It’s true you can’t help who you fall in love with.That’s why, once in a while you see a beauty-and-the-beast combination and wonder if a bit of madness – or “ African’ magic! – is not involved. Betty was only eight years old when her aunty visited with Ugo, her latest ‘catch’.

Come the d-day, we set off at the crack of dawn. By the time we arrived Mark’s town house, some wizened old people were already gathered for the ceremony.

Excitedly, Babs dressed for the all-night party that promised a lot of wicked pleasure. A friend, one of these top government officials addicted to always having a good time, was in Lagos and was having a party for the “boys’. The last time he attended one of his parties, he had such a good time that he begged to be invited again.

FIVE years ago, I’d called on Florence, a very good friend at her Abuja residence after not seeing her for close to three years. We talked constantly on the phone, of course. But when I had to go to Abuja on business, I thought I would save on hotel accommodation by staying with her. She was all for it too, shrieking with excitement when I asked her on the phone. Looking forward to catching up on the snippets of news we’d exchanged over the past years, I enthusiastically settled into the guest room of her tastefully furnished flat. It was quite late and we turned in early. The next days would be more than enough to catch up on our natter, I thought. I had an early morning appointment and was having a quick shower when there was this urgent knock on the door! “Hurry up in there, would you?” Snapped my friend.

DOESN’T it bother you that most of our young men are turning into shameless gold-diggers?” I was a bit taken aback when Stella asked this question outright when she called at my place. She’s a former boyfriend’s niece and a few of the members of his family that I’m close to. She’s in her late 40s, married with lovely children and a fairly comfortable husband. She heads the public relations department of a parastatal and has money of her own. Once in a while, she’d “throw some work at us at the training centre and I make sure she’s well looked after. So what brought on her question?

A young friend of mine recently met the man of her dreams. In the whirlwind courtship that followed, they quickly got round to the conversational games that lovers play. And so it was that Mr. Right asked Miss Right; “How many men have you slept with? The sensible girl immediately reversed the question, to which ‘he answered ‘13’. She then replied with a circumspect ‘10’.

I first met Jimi a few years back when he showed up with Labisi, a good friend, at a party in my house. Thinking he was his son, I promptly showed him where my younger siblings and their friends were. “No-oh,” protested Labisi, ‘he’s with me.” The scrawny gangly thing pushed out his chest and draped his hand possessively around his date.

REASONS people give for committing adultery gets more and more atrocious by the day. Gbemi had been married to Yori for four years after a courtship that lasted almost six years. Only, in the last few years, their relationship had disintegrated and when their son was born two years ago, the love-making stopped.

PROFESSOR Ango Abdulllahi who says he is a Northern elder today angered students across Nigeria in 1986 after he called in the Police who killed protesting students of Ahmadu Bello University, ABU. After the cold-blooded murder of Farida Mustapha, the then vice-chancellor told the media that “only four” students were killed.

VERA always thumbed her nose at women who she said make a fool of themselves by running after toyboys. If she were to have a relationship outside her marriage, it would be with men in the same age bracket as her. So now in her sixties and her husband of over 20 years resting in his grave, she was lucky to have landed a man in her age bracket for a date.

I have always eagerly looked forward to Christmas. Not for what I can get out of it, but for the juiciest events I usually find myself smack in the middle of. Take the last Christmas eve, for instance.

By Candida WHEN did that man you married with such love and hope turn into a monster who couldn’t stick to his vow to ‘protect’ you because he’s now the one actually violating you? You hear about rape cases and how victims are viciously treated without recourse to any form of redress; without giving a […]

As soon as Timi came through the door of the roaring party, all eyes were on her. Not because of her beauty of course. I’m sure if her mum were alive, she would be the last to call her pretty. But she’s always been very successful in her career and, as soon as the current managing director of the firm she’s worked with for decades retired, she was next in line. A divorced mother of two, she’d paraded a string of men of means since her divorce.

BARELY a year after she changed jobs, Abi was excited when she was picked as one of the four executives for a one-week course at a posh hotel. “The course was an intensive one,” explained Abi, 45, “privately organised and very exhaustive. Sitting in a classroom again was a bizarre feeling – I hadn’t been in school for over 20 years. And even more bizarre, I’d developed a massive crush on the course coordinator, Patrick. He was about 45, but was he handsome!?

ONE thing about sinking your teeth into the forbidden fruit is you never knew when to stop. It is a fearful prospect. You are married, probably with a few kids.