Charlotte

Oh baby, Matt thought, you don't know what you're doing to me.

Charlotte pulled them up around her bottom. They fitted snugly, Matt saw. Nice, he thought. He'd love to feel her bottom through the thin material. He picked up the nightgown and held it up for her to put on, sneaking a peek at her breasts while Charlotte was putting her head through the fabric.

Then he helped her lie back in bed and went to let the water out of the bath. Having set the room back to rights, he returned to find Charlotte snuggled up under the blankets, and she gave him a warm smile. "Do you like Christmas music?" she asked.

"Depends," Matt said. "I like carols when sung well, and some of the popular stuff, and baroque Christmas concerts, and The Messiah - my parents once took me to hear it at the Royal Albert Hall. There was a very large choir. In the louder parts, it made your hair move. I've loved it ever since. But I don't like schmaltz too much, and I hate the lyrics of some of the modern Christmas songs - they can be positively moronic."

"I have a copy of The Messiah on CD - could we listen to it together?"

"Okay. Then we'll have Dickens this afternoon, after your nap, right?"

She smiled and nodded. "There's a CD player in the kitchen," she said. "Not too fantastic, but better that a laptop."

"Okay! I'll go and get it. Can I make you something to drink?"

"I'd like to try a cup of coffee. Do you think that'd be alright?"

"I think so, since you feel like it. I'll be right back!"

Charlotte watched him leave the room. She felt much happier celebrating Christmas than she had in years - even though she didn't feel quite well yet. But she hadn't felt so truly appreciated for a long time. He made her feel feminine and beautiful. Her pussy still tingled and she found it with her hand. She touched her nub, and started to rub herself, imagining Matt was watching her, imagining it was him touching her instead.

Matt hurried downstairs and put water on for the coffee. Doing things might expel the hot and bothered feeling the washing had instilled in him, he hoped. It did. He carried the CD player upstairs and put it into Charlotte's bedroom, then he went downstairs again. He finished his arrangements within ten minutes.

Charlotte lay waiting for him, and she gave him a beatific smile when he came in. He smiled back and put the tray with the coffee and the CD box on the chair. Then he handed Charlotte a mug of coffee.

"Here you are," he said.

Charlotte took the mug from him and they drank their coffee in companionable silence.

Matt, who liked his coffee hot, finished first. "It's okay?" he asked, watching Charlotte sip.

"Yes, it's fine!" she said.

"Good!" Matt said. "How about a chocolate?"

Charlotte shook her head. "Not yet," she said. "This afternoon, maybe?"

"I hope so," Matt said.

"But you should have one," Charlotte said. "Please do!"

Matt smiled and had one. Then he found a power point to plug in the CD player and put in the first CD, and when he saw Charlotte had emptied her mug, he said, "Here goes - to Christmas!"

He switched on the music and sat back, listening to Handel's magnum opus with a smile, and looking at Charlotte who lay listening and staring into the candlelight on the low table beside him. Now and then she looked at him for a moment and he immensely enjoyed the way she looked. He'd have given rather more than a penny for her thoughts, but he didn't want to interrupt the music; there would be ample time to talk afterwards.

After the aria He was Despised, the music stopped.

"Wow," Matt said. "You've got a beautiful performance on CD, Charlotte!"

"Thank you," she said. "I think so, too. Shall we have another coffee first?"

"Good idea," Matt said. "I'll be back soon!"

He went to her to collect her mug. She smiled and put a hand on his arm. "I'm so, so happy to have such a nice nurse," she said.

She smiled at him, and to Matt's surprise he saw a few slow tears run down her cheeks. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped them away. Then he took her head in his hands. He had an idea that he knew where those tears came from, and he said, "I'm happy to be here with you, too, beautiful! Let me get that coffee for you!"

He was back in a jiffy. "Here you are," he said, and then he sat down on the edge of the bed to have his own coffee.

"Tell me," he said, "What do you usually do around Christmas? Can I do something to make it nicer?"

Charlotte looked at him. She liked his eyes. They were blue-grey, and they seemed to be a little sleepy, but she'd noticed that when she mentioned the letter she'd got, they could flash with anger. It was nice to have someone angry for her. It was nice to share things. That was the main thing. His hair was darkish - not really dark, but certainly not blonde. She wished she could run her hand through it. She smiled at him.

"I usually try to dress my house up a bit - to make it look nice, with some candles and a wreath and things - and then I pretend Christmas is a good, warm time. I usually succeed in tricking myself." She smiled a little. "Sometimes I visit my friend on Christmas day, when she's down here. But she always has her family over, and I usually feel a bit surplus to requirements. It's safer here. I used to love Christmas when I was a child, and I had a boyfriend once. He died of cancer. Ever since, I've lived on my own, and Christmas has been a hard time, best spent alone and not thought about too much. Really a time of pretending for me."

Matt nodded. "I know," he said. "You're not alone in feeling like that. Celebrating is a matter of sharing, right? So when you have no one to share with, there's only pretence left." He grinned. "March was worried my Christmas would be ruined by nursing you. On the contrary, it's my first real Christmas in years."

He was silent for some time.

"I really enjoy this. And I'm very happy to be getting to know you; I've learnt a huge lot about you already." He stroked her cheek for a moment. Then he took a sip of his coffee. "Don't let yours get cold," he added.

Charlotte dutifully drank her coffee, smiling a little at Matt's words. She loved feeling him close to her, on the edge of the bed. She wished she could prolong the moment forever. She looked at his hands. They didn't only feel good on her, gentle and warm, but they looked good, too. She liked the small hairs on his wrists, and the shape of his fingernails.

"Yes," she said. "This is what I remember about Christmas, being together with someone you are really comfortable with, and feeling happy, and warm. Being together." She smiled, a little wistfully. "If I hadn't fallen ill, I'd have been on my own now, looking for a way not to feel the loneliness of a Christmas Day, when everything is closed and people are celebrating with their families, and when you are supposed to be happy and cheerful."

Matt nodded. "So at least something good has come of it for the two of us." He smiled at Charlotte, and she knew he meant it. She blushed, and smiled back at him.

Matt held out his hand to take her empty mug, and he got up off the bed. "Shall we go and listen to the second part?" he said.

"Yes, please," she said. She wished he'd just came back to sit beside her - perhaps stroke her hair, or something. But at least he was in the room, and she could look at him, and he looked at her, and it all felt good. Matt started the second disc, and Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs filled the bedroom.

The second disc lasted for well over an hour, too, and when it finished it was lunchtime. Matt took Charlotte's orders with a grin; she obviously was getting an appetite again. Good!

He pottered about happily in the kitchen, and went upstairs with his tray to find Charlotte sitting up, smiling at him. "I'm really looking forward to a bite to eat," she said.

"I thought there was some life coming back to you," Matt said and grinned. He put a tea towel on the duvet in front of her and placed the plate with food on top of it. "Do you think you can manage?"

She nodded. "Yes," she said. "Thanks to the perfect treatment I'm getting." She gave him another of her heart-stopping smiles. "You make me feel quite lively again. I'm really looking forward to the Christmas Carol."

"All right. But I'll want you to take a nap first, young lady."

She nodded. "I guess I'd better," she said. Then she tucked into her lunch with an obvious appetite, to Matt's satisfaction. He sat down with his plate on his knees and began to eat, too.

He usually was a fast eater, and when he'd finished he took his plate out on the landing, and went back into the room. "How did you come to work for March?" he said when he saw Charlotte had finished.

Charlotte smiled a little. She put down her cutlery. "I just applied when he wanted a secretary," she said, "and we had quite a strange kind of an interview. He asked me to have a look at a manuscript he wasn't certain about, and what I would advise, and I had a look through it, quickly. I told him I thought it would be all right, and he asked me to explain why, and I did, and he took me on straight away. He didn't ask me anything about my suitability for the job. We do get on together quite well. March is very formal, you know, but I think he likes me."

"He does. He couldn't but, knowing you."

Charlotte smiled, broadly this time. "He always asks my opinion when he's uncertain. And I am usually right about his things."

Matt nodded. "He told me so," he said. "Okay. And now it's time for forty winks. I'll prepare dinner while you're asleep so we'll have a lot of time together this afternoon."

He cleared away Charlotte's lunch things and then accompanied her to the bathroom for a wee. She held his hand to be sure, but she was a lot steadier on her legs than she'd been.

"I'm getting there," she said and squeezed Matt's hand.

Matt squeezed back and grinned. "Right-oh," he said. "Good!" The walk to the bathroom was done quite quickly compared to the one before; Charlotte was getting confident again.

Still, when Matt had walked her back to bed she seemed happy to lie down again. "I'll have a nice snooze," she said.

"Okay," Matt said. "I'll wake you up around three."

He went downstairs and did the chores that needed doing. Then he went into the living-room and had a further look around. Although he often felt that other people's rooms were unfriendly or ugly, without a single item to please the eye, Charlotte's place simply felt good. The furniture was okay, and so were the things on her walls. There was a small watercolour of an early train station that he found especially appealing - it looked as if you could see the dust in the air under the canopy while looking at the engine come into the shade.

Then he inspected her music in earnest. He quite enjoyed her taste; it was a lot like his own. He took two CDs from the racks to listen to that night, one an old favourite that he had on vinyl at home and that he hadn't played for years, and the other an album by one of his favourite singers that he'd not heard yet.

He sat down in a chair and tried to envisage Charlotte move about in the room. Conjuring up her image wasn't hard, but it took some effort to have her move around the furniture dressed the way she would on office days. Somehow her picture seemed to go back to her sitting on the bed half-naked, after her bath. If only she weren't his charge but his girlfriend...

It was three o'clock before he knew. Okay! Time to wake her up.

He collected a couple of fresh candles in the kitchen and went upstairs softly, for he loved looking at her sleep, and he took in the picture for a few minutes before waking her.

"Hello, sleepy-eyes," he said when Charlotte looked about her. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, I did," she said. She made a face and yawned. "Sorry - I'm just a bit sleepy still."

"Okay. You can sleep a lot more tonight. Want a visit to the bathroom?"

Charlotte shook her head. "Later," she said. "But I'd love some Dickens..."

Matt read to her for a couple of hours, and then he went to the kitchen to see to dinner. While he was busy he heard footsteps come down the stairs and he went into the hall to see if Charlotte needed any help.

She held on tightly to the banisters, but she managed quite well. She wore red striped socks, and slippers, and her robe.

"I felt alone up there," she said. "Do you mind if I watch?"

"Of course not," Matt said. He grinned at her and pulled a chair out from under the kitchen table. "Be seated, my lady!"

Charlotte sat down, sniffing the smell of the cooking and looking at Matt work. He gave her a smile now and then, and he enjoyed her presence.

"Do you cook every day?" she asked.

Matt shook his head. "No, not every day - I sometimes eat out with a friend, and I just don't feel like it now and then. You know...having a meal on your own just doesn't taste the same."

"No," she said. "I know. I try to have a hot meal every day - I usually do. But eating together with someone is much, much nicer." She sat looking at her socks for some time. "It's been so long, you know. I've lived alone ever since I came to London, and in all those years it's been very rare to have someone to share a meal with. At the firm I usually have sandwiches in my office."

She sniffed the food again. "It really smells good," she said. "Maybe we can have dinner at the kitchen table?"

"All right - if you're warm enough, that is."

"I am. I'm really feeling loads better. Shall I try and lay the table?"

"No," Matt said. "Let's take things one step at a time - I'm happy with your progress, and I don't want you to fall back, okay? But you can light the candles if you like."

He efficiently laid the table for the two of them, placing a few squat candles in the centre of the table. He handed the matches to Charlotte, and she lit the candles with a dreamy look on her face.

"Would you like a glass of water with your food, or would you like to try a glass of wine?"

Charlotte gave it a moment's thought. "I'd like to try some wine, please," she said. "If it doesn't agree with me, you can finish it, okay?"

Matt nodded. "Yes," he said, "sounds like an excellent idea."

He went into the living room to collect the wine glasses, and poured the wine for the two of them. Then he sat and waited for the food to be ready.

"Are you really warm enough?" he asked. "Or do I get you a plaid to wrap around you?"

"I'm fine," she said. "Really! And the food smells good - I do have an appetite!"

"Okay. You're really getting back to life!"

"I am." She sipped her wine. "Matt, what do you like to do in your spare time?"

He considered the question for a moment. "Well," he said, "I love walking, and travelling - I try to go on holiday at least twice a year, and I've visited quite a few places. The sad thing is that other people always seem to come in pairs. When I was younger, I owned a motorcycle, and I had a good friend with whom I travelled the length and breadth of our island. But one day he got hit by a car. The driver just hadn't seen him. He didn't survive and I sold my machine."

Charlotte shook her head. "That's awful" she said. "Were you there when it happened?"

"I was. But I was riding in front, so I didn't see it happen. I just heard the crash." He sighed. "It was awful. John died, and that driver was devastated. I was rather scared in traffic for a long time. I tried fell-running instead, but it didn't work out for me. And here, in the city... I do enjoy city-trips, and the occasional exotic holiday, and I enjoy reading, and music. I'm not into gardening. And you?"

He went to the stove and checked the food. "Almost done," he said.

"I'm rather inclined to stay at home," Charlotte said. "Going places alone doesn't feel good, and going out isn't too nice, either. I used to go out with Dwight, but I stopped when he fell ill. I do a lot of reading, and I like music. My father had a large collection of records. I do like armchair travelling. It would be nice to have a friend to travel with." She looked at her glass, and swirled the wine around. Then she nodded, half to herself. "It really would," she said.

"Yes. Much better than travelling alone." He consulted his watch. "The food is ready, I think."

Matt put the pans on the counter, removed the lids, and served dinner. Charlotte tucked into her food enthusiastically, and Matt sat watching her eat with a smile. She didn't eat a lot, but then she'd told him she wasn't a big eater. But she obviously liked what he'd concocted and paid a lot of attention to it.

He had an appetite himself, as he hadn't had any dinner the day before, and the food did taste good. He was not really a good cook, but he could make something very passable when he put his mind to it. He considered his situation and smiled happily. After the main course they had a small portion of Bulgarian yoghurt from the fridge.

"Isn't it nice to sit here eating together? I suppose I shouldn't, but I'm really glad I came here to find you in need of attention."

Charlotte nodded. "You know," she said, "you said you'd have gone to sleep until Christmas was over, but what would you really have done? Without being flippant?"

Matt looked at her pensively for a moment. "Well," he said, "I probably wouldn't really have done anything different than usual. Reading a lot, most of the time, and then being too restless to, and going in for a fit of eating the wrong things. I don't fancy eating out on my own too much, and I sometimes just go for crackers and cheese. I would have gone out to buy some music. I really would have tried to ban Christmas from my mind, though. This way it's wonderful, but home alone...no." He pulled a face. "I might also go to bed far too late at times, and sleep badly. I slept like a baby last night."

Charlotte sat and listened. She thought Matt's way of dealing with loneliness wasn't too different from hers. "I do try to keep my time and life in check, and I generally almost succeed," she said. "Rather like the way you cope."

Then she finished her sweet and sighed deeply. "I guess I'd better go back to bed now. Thank you for a lovely dinner, Matt!"

"Thank you for being such good company, Charlotte! I'll come upstairs with you to see you to bed safely."

They ascended the stairs slowly, but Matt thought he really saw a lot of progress. He stood beside her as she brushed her teeth, and before she lay down he shook her pillow and he tucked her in. She smiled at him.

"I'll see to the washing-up," he said. "I won't be long."

He did, and tidied up the kitchen. He took the dry washing off the line and folded the things that didn't need ironing while the coffee was making. When everything was ship-shape again he took the folded clothes and the coffee upstairs.

Charlotte was asleep. Her breathing sounded very regular, and, Matt thought, nice. He deposited the tray with the coffee cups onto the side table and put the clothes into the wardrobe, neatly piled up. Then he lit the candles again. He sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked Charlotte's hair. She stirred and slowly opened her eyes.

"Hi!" she said. "Mmmm - that smells good!"

Matt grinned. Charlotte sat up, and he gave her one of the cups. "Would you like a chocolate with your coffee?" he asked.

"Yes please," she said, and she looked at Matt as he picked up a small bowl with chocolates - shaped like bells and stars - and presented it to her. She took a star and nibbled it slowly.

"Shall I proceed?" Matt said. She nodded, and he picked up the Christmas Carol and continued reading.

Charlotte loved it. She lay looking into the flames, and now and then at Matt's face, and she listened to the well-known tale with a heart filled with joy. Mat read until he had reached the end of the Ghost of Christmas Present's visit. Then he closed the book.