shook his head, "doesn't matter."

Naivete pleaded, "He didn't ra-- He did it because he loves her."

A meek voice from in the corner stuttered, "The-uh-the clinical d-d-definition o-of rape i-is the-uh-the c-c-crime of-of forcing a-a person to su-submit to s-sex-sexual i-i-i-interc-c-course--" Aponia glanced up and, meeting the roving eyes of Mania and Naivete, instantly returned to studding the waterglass on the tabletop, "or-or t-to seize and carry off b-by force." Aponia's voice trailed into silence.

Mania and Naivete stared blindly at Aponia. Its frail figure trembling with deep shuddering breaths.

Mania finally managed a highly pensive and questioning "what."

The figure just shrugged, "F-forcing a person t-to--"

"No," began Mania setting the coffee down. "What did you mean by telling us that?"

The small voice mumbled, "I don't know. Forget it."

Naivete shook her head and turned her attention back to Mania. "Listen," chirped Naivete, "Michael didn't make her-- She liked it. There wasn't any force! He was so romantic, so passionate. He wasn't violent, he was so wonderful--"

"He didn't hold her down! He didn't force her to spread her legs! He just fucked her and she didn't want it! But that wasn't rape! It wasn't rape because he didn't hit her! It wasn't rape because she didn't beg him to stop! It wasn't rape because it was wonderful! And--"

"Stop it!" screamed Naivete. She squeezed her eyes shut and trembled roughly. After a few moments Naivete whimpered, "You're not gonna throw anything else, are you?"

Mania took a deep breath, letting it out in a shudder. "No," He whispered decrepitly.

Naivete persisted in a small voice, "If Marie had told him to stop--"

"M-maybe M-Marie wou-wouldn't have t-told him," Aponia spoke to the waterglass. The diner was silent again. Aponia dejectedly apologized "I shouldn't've-- I-I'm sorry." The voice's frailty impacted upon Mania and Naivete.

Naivete silently returned to her stool. She looked at Mania a long minute, "I don't understand you sometimes. You scare me."

Mania sat, head bowed; eyes closed.

Naivete mumbled some sort of apology and looked depressively at her strawberry shake.

Mania finished the cigarette in his hand, his voice cracked and broken, "If it wasn't rape, what was it?"

Naivete sat swirling the straw again; mixing the melting whipped cream into the rest of it.

"W-what d-did it feel li-li-like?" The soft voice from the corner figure fluttered out like a butterfly, "Be--because it's what you make of it. So maybe just because he--" Aponia stopped again, and began to turn the waterglass between fragile palms.

Naivete tilted her head at her shake and blinked, rising from her stool she glided to the door. "Michael loves her," she stated simply and innocently.

The door rattled harshly as the still raging wind slammed it shut.

Bitter hot coffee steamed under Mania's nose. He sipped cautiously at it. It burned perfectly going down. He picked a cigarette up out of the ashtray to his left. He shook his head, "I don't know."

He turned around; Aponia was gone. So was Naivete's milkshake.

Mania stared into the coffee mug, "Maybe the answers really are at the bottom of a cup of coffee."