In those first heady days of fame and financial success, Moses found himself the center of attention for a lot of attractive females in the village. Although promiscuity was rampant amongst local youth, Moses had, until he was 18, avoided any sexual relationships for two main reasons. One was his total dedication to becoming successful. Women represented a distraction from his long-term goals of financial independence.
But the other reason was probably more significant, and that was that he had never been circumcised. The loss of his parents had come at a time when most boys his age were beng circumcised to prove their manhood. This lapse on his part had gone completely unnoticed. But a sexual relationship would give a woman information that, if spread around, could lead to him being forcibly circumcised in accordance with local custom. He did not want that. Even married men were, at times, dragged into the bloody ritual if people learned that they had been overlooked in previous years.
Who could say how long his hormonal needs would have held out against his fear of adult circumcision? Nevertheless, Moses had found some comfort in the fact that during this time of greater unity, there had also developed a greater tolerance for non-circumcised males.
When he was nearly 19, Jiddy talked him into sleeping with Atamba, a local woman in her mid twenties who worked in the local bar. Jiddy was the only other person on earth who knew Moses' secret about being uncircumcised, and he had faithfully kept it.
"She won't tell anyone," Jiddy promised. "Atamba knows lots of secrets… about me and about a lot of other guys in the village, but she never tells anything. And hey, Stump, she doesn't cost much either."
The time was past when Moses would need to reckon with tribal elders, even if his secret did leak out, thanks to the new religious liberalism. So Moses let Jiddy introduce him to this woman, and he lost his virginity on the floor of Atamba's hut on the opposite side of the village to where he lived, very late one night after the bar closed. Not feeling right about paying for such a favour, he gave her two kilograms of sugar "as a gift" instead, and she seemed happy with that.
"Now you're a man," Jiddy had said the next morning, after Moses timidly let him know that he had "done it". "What do you think, Stump? Was it good?"
"It was okay," he said sheepishly, "but I was worried about someone finding us. Do all the girls do it?"
"Most, if you're nice to them," Jiddy promised. He was pretending to be more expert than he really was, although he had enjoyed the company of three or four local women in the five years that had passed since his first encounter at the age of 16.
The experience had opened Moses' eyes to what he had been missing, and so after that, he frequently obliged various women who threw themselves at him because of his fame. But he always practiced safe sex (unlike some others in the village), and he did not let it interfere with his greater desire to succeed financial y.
Jiddy benefited from his friendship with Moses, often inheriting a friend of someone whom Moses was bringing back to the house. He did not have the same dedication to his job that Moses had, so he was not worried about taking time off work during the day to engage in sex.
Girls lost interest in Jiddy much more quickly than they did with Moses, but the younger man was always able to use his fame to find Jiddy a new playmate.
"Be nice to them. You said it yourself," Moses lectured one night after seeing his friend's latest girlfriend storm out of the house as he was cycling up to it.
"What do you do to make them so mad? She looked like she had been hit."
"They don't know what they want," Jiddy grizzled. "Even they like it rough too sometimes, but then they change when I'm having fun."
Just as Moses had suspected. Jiddy was hitting them and getting turned on by it. No wonder the girls left him after a few dates! He tried reasoning with Jiddy, explaining that his own approach was more successful.
"Yeah, you can say that, Stump," Jiddy argued, "because you're famous. But I know better than you, because I've had a lot more girls."
Moses did not bother to say the obvious. There was no point in rubbing Jiddy's nose in his numerous failures. Instead, Moses resolved to look for ways to subtly influence his friend. What would often happen is that the girls Jiddy upset came to Moses for comfort. He had strict rules about not taking advantage of any of them, however. He valued Jiddy's friendship too much to do that.