They had been faithful to each other for many years, but that didn't prevent Andrew from admiring other men. Though he felt quite guilty about it, he had a roving eye which he could not control. Michelangelo never seemed to notice, and since Andrew knew he wasn't at all subtle about it, he wondered if his companion was really completely unobservant or had simply, years before, made an accomodation with himself to ignore Andrew's unruly but essentially harmless behavior.
Samantha Lazare became friendly with her employer and on occasion, they would go out for a drink together after work. Once, Ken Copeland turned up and the three of them went out together. Andrew had heard a lot about Ken from Samantha and he was sure that Ken knew all about him too. It wasn't a successful evening, because the men knew too much about each other and because Andrew couldn't stop looking at Ken and sensed that Ken felt contempt for him. Ken was beautiful and reminded Andrew of a statue at the Metropolitan Museum of a man about to hurl the discus. Daniel Torrent, by contrast, reminded Andrew of another Greek statue he and Michelangelo had seen in a museum in Istanbul of a "Young Ephebe" wearing a cloak and looking sadly or reflectively at the ground.