Michael smiled, looking almost boyish. After the two men had exchanged a few more pleasantries, they told me bad jokes from their training at Johns Hopkins.

I could see the bond between them despite their different temperaments and physiques. Noble cut a striking figure-well over six feet, broad-shouldered and athletic, like Achilles stepping from Greek mythology into the twentieth century in a tailored suit. Next to him, Michael, quieter, with a medium build, more resembled an artist or a scholar. I didn’t understand the affinity between them, but there were surely many corners in Michael’s life still waiting for me to explore.

Watching Philip Noble’s glamorous features and manners, I almost felt I was interviewing a movie star. I was conscious of his curious, fresh blue eyes on me.

When Michael went to answer his beeper, Philip asked, “Meng Ning, how long are you going to stay in New York?”

“A few weeks,” I said, feeling a little dazed. “Can you suggest places to go?”

“ Fifth Avenue, the Met, SoHo, Central Park -” He paused. “I think you’d better ask Michael. He knows all the cultural places, though he’s always so busy.”

“Are you also a neurologist?”

“Oh, no. That’s Michael’s field, takes a lot of brains. I’m a cosmetic surgeon.”

“That’s interesting.” No wonder he was so flashy.

“Oh, yes. I love it. I like to make people look beautiful. Vanity, isn’t it?” he said, then tossed his blond hair again and shot me a young Paul Newman stare.

“But if that makes people happy, why not?” I smiled.

“Exactly. God gives a woman a face, but she wants a different one-that’s where I come in. People care about themselves so much that they don’t want to be themselves. But I shouldn’t complain.” He shrugged. “I live off people’s vanity.”

“Or taste,” I added. “If faces are works of art that reflect the taste of their owners, then we should appreciate their efforts to enhance.”

Noble looked at me deeply with his sparkling, fathomless eyes. “Good. I like that, Meng Ning. But I’m afraid I’ll never see you as a patient. Not only do you not need a different face, but I’m sure many of my patients would want one as naturally beautiful as yours.”

Embarrassed by this flattery, I sipped my water, then uttered a shy “Thank you, Philip, but you’re overpraising me.”

Noble signaled with his head to an elegant, fortyish woman at the table across from us. “See the lady over there? You find her beautiful?”

I looked and exclaimed, “Oh, yes!”

He shook his head, his silky hair shifting like waves under the moonlight. “To be blunt, I find her look totally repulsive.”

I was horrified to hear this. “But why?”

“Because there’s nothing natural about her. It’s all work under a skillful knife.”

“How can you tell?”

“I’m the expert. Too bad she didn’t come to me. I could have taken another ten years off her original fiftyish face.”

“Oh, heavens!”

Philip reached to pat my hand. I noticed his gold cuff links-miniature sculptures of that Egyptian queen who may be the most beautiful and mysterious woman in history.

“Meng Ning, your naïveté is very charming.”

I studied Noble’s perfectly chiseled features. Was this beautiful Romeo’s face also the masterpiece of an adroit knife?

As if he were a mind reader, Philip smiled. “While I’m a plastic surgeon myself, I don’t trust any colleagues in my specialty. So I’d never put my face at risk in their hands, not even twenty years from now.”

I didn’t know how to respond to this.

Philip cast another glance at the fiftyish woman who looked forty before he resumed the conversation-in a different thread. “How long have you known Michael?”

“A few weeks,” I said, feeling a little tense. “And you’ve known Michael for much longer.”

“Almost twenty years,” he went on, creasing his thick brows. “Since high school, Michael has never failed to amaze me. When we all went out to movies or a bar, he’d stay in the dorm burying himself in all kinds of books. He always said life is too short to learn about all the things he’s interested in. This guy never wastes a minute and works like a dog to get what he wants. Back at Johns Hopkins, often he didn’t even bother to eat, so I’d bring him back pizzas or Chinese takeout.”

I enjoyed watching Philip’s facial expressions swim effortlessly from one emotional zone to another. How many more faces did this Romeo have?

He continued. “Michael went to Hopkins on scholarships, you know, because his parents died when he was a teenager. It was very hard for him-”

Right then Michael returned as the gray-haired waiter came with our entrees.

“Enjoying a good conversation?” Michael asked. I felt his hand warming the nape of my neck.

“Is everything OK?” Philip shifted sideways for the waiter to put down our plates.

“Fine, it was just a patient asking for a prescription.”

I smiled up at Michael. “Philip was telling me how smart you are,” I said, feeling stirred by his soft, caring touch.

Just then Philip Noble excused himself and went back to his table.

I smiled at Michael before I dug my fork into the lobster. Still so fresh and alive, it looked as if he (I liked to think the lobster was a he and the shrimp a she) was just out of the ocean. Bad karma. Both for myself and for “him,” I thought, while spearing a juicy piece and putting it into my mouth.

Was it my mother or my father?

“Good?” Michael asked.

“Couldn’t be better.” I licked my lips.

We arrived home at eleven. Riding up in the elevator with our bodies touching, I was aware of Michael’s desire. The floor indicator seemed to blink forever. When it finally read twenty-eight, Michael took my hand and we walked out. He found his key, opened the door, and let us in. Soundlessly he closed the door, and, without a word, led me straight into the bedroom. Knowing what he was going to do to me in a while, my heart flipped to allegro tempo.

He took off his tie and jacket and tossed them over a chair, then came over to embrace me. He nibbled my earlobe and kissed my neck while his arms closed around me, his hands reaching to unzip my dress.

“Michael”-I was still not used to being so intimate with a man-“please turn off the light.”

“But, Meng Ning-”

“Michael, please.” I insisted until he gave in.

Instantly, dimness fell over the room, with only the moonlight illuminating one side of his face. Eyes intent in the dim light, his hands worked to take off my dress and peel off my stockings. When he tried to unhook my bra, I pulled his hands away. The disappointment on his face pained me, but I felt too shy to be naked-I wasn’t even used to looking at my own nude reflection in the mirror.

“Meng Ning, let me-”

“Maybe later,” I said, disentangling from his grasp, then swiftly jumping into bed and pulling the sheet over me.

Michael’s eyes never left me while he was unbuttoning his shirt, pulling off his pants, and slipping off his underpants. Though fully covered, I felt completely exposed by his stare.

It was the first time I had seen him, or any other man, totally naked. I almost let out a cry-he had so much hair! Like a teenager scrutinizing the painting of a nude for the first time, I anxiously studied his body. My gaze consumed his profile, his broad chest, the long stretch of his thighs and legs, the pleasing curve of his hips, until it finally fell on that which I’d been avoiding looking at. Did he feel pain that it swelled so much? What would happen if it kept ballooning? I remembered the unspeakable sensation I’d experienced from this swelling under the watchful moon on the remote island of Cheung Chau. I felt my color rising and pulled my eyes away.

Bathed in the moonlight streaming in from the window, Michael’s skin appeared ivory, while his face glowed. He came toward me as if his movements were connected to roots deep under the earth. Then, swiftly, he slipped into bed next to me. I felt his cologne and body warmth filling up the air underneath the bedsheet when the honking of a car slashed the air outside the window.