The Juliette Society (10 page)

Isn’t it painful, I say.

‘Everyone has their limit,’ she says. ‘Mine’s pretty high. When I’m tied up, at first, I feel this tingling sensation all over my body, like an electrical current going through it. My fingers and toes slowly go numb from being so tightly constricted, then this intense burning heat spreads along my arms and legs. Just pain on pain. Until I can’t bear it any more. And the pain turns in on itself and turns into the most intense pleasure I’ve ever felt.

‘Everything becomes inverted. Pain becomes pleasure. Pleasure becomes pain. And I will do anything I can to increase it, to make sure it never ever stops, because it feels so good.

‘I’ve had the most intense orgasms I’ve ever had while tied up,’ Anna says. ‘Orgasms so intense I passed out, woke up still hanging there, and then the whole thing started all over again.’

She says you lose track of time so quickly when you’re suspended or restrained, like someone’s put you under hypnosis.

‘It’s like I’m in a trance,’ she says, ‘an erotic trance. Like I’ve been there for minutes, but it could be hours. I’m outside time and it all feels endless. And I’m afraid of what might happen when it does.’

It’s at that point, Anna says, caught between the fear of wanting and not wanting, that she feels she might go insane.

‘But I feel so alive,’ she says. ‘More alive than at any time in my life, and at peace. I feel transcendent.’

I’ve never heard Anna talk like this before. She’s normally so giggly and carefree. Now she’s serious and I can hear that she really means what she says.

I remember that look on Anna’s face. Now I understand what she was feeling. Now I want to know even more. I want to know what it feels like to be in Anna’s world.

Anna thinks she’s said enough. I know this because she trails off and goes strangely silent, then abruptly changes the subject.

She says, ‘What are you doing now?’

‘Not much,’ I say.

‘I want you to meet Bundy,’ she says, slightly mischievously.

‘Sure,’ I say.

And I don’t even give it a second thought. I know it’ll be a few hours at least before Jack gets home and I don’t want to sit here stewing all on my own.

10

Bundy says, ‘Take a look at this.’

And he swipes through a series of photos on his phone so fast that at first I can’t make out what I’m looking at, except a blur of clashing colors and close-ups taken at extreme angles.

Bundy’s swiping through the pictures on his phone like a rookie salesman so nervous about giving his first Powerpoint presentation to a room full of important clients that he forgets to let go of the remote and races through all his slides at once.

The slides he’s been up for three days non-stop without sleep to get finished in time for this, his first big sale.

All gone, in less than half a minute.

And he’s left standing there, looking up at a big blank screen before he’s even finished talking through the first slide, hoping he’s still going to make his commission this month.

Bundy’s not nervous, he’s just excited. But he is trying to sell me something. He’s trying to sell me on the idea of snorting a line of cocaine racked out along his penis.

This is what the photos are of mostly, I realize, when he lingers on one just slightly longer than the rest. A portfolio of girls doing exactly that. And this is his pitch to the unwary. Not an easy sell, but he’s giving it his all.

We’ve only just met. Actually, we’ve only just been introduced, by Anna. Bundy doesn’t say, ‘hi’ or ‘nice to meet you’. He says, ‘take a look at this’. And out comes his portfolio of conquests.

This is what Bundy does.

He trawls clubs, bars, clothing stores, fast-food outlets, supermarket checkouts for cute girls. But it’s not enough for them to be cute. They also have to be willing.

He calls it ‘making new friends’.

Proof of these encounters appears daily on his website, Bundy’s Got Talent, for a worldwide audience of bozos.

Sounds innocuous. It’s anything but.

In the armed forces, they call it ‘mission creep’. When a military campaign oversteps its original boundaries and shifts objectives.

This is porno creep.

When pornography oversteps its boundaries and pretends it’s something it isn’t.

Almost as soon as Bundy’s new ‘friends’ have made his acquaintance, he pulls out his camera and tries his damnedest to encourage them to do one of three things, right there and then.

Flash tits. Parade pussy. Suck cock.

On a good day, all three.

On a bad day – and, it has to be said, most days are bad days – Bundy will take anything he can get. He’ll settle for less because less is better than nothing at all and Bundy’s really not fussy. On a bad day he’ll get what’s known in the biz as a sneak shot, a photograph taken of the subject unawares. A photograph that comes in a number of specific sub-categories: the down-blouse, the up-skirt, the crotch shot, the nip-slip, the pussy-slip, and so on.

Bundy seems to fancy himself as the Simon Cowell of internet porn. A curator of adult entertainment, a Svengali of sexual talent – because that’s what he likes to call the girls who have submitted to his dubious charms. Talent.

This is what Bundy does.

He buys access, relationships, patronage to people, places and things through his extensive portfolio of girls in explicit poses. To him, it’s a case of supply and demand, the logic of the market. He’s a true capitalist.

But he has far too much pride, and too large an ego, to call himself a pornographer. Bundy considers himself an artist. A fearless chronicler of sex and the single male – himself – in the modern age.

In reality, there’s a vast gulf between what Bundy thinks he is and what he really is.

A photographer by trade. A pornographer by default.

A paparazzo in theory. A sexual predator with a camera in practice.

Bundy likes to call himself an internet entrepreneur and social media engineer.

I’d lean more towards calling him a bottom-feeding hipster.

You hate him already.

Don’t.

Anna tells me Bundy has lots of great qualities. They’re just not immediately obvious. But they are there, if you look past the smirk, the leer and the extreme cynicism that colors anything and everything he does. And because he’s Anna’s friend, I want to like him too. At the same time, I’m more than aware that Bundy’s the kind of guy your mother always warned you about, the one she told you was ‘bad news’.

At least with those kind of guys, like with Bundy, there’s no pretense to be anything else. What you see is what you get. And Bundy’s certainly driven. Just possibly in all the wrong directions.

I’ll give him this. He’s great fun to be around. And you never know what’s going to happen, where you’ll end up, or with who.

We’re in a bar. One of Bundy’s haunts. The Bread and Butter, a regular corner bar named like a soup kitchen. There’s dirt on the floor, dirt on the walls, cracked vinyl seats, chipped glasses and a toilet that doesn’t flush; grime and dysfunction accumulated over years that conveys a certain authenticity to people who have none – Bundy’s kind of people, who have invaded this once-unpretentious local drinking establishment and made it their own.

The Bread and Butter is tended by a guy who’s only got a first name, Sal, a grizzled Italian-American war veteran who’s been here since the place opened and really resents the way the neighborhood’s changed, especially his bar. So Sal’s decided he would much rather insult his clientele than serve them drinks. He insults their appearance, their manners, their parents and, if that doesn’t work, suggests they’re the product of incest; anything to get a rise out of them. And these people think that’s part of the charm, which just makes him even more mad. But Sal has had to bow to the inevitable, because he’s making more money now than he’s ever done. He’s making money hand over fist, even though he doesn’t understand how because, as far as he can tell, none of these kids have a job.

Sal treats his customers like shit, but has a soft spot for Bundy. The reason why is pretty simple. Bundy gives Sal free publicity by featuring the talent he finds there on his website. In return, Sal gives him free drinks. And, I have to admit, Bundy’s really got this down to an art.

Using free drinks to score free pussy. To score free drinks. To score free pussy.

Technology being what it is, he can post the photos as content right from his camera. They go live almost the second he takes them.

This is Bundy’s philosophy.

Submit first. Ask permission later.

Because Bundy already considers the act itself informed consent. And anyway he’s going to make her a star before she’s even gotten round to wiping the come from the corners of her mouth.

Bundy says, ‘You’re not like all the other girls.’ And I know he’s spinning me a line that’s probably worked a thousand times before. But not this time.

‘How so,’ I say, ‘because my mouth is connected to my brain and not your cock?’

He pretends not to hear.

Bundy gets us both a drink, me and Anna. He gets mine wrong. I ask for orange juice. I get a Screwdriver. He thinks I wouldn’t notice.

Cute trick.

I figure he thinks, she’s drunk already. What’s the harm of one more. More will loosen her up. And he’ll make sure that the refills keep coming thick and fast. Then the photos will come out again and they won’t seem so dumb and abusive. And so it goes. The gradual wearing down. I can see it coming.

What Bundy doesn’t know is this:

I don’t drink.

And the last thing I want is to end up on his website as bait for some loser trolling the internet for jerk-off material.

He likes to think that each site expresses a different aspect of his personality, the way people wear a different pairs of glasses according to their mood. Only, like glasses, what you see is essentially what you get. The only thing that’s really different is the color of the frames. And Bundy’s personality only comes in one shade.

So Bundy’s websites, they’re all essentially interchangeable. Different titles. Same content. More opportunities to sell advertising.

‘The thing about Bundy is,’ says Anna, in that dreamy, ditzy, completely endearing way of hers, ‘you’d never know it, but he’s kind of a genius.’

I’m not convinced.

Bundy’s version of genius came up with a website called Red Hot Cherry Poppers, to cater to his predilection for young girls, dumb girls, girls who don’t see him coming.

He came up with one called Caramel Candy Cotton Coochies to express his cutesy romantic side. His girly Hello Kitty keychain side.

And not forgetting NFA – aka, No Fags Allowed. To express Bundy’s fear of seeming gay. Not just casual homophobia. Homophobia disguised as irony.

As if there’s any difference.

All part and parcel of the hipster credo to which Bundy subscribes to.

Racism as social commentary. Intolerance as a badge of pride. Misogyny as a lifestyle choice. Irony as a fashion statement.

You know how gang members who’ve committed a particularly grisly murder get a teardrop tattoo inked under their eye, a clear warning to all their peers that they’ve earned their stripes and are NTBFW – Not To Be Fucked With.

Well, Bundy doesn’t have a tear. He has a tear-sized Krispy Kreme doughnut. With a swirl of pink frosting.

In Russia, convicted members of criminal gangs, bored out of their minds sitting in isolated gulags, bide their time by tattooing a trail of tears, misery and violence on their bodies – skulls and knives, severed heads and crucifixion scenes – that purport to tell the true tale of their bearer.

Well, Bundy’s tells the story of his personality, and it’s not a pretty picture either. Like a parody of body art. A parody of a parody of bad body art. As if God set out to make an example of him, a walking, talking tattooed fool, covered in tattoos that are embarrassed to call themselves tattoos.

Not least, Bundy’s pride and joy. The ink that makes you think that maybe, just maybe, Paris Hilton might not be the dumbest string of DNA to walk the planet. Or else, maybe the kind of genius Albert Einstein always aspired to be.

This tattoo is truly the secret of Bundy’s success, if you can really call it that, with the ladies.

But not with me.

Bundy’s already decided I’m a lost cause and he’s looking for fresh meat. He’s descended on a girl who looks like she might have potential. A pretty, geeky hipster girl with square-rimmed glasses, black lipstick and a Mayhem T-shirt. Trying to be black metal but failing miserably.

Anna says, ‘Just watch.’

And I get to see Bundy in action. I get to witness the routine. And it’s simple, really. And I realize Anna’s right. So simple, it is almost genius.

Bundy’s talking to this girl, and he knows he’s got her where he wants her but she’s still playing hard to get. And so he pulls his trump card.

Bundy says, ‘I promise that once you see my cock, you’re gonna want to put it in your mouth. I guarantee it. I double guarantee it.’

He says it in the cutest pussycat voice he can muster. And, just to be sure, he’s also making puppy dog eyes. Because he knows that if they’ve come this far, if they’re still standing in front of him, listening to what he has to say, if they’ve fallen for this then they’ll probably go all the way, and they won’t need a whole lot more persuading.