Even men who boast that they don’t believe its existence don’t want to taste it. It is one of those things in our local pharmacology that the World Health Organisation (WHO) is yet to figure out. It is a branch of science that is strictly ours. The manufacturers do not have registered names, addresses or trademarks. They need no NAFDAC number and nobody can trace the side effects of this ‘drug’ because it leaves no trace in the blood of its user. So forensic experts can’t use it as evidence against anybody, in or out of court. In local parlance, it is called love potion. Of course you’ve heard of it. You are even free to argue that it doesn’t exist. My prayer is you don’t by any chance or error of omission or commission order it.
Those who have ordered it but luckily survived have incredible stories to tell; stories of its powers and efficacy and they are quick to assure you that its potency is better imagined than experienced. Do I believe it exists? Ah, what do you think? I hear things and see things just like you but, understandably, I am the National Assembly Joint Committee Chairman on Intimate Affairs. So, I will tell you what I have heard over the years.
However, let me quickly put it on record that the love potion is something a man takes willingly. Perhaps for a few exceptions, men who ‘eat’ love potion always ask for it. It is not something that is forced down a man’s throat. He will yearn for it, ask for it. Then it will be prepared for him and then both the taker and the giver will live happily ever after. Never mind the brand of happiness involved because you never see a man well fed with love potion complaining of constipation or diarrhea. He is too high on the stuff to notice what the rest of us think. It is his siblings, friends and sometimes his wife or wives (at home) who suffer on his behalf. In other words, when a man asks for love potion, he is served a full course of the stuff.
He becomes as high as a kite and his loved ones suffer the consequences. This is strictly my opinion. If you think men are forced to eat this thing called love potion, you are free to write your story and I promise to publish it. Now, before you reach for your pen, paper or smart phone, hear me out. Dozie married Ify in a big way. He is a big boy too. Ify is one beautiful babe with a to-die-for figure. Dozie is loaded. According to Ify, her husband is loaded ‘downstairs’ and in his pockets.
He was 12 years older than Ify when they got married. He spoilt her silly with expensive gifts. She spent every summer in Europe and spring in America. All her friends were permanently green with envy. Ify worsened her friends’ already bad case of acute envy by regaling them with stories of how her marriage was made in heaven and Dozie the best man under God’s heaven. Not all of them believed her but they had no proof to put a lie to Ify’s claim. You know how truth always catches up with falsehood in a jiffy on the day they both run the final lap of the relay race? Ify had sent an SOS to her closest friend one morning. Time was 5.30a.m. The sms read: come, urgent, dying. Irene drove like a bat out of hell to the Lekki, Lagos home of the Uche-Obis. She found Ify in her nightwear unable to stand on her own legs. Her ‘doubled-up’ lips would have made Lasisi Elenu’s comic image feel like repackaging. But it was no laughing matter. Not with tears rolling down your friend’s cheeks from one eye that was swollen shut. One of her ankles was broken and swelling rapidly too.
That was when the true story of this ‘heavenly marriage’ was told. Dozie had been battering his wife for as long as she could remember, and had impregnated three of their house-helps. It was when she confronted him with the news of the pregnancy of their latest househelp and threatened to leave Dozie that he beat her into a pulp. After days in the hospital and hours and rivers of tears, Ify and Irene decided to call Dozie to order. A little powder in Dozie’s favourite soup and today, Ify decides when Dozie will and can go to the toilet. She holds the family purse strings. Dozie does as he is told. He no longer practices karate with his wife and the house-helps are safe from his ‘dangling modifier’. He is generally of good behaviour. And I say once again; a man who will eat love potion will ask for it.
There are also those who like to flaunt their ‘staff of office.’ These are the professional philanderers. Every fine girl must be sampled. Every lonely but rich woman must be serviced and ‘obtained’. They are in the business of touch-and-go and have-your-fill-and-flee. Most of the time they succeed in having their way. But once in a while, they get caught and get stuck. They feel up a girl who has super-glue all over her.
A little powder and the ‘designer’ eye-liner is all it takes and Mr Ever- Ready is caged. Yes, I hear it is not only powder-in-the-soup brand that gets the job done. A flirtatious wink can leave a man walking on water. There’s even this story of a successful doctor who loved full-breasted women with long smooth legs. He went cross-eyed each time a wellhung woman passed.
He touched them and left. Until he was breastfed by the owner of a pepper soup joint in the heart of Lagos. He is still being breast fed even as you read this. He has also changed profession. His hospital has been sold to expand the pepper soup joint. Wonderful story of love. As far as he is concerned, he is in seventh heaven. It is his wife of 17 years and his children and aged mother who are gnashing their teeth. Doctor is having the fun of a lifetime being breast-fed. I will tell you more some day because women also get caught and get stuck in this love potion thing. So guys, watch your ways before you eat the apple laced with super glue.
Credit: Funke Egbemode