First off, Mona just doesn’t love coffee, she adores it. She can never get enough of it, though there is nothing like the first cup of the day, prepared just right. For her, the first cup is more than a delicious drink. For her, it’s an experience. It’s sensual, even erotic. When that first few drops touch her tongue, all else around her disappears. She tends to leave the aphrodisiac liquid sit on her tongue, pressed against the roof of her mouth for as long as she can before allowing the coffee flow down her throat. Even then, the flavor is left behind, coating her tongue, her mouth, and her throat. There is nothing quite like it and only her lovers deposits rank higher on her pleasure scale.

But it’s not just any coffee either. Her preferred cup is a skinny free vanilla latte, which translates to a light blended coffee, topped off with steamed skim milk and dosed with a shot of sugar-free vanilla extract.

It’s a complicated recipe and it starts with the right kind of coffee bean. Not to dark or rich, it has just the right amount of flavor without assaulting the palette. To do it right takes a bit of time and generally, she likes to make it herself. However, being a senior member of her house, others have taken up the challenge to learn how to make it for her and generally they do a fine job of it.

What’s even more impressive, is watching her take that first cup of the day. Charles comments upon his impressions of her coffee experience many times throughout the books. He loves to watch her disappear inside herself, divorcing herself of everyone and everything around her as she savors the erotic experience. To him, it’s as if she is experiencing an orgasm in that moment. He should know, he has enticed many an orgasm from her in the years together. He knows exactly she expresses her pleasure. He would swear that they are too similar to be anything else than an orgasm.

Now, the question remains. Does she love coffee for the orgasmic experience, or does she love it for how it makes her feel or does she love it simply for what it really is, just coffee?

We each have our likes and dislikes. We each prefer some kinds of food and drink over another. We certainly like some people better than others. Mona prefers coffee over tea, red wine over white, bedmates who are male over female ones. The list can go on and on. The thing that makes her and her community special is that it is alright to prefer one over another. It’s a matter of preferred choices.

That doesn’t mean she won’t indulge in these other experiences. She regularly sleeps with female partners, drinks tea on occasion and drinks hard liquor over wine. The variety is what offers her the ‘spice of life’. Upon returning to her preferred tastes, the experience is enhanced and the love affair is renewed.

To Mona and her friends and community, there is no right nor wrong in any opinion or feeling. They just are and that is okay.

That my friends is a world I would love to live in.