Him: Older, debonair-looking older artist man (Jeff Goldblum type-ish).

Me: Well, me.

The scene: Walking the grounds of the North Carolina Museum of Art, he is solicitous and charming.

Until…

He brushes his fingertips lightly along my shoulder, which is warm from the North Carolina sunshine. He says in a dreamy voice (which, BTW, is smooth and creamy-sounding like butterscotch), “Has anyone ever counted your freckles?”

It’s like the whole world was an LP, and the needle just screeched across it. I stopped. “No,” was all I had.

He continued on, encouraged, “You deserve to have your freckles counted one-by-one, cataloged and loved.”

It’s like my brain went blank. I didn’t understand English and I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying.

But that would be awful, wouldn’t it?

I have thousands of freckles on my left forearm alone.

How would anyone count them all?

Would I get potty breaks?

Would we need a marker to mark off which had been counted and loved until the next time?

What if it washed off?

Would we have to start all over again?

What kind of person would be that obsessive, and why would I want to invite them into my life?

That’s a hella lot of scrutiny.

I glanced over. He was smiling slightly, gazing intensely at me, giving off waves of oh-so-suave seduction.

Only, he was far less Jeff Goldblum now, and more this:

I shuddered.

WHY would he do that to me?

WHY would he make me think these things. He was…inoffensive…until that point.

LOL!

I tried to put those thoughts out of my mind, but I could never get over it. It went downhill from there through the rest of the walk and mid-afternoon lunch.

The worst part?

He was SHOCKED when I thanked him for his time (after paying my half of the bill), and told him I felt no connection.

And I still sometimes feel a dark cloud over me, as if someone is walking up behind me, and has started counting my freckles…