Happy Birthday Bill

The Compton house was beautiful. While Bill slept, the sister wives cleaned his house and arranged flowers and large beeswax candles and then went up, one at a time to get showered and dressed for their spirit husband who was celebrating his 175th birthday.

The most difficult thing is how to celebrate a birthday for someone who can’t eat cake, who is Vampire, and who is 175 years old. It can be done but you have to be very creative. You have to really know him as a person as well as a Vampire to put together the evening between five sister wives.

Violet was wearing lavender, her dark hair swept up with combs lacquered with violets and butterflies. Renee was wearing dark red, with matching heels. Blue Bell was in trademark blue, her skirts flowing around her like a gypsy. Night Rose was wearing a black dress with red roses all over it. I was wearing pearl grey, embellished with tiny pearls.

There was wine for us to toast our beautiful man and Tru:Blood warming in a warm water bath. We had polished the furniture and opened the windows to the warm Louisiana wind and the sun and vacuumed and dusted. Upstairs in his bath room, we laid out sun kissed bath towels and soap and the bathroom itself sparkled.

We had already eaten and were just waiting for him to rise when he made his appearance. Bill was surprised to find his house shining and smelling of light lemon oil and the day. He saw the table set with his gifts and the flowers and candles all over, already lit and glowing golden on his untouched walls. While was away from Bon Temps (and us) during part of the adventures, we planned to repair and paint his house, using colors already on the walls to imitate the colors he had known in his past life.

“My, what is all of this?” he asked in his slow southern voice.
“It’s your birthday,” said Renee, handing him a warm bottle of Tru:Blood. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him and kissed her.
“Thank you darling,” he said. “It looks to be a beautiful birthday. Are those for me?”
“Yes, and you don’t get to open them until you go up and have a bath and dress,” I said. “Bella will help you, won’t you?” She nodded and went to Bill who took his hand and led him upstairs to the waiting bath.

If all of this sounds strange to the outsider reading this, it is quite strange. Besides the fact that Bill Compton is not strictly alive in the breathing in and out way, we were also in a strange cooperative marriage. Had Bill been a mortal man, I don’t think we would be as generous. As it is, we all understood we brought different things to the man who was the center of our attractions, as well as to one another.

I think the one singular thing that made us a perfect match for Bill and Bill a perfect match with us is we were all romantics. There was that element of softly lit romance and even something old fashioned about us and our notion of courtly love. Certainly we were passionate with him and for him, but we were also very emotional with him and he with us.

Violet brought Bill her love of history and his willingness to chat about the world he had seen and how it changed. She loved that he had many lifetimes of memories as he had said and she cherished the fact that he told her everything, good and bad, about history and about himself. For certainly Bill had had both and he was Vampire and just as there was goodness in him, there was darkness in him and accepting this, was the ultimate show of devotion and love. Because as the witless Jason had said, for sometimes out the mouths of fools came wisdom, if you love someone, you have to love it all.

Renee brought Bill her selflessness. Don’t make the mistake of calling it slavishness, because Renee was no slave, but there was a facet of Renee’s personality that liked taking care of him. He always expressed his appreciation, and perhaps that is why she truly enjoyed it. She was also a talker. She could sit with Bill and talk for hours about things she had read and the news and Bill could ask her questions and she would answer him, pulling him into her head and bringing things out in him that I think represented mortal life.

Bella brought her humor. Bill is a stoic person, who is not given to much expression. A fleeting shy smile was like watching a meteor flash across the sky. But sweet Bella could make Bill smile wider than any of us and even now, we could even hear Bill laughing in the bathroom. No, Vampires are not ticklish, but they do have a funny bone, you just have to dig deep. To hear the beautiful Vampire laugh was a treat. Bella had the gift, and we loved her for having it.

Night Rose brought elegance to Bill. Though Bill had been a farmer as a human, as a Vampire, he was a worldly man, a man of tastes for fine things. Night Rose liked luxury and class. We all had a class and style of our own but Night Rose was very stylish. She chose her clothes carefully, had her nails done, her hair styled, and she smelled like glamour. Not the kind Vampires used, but something glossy and sophisticated found in the cover of magazines.

And there is myself. And here is where I find myself lost for words. I know what I hope I bring to Bill, bright interesting conversation, passionate intimacy, and a world of stories and folklore. But I also hope I bring calm to him. I like to organize things for him and surprise him, and I like to challenge his mind. I know some Vampires find humans vapid, uninteresting except for their blood. I try to never be boring and I love to see him smile. I love to surprise him. I also hope I help him go outside himself as Vampire, and feel himself a man. Because though I accept that part of him totally with no reservation, I know he sometimes wishes he was a mortal man and could feel things like God Speed and the Barrister and Sal and Dude do, that feeling of being a man, intangible and sweet and long gone from him.
Bill and Bella came back down a little while later. He was very handsome. Night Rose had chosen his clothes: A wonderful blue suit and tie with a lovely sheen to it. Bella had that lovely Vampire glow about her and I knew Bill had forged the blood bond with her. She smelled like him a little, mingled with her own lovely perfume.

“What happens next?” he asked in his southern drawl, accepting the Tru:Blood Renee brought him.

“You open your gifts,” I said. “Open Renee’s first.” Renee had bought Bill a journal and pen. She had hoped he would write things about himself and his thoughts and about us and eventually share the book with us later. He opened the ornately wrapped package and opened it to find the plain black leather bound journal and the heavy pen.
“This is lovely my dear,” he said, rubbing his elegant, strong hands over the over. He opened it and looked at the heavy gilt vellum. “I shall write in it faithfully.” Renee beamed and leaned over to kiss his lips.
“Happy Birthday Bill,” she said. “Now open Violet’s.”

He took the package from Violet. Unbeknown to Bill, Violet had carefully gathered photographs found in the Compton house and scanned and carefully restored the photos and mounted them in an exquisitely bound leather photo album, with a brass book latch. Each photo had been carefully mounted and tiny labels described the photos: John William Compton, Bill’s father. Mary Laudermilk Compton, Bill’s mother. These of course were paintings which she carefully photographed. Portraits of Bill’s siblings and a photo of Sarah his sister; Bill’s wife Caroline, in which she was wearing widow’s black; Pictures of his surviving children, even pictures of Andy and Portia and Grand Dame Mrs. Bellefleur; A lovely portrait of Sookie, and finally portraits of us, his spirit wives.

“This is truly thoughtful,” said Bill. He looked strange and before he could ask, Violet, still the queen of all good thing Kleenex, handed him a tissue, to dab away the start of tears, staining the tissue. “I have never had a photo album. This represents a great deal of time and work and research. Thank you Violetta, I love it.” He pulled her close and kissed her gently, softly.
“Happy Birthday Bill,” she said. “Now open Bella’s.”

“Oh, I just never know what to get,” she fretted.

“Whatever it is, I will love it,” he said, gracing his newly bonded spirit wife with a smile. She pushed the large box towards him. He exclaimed over the size of it. “Whatever it is I am sure you spent far too much for it.” He was pleased though, as he unwrapped it, his bright blue eyes, blue and as hot as a summer day, twinkled with excitement.

Oh Bill, for just that one moment he looked entirely human, excited as any man is, over surprises in the form of wrapped things meant for him, to celebrate his being on earth. We all caught his expression and we all communicated in that unspoken way we had that we had all seen it.

It was a Bose stereo. It had wireless speakers that would send the music all through his house and it played the radio and cds. He smiled at it. Bill loved gadgets. Computers, video games, movies he loved anything to do with the modern bits of entertainment.

“You need not fret sweetheart, because this is truly beautiful,” he said. “I will enjoy installing and listening to it.” He stood and pulled her to him and kissed her.
“Happy Birthday Bill,” she said. “Now Night Rose.”

It was a long heavy box, about 6 inches long and 4 inches wide. It was leather with a minute catch and it was adorned with a silk bow. He pressed on the catch and opened the box. Inside it lay a beautiful band bracelet in brushed platinum. On it was engraved in Latin: He is Our Beloved and We are His. He took it out and immediately placed it on his wrist and shook back the cuff of his sleeve and showed how well it circled his wrist. “Thank you my darling Rose,” he said kissing her.

“Happy Birthday Bill,” she said. “Now for Aslinn’s gift.”

Like Bella, I had fretted over what to get him as well. I had hunted high and low and still I doubted its value as a gift. He smiled at me as I handed him the box. He unwrapped it and looked down. “You bought me a journal too sweetheart?”
“No, I wrote you a story,” I said, holding my breath.
“You wrote me a story?” he said. He opened the heavy thick red canvas journal and ran his fingers over the carefully hand written script that I spent hours writing to be neat and make my often messy penmanship readable. “A story all my own. I shall enjoy reading every word of it.” He pulled me down and kissed me.

“Happy Birthday Bill,” I said.