The Juliette Society(58)

But this isn’t just about Bundy now, it’s about Jack. I look at Jack, he’s staring at the screen, stony-faced. I put a hand on his back to let him know I’m there, for him and with him. He doesn’t acknowledge me, but he also doesn’t move away. He’s fixed to the screen, because Forrester Sachs hasn’t finished yet. He’s still got a few more nails to put in Bundy’s coffin.

Sachs reveals something else about Bundy that I never knew. That if any of the girls who ended up on his website regretted it later; if they made a complaint, if they begged and pleaded for him to take down the photos, he said he would. But only if they paid him.

Bundy’s full of surprises, said Anna. He sure is.

Photographer. Pornographer. Pimp. Extortionist. All-round creep.

It’s at this point that Jack’s just about had enough. He says, ‘This guy’s a fucking jerk,’ with such vitriol that I’m almost afraid, because I’ve never seen him so angry. I never knew he had it in him. ‘Why are we watching this shit?’

I have to remind him that it’s his favorite show.

He wants to change the channel. I tell him I want to watch it all, because Bundy’s a friend of Anna’s.

‘Anna should pick her friends more carefully,’ he says. ‘Have you ever met him?’

‘No,’ the lie comes to me quickly, ‘but I’ve heard her talk about him.’

If only Jack knew the half of it. If he knew that Bundy tried to turn me, his girlfriend, into a high-class whore, he’d do more than just curse at the TV and try to change the channel.

That’s why he can never know.



The TV cameras have tracked down Kirsten’s parents, Gil and Patty, to say their piece. Gil’s an oil executive. Patty’s a housewife. They’re standing together in the driveway of their mansion, putting on a show of strength, despite being locked in a bitter divorce battle.

‘My little girl would never do the things they said she did,’ says Gil. ‘I’m going to take this up in Congress. They should censor the entire internet. Clean it of all of this filth, erase those images that pervert took of my little girl.’

He pauses, then decides he hasn’t made a strong enough case, and adds, ‘So her little brother never sees them.’

It doesn’t sound like Gil knows what the internet is. He’s an oil executive who’s completely out of touch with the real world, whose secretary handles all his emails and even switches on his computer, which he doesn’t know how to use anyway and just sits there like a large, ugly black plastic desk lamp that makes a lot of noise.

It’s as if he doesn’t comprehend something quite fundamental about the internet: one stupid mistake and it will stay with you.

And Kirstin apparently didn’t know that either – even though she used to spend eighty percent of her waking life browsing, texting, messaging, uploading – which is how she got into this mess in the first place. She met Bundy online, agreed to meet him at a bar. The rest is internet history.

Now, she’s no longer Kirstin. She’s ‘Dirty Blonde Cocksucker #23’ on Filthy Rich Bitches. She’s fifteen million uniques alone during the second ad break of Forrester Sachs Presents. Kirstin has just become instant jerk-off material for several million sleazy guys who would never have linked her face to a name if Forrester Sachs hadn’t done all the hard work for them. Not just in America, but all over the world. Hotlinked and reposted to porn blogs from Azerbaijan to the Cayman Isles. And it’s not just Bundy’s brand that’s gone global, his website spiked so hard that his server temporarily went down and his ad revenue soared.

This poor girl is dead. Bundy’s rich.

Life is so unfair. It really fucking sucks.

But Bundy, he’s gone to ground. He’s disappeared and no one can find him. And because Forrester Sachs can’t get to him for an exclusive interview, his producers convince someone else to talk for Bundy.

Bundy’s mom, Charmaine.

‘After the break… ’ says Sachs.

‘We talk to Bundy Tremayne’s mother…

‘To hear what she has to say about her son.’



During the commercial, I fetch Jack a beer, and while I’m in the kitchen, I call Anna. She doesn’t pick up. I text her instead.



BUNDY. WTF!



She doesn’t text back in the time it takes me to pull the beer from the refrigerator, so I leave my phone on the counter and lock it, in case Jack wanders in.

I bring him in his beer just in time to see Charmaine standing on the balcony of her beachside condo. The condo that Bundy bought for her. The condo that will be repossessed if he doesn’t keep up the monthly payments – because Charmaine doesn’t have an income of her own. So I’m sure she jumped at the chance to appear on primetime TV to beg for Bundy’s return.