Should I beat my monkey or buy him drugs?

In the "Heart's Desire" storyline, I'm at the "a simian revenge" step.

Now, I understand that my monkey is upset since I had him do some errands (getting some First City Coins IIRC?), but he's really asking for too much Prisoner's Honey: I have a little more than 500, he's asking for 1400, and I think it's likely it won't be satisfied with one single dose. "Inciting a Simian Revenge" is at 2.

Does subduing him have any consequences? Will it escalate even worse in future? I.e. how do I get out of this troubling situation?

As spoilerless as possible, please.

Solution 1:

Your problem is in talking to Cora, not in actually getting on the good side of the monkey. Whichever method you choose will lead to the same results. Fallen London sometimes doesn't care how you accomplish something, as long as the thing is done. The monkey will still hate you if you threaten it, but you'll get your meeting with Cora. As a side note, your monkey will be happy with a single dose.

But! The Ambitions are not completely written yet, so there isn't a definitive answer to your question. In every Ambition (of which Heart's Desire is one), you'll eventually hit a content wall, where your quest will stall until Failbetter Games writes more content. Bribing the monkey will remove the Inciting a Simian Revenge quality, while menacing him will not. Perhaps, in some future storylet not yet written, the monkey will enact terrible vengeance upon you; perhaps not. (Personally, my money is on "you'll regret it later if you threaten the monkey," since you still have to play cards with the monkey. But nothing is known yet; you may well regret it very little.)