Underneath her signature were a couple of web addresses. Intriguingly, the first link was a news report on the BBC news website.

I clicked the link and read the simple report. It was about a couple sentenced for the systematic abuse of their daughter. Of course, no names were mentioned, to protect her identity. I had no doubt that it was about Theresa.

Their daughter, fourteen at the time of the trial, had been placed under the care of Social Services after reports that her parents were hiring her out as a prostitute. Those reports were found to be true, but as a search warrant had been granted and the police searched the home and her father’s computer, the full truth emerged, described by the judge as "a four-year horror story beyond belief".

Her parents had both been sentenced to multiple terms of imprisonment for a whole string of offences, some of which I didn’t understand.

The second link took me to a Russian site. The front page offered a variety of languages. Of course I selected English.

The next page loaded and a face appeared. It was much younger, but it was definitely Theresa. When the embedded video began, I heard a very familiar giggle and a very young-sounding voice began, "I’m Sexy Baby, and I just love to play with cock, any cock. Click below to see me play."

I didn’t want to click, but something forced me.

A series of small images appeared one after the other. Clicking on the first opened a short video clip of a very young Theresa sucking some man’s dick. The next showed Theresa being fucked. It got worse. There were clips entitled "Anal Baby, Gangbang Baby, and Bukkake Baby". I decided that I didn’t want to see them. But when I saw the image entitled "Naughty Baby", something made me click on it. It showed her tied over a table and being caned. I could hear her screams and see where they’d made her bleed.

There were a lot more images, each worse than the last. I definitely wasn't going to click on any of those.

Below that was a link to join, promising full-screen video, stunning quality and the whole series from Virgin Baby to her total degradation, their words not mine.

I couldn’t look at any more. I felt sick and ran to the bathroom to throw up.

After that I just cried, part in sorrow, part in anger. My father wanted to know what was wrong. "I found out what’s wrong with Theresa. It’s awful. But I can’t tell you. She told me in confidence."

He left, albeit reluctantly.

He must have said something to my brother as he didn’t say a word at breakfast. I’d tried to say that I wasn’t hungry, but Mum made me eat.

I knew I looked awful. Nurse had been right about the shiner but I’m sure both eyes were red and swollen from the night I’d had.

I got to school early, desperate to find Theresa before school began. But I had no idea what I was going to say when she arrived. I’d seen too much. But she still hadn’t arrived when the bell rang and I had to get undressed. As I did so, I saw her running in the gate.

"Theresa…" I began.

"Don’t say anything," she growled breathlessly. "I’m going to suck and fuck today, just like I did yesterday. Don’t interfere. Let me do this my way."

"I don’t understand."

"You can’t understand. And you don’t have to. I know what I’m doing. Just understand that."

I nodded lamely.

A teacher interrupted us, "Theresa, you arrived after the bell had stopped. You’ll have to report to Mrs. Johnson for a detention slip."

I went with her.

"I don’t need you to protect me from Mrs. Johnson," she said, with a lot more friendliness than before.

"Yeah. After yesterday, I guess it's proved that Mrs. Johnson’s about all I can protect you from."

She stopped. "You were amazing."

"Oh yeah. One lucky punch by me and I still end up flat on the floor."

"Nobody ever cared enough to protect me before. That's why, that's partly why I had to show you. I'm not worth protecting."

By that time we were at the office and she knocked on the door before I could answer.

Dr. Reynolds was with Mrs. Johnson as Theresa asked for her detention slip.

"Dr. Reynolds," she asked, "have you checked your emails this morning?"

"Not yet. Why?"

"Please do," she answered.

He looked at her earnest face for a moment and nodded.

I was in a daze in my first class, so it was just as well that I was called out of my second class.

Theresa was already with Dr. Reynolds. To my amazement his eyes were red and it was obvious that he’d been crying. "I don’t understand why we weren’t informed," he was saying. "You would have been excused from the Program."

"My uncle and aunt try to pretend it all never happened," she answered. "They don’t want me to talk about it and they never mention it. I think they’re convinced it was my fault somehow."

"You really need counselling," he said.

She smiled at that. "I had counselling for nearly four years, until we moved here in September. Maybe it stopped me killing myself. I don’t know. Sometimes I still wish it hadn’t. Either way, it doesn’t do any good now, still going over what happened so long ago."

He looked defeated.

"Tim? You knew?"

I shook my head. "Not till this morning. I just knew that something was badly wrong. And Mrs. Townley said so too."

"I thought we were getting pretty good at picking up problems. But it looks like you were the only one who even noticed."

"Don't feel bad," said Theresa. "I've had lots of practice at acting normal, though I nearly lost it when I knew that guy with Sam had recognised me."

"Perhaps we ought to tell Sam what kind of sites he looks at," I suggested.

"No," answered Theresa. "My photos’ve been used in adverts for lots of different sites, and most of them don’t know I was underage at the time."

"I still can’t believe that only Tim noticed something was wrong," said Dr. Reynolds.

"Actually, Shelley saw there was something wrong too," I admitted.

Dr Reynolds actually smiled. "Why doesn't that surprise me?" He sighed heavily. "Okay, you’re both excused for the rest of the day. I’ll mark you down as having completed the Program. And Tim, you can forget about your suspension."

For the first time, Theresa looked happy. But then she said, "I can’t go home now."

"Why’s that?"

"I’d have to explain too much to the other kids here."

"What can we do to help you?"

"Today?" she smiled. "Nothing. Just let me carry on."

He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. I could see that he was as out of his depth with all this as I was.

Still it was obvious to him and me that a huge weight on Theresa had evaporated. Before she and I left the office, she shook her head as if she had suddenly remembered something and turned to Dr. Reynolds, "Sir, you’ll have to tell me how much I owe you for the window on the cricket hut. I had to break a pane of glass to get at the latch to climb in."

"Forget about it, Theresa. The caretaker told me about the window the next day. I plan to have the window replaced with something more substantial before the cricket starts up again." He paused before adding, "But it was good of you to offer."

Outside the office, I asked, "I still don’t understand why you’re doing all the sucking and fucking when you don’t have to."

"If I offer them a blowjob, or I offer to fuck them, nobody does anything to me. Would you believe I’ve gone all week and almost nobody’s fingered me, almost nobody’s played with my boobs. Because I get in there first." She looked at me. "I know you can’t understand. But it makes it easier for me, okay?"

"Okay." She was right. I didn’t understand then and I still don’t understand now.

"I really wish you’d let me fuck you last night," she said. "I really wanted to, more than anything."

"Then why did you say no at lunchtime?"

"Because it was all meaningless fucks. And with you, I knew it wouldn’t be. And I didn’t feel ready for that."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"What? Tell you I'm a prostitute and have done even worse things than that? I knew you wouldn't want me if you knew. Now, of course, it’s too late. I know you don’t want to fuck me now."

"You’re right," I admitted, feeling like a real bastard. "I’m sorry." But I couldn't get out of my mind what I'd seen.

She turned her face away sadly.

"Can I send your email to Mrs. Townley?" I asked. "She’s really worried about you and she won’t let it go any further."

"Okay," she said, all the life having gone from her voice again. And this time it was my fault. I’d hurt her badly.

Just before lunch I emailed Mrs. Townley with those web addresses and a note of what had happened with Dr. Reynolds.

Theresa deliberately didn’t look at me as I watched her fucking again at lunchtime and this time I felt no jealousy, nor even any anger. She was just dealing with the unbearable in the only way she knew how. I knew I would never hold that against her. I couldn’t even imagine what her life had been like.

My initial reaction of disgust, I had to admit, had made me not want to touch her or even be with her, just as she’d predicted. Now, watching her pull a chain, the disgust was replaced with a heavy sadness at the pain she was obviously still feeling.

I hated what she was doing. I didn't want to see her like that or hear some of the whispered comments about her, but after all she'd been through, if that was the only way she could cope with this week, who was I to blame her?

Seeing her wince as one guy was fucking her particularly hard I wondered why she didn't protest. I guess nobody had ever given a damn if it hurt before. It had always been her, alone, against everyone else.

I was filled with a sudden determination that it wasn't going to be that way any more. I walked over to where she was being fucked. These boys had obviously heard what had happened yesterday and a couple of them stepped back. "Just take it easy, will you?" I asked them. I looked away from them and down at her face, which was turned away from me, and took her hand in my hands. I stayed there holding her hand as she was fucked again.

She turned to look at me and as we looked into each other's eyes, a single tear dribbled down her cheek. As the bell went, I wanted to say so much, but couldn't think of a word, so I let her hand go and walked to class.

All afternoon I realised I wasn't thinking any more of all the things she'd been forced to do. All I could now see was this incredibly brave girl who had somehow survived all that alone.

After school I didn’t give anyone time to Request anything. We both got dressed at lightning speed and I grabbed her hand and ran to the gate.

"I still don’t want to fuck you," I said.

Her eyes were an ocean of sadness and she turned her head away. I put my hand under her chin and turned it back.

"But I’d really like to make love to you."

Her eyes blinked, and tears fell from them. Suddenly she seemed unsteady on her feet and I hugged her to me, holding her tightly.

A minute later, her eyes glistening, she whispered, "If you really still want to, you can still do anything you want to me. I won’t mind, honest."

"Theresa. I’m not going to do anything TO you. I want to do it with you."

"Thank you," she breathed.

I looked into her eyes and saw a glimmer of hope. Hope that I’d put there. I silently prayed, please god, don’t let me let her down.

Our thoughts were interrupted by a car horn. We turned and looked and saw Shelley standing next to the open driver's window. "Tim! Theresa! Come and meet Mrs. Townley."

Mrs. Townley smiled at us as we approached. "So this is Theresa?"

We both nodded.

"It’s okay, Theresa," she said quietly. "You can relax now. It’s all over."

Theresa slumped against Shelley. I could see the tension drain from her body as Shelley held her. Then she began crying in deep agonising sobs.

We helped her into the car and put her in the back seat. I climbed in beside her and she clung to me as she continued to cry.

Mrs Townley drove us to her house.

"My uncle will go ballistic," she complained.

"I told him you’d be coming here for the evening." I got the feeling from the suddenly hard tone of her voice that she’d probably told him a lot of other things as well, but if she had, she didn’t tell us about it.

She ran Theresa a bath. While Theresa was bathing, Mrs. Townley said to me, "You did well, Tim."

"Huh? I made a mess of everything. I got it wrong all week."

"You aren’t a mind-reader. You stood by her and that’s what she needed. Do you know what you’re going to do now?"

"As soon as she’s ready, I want to make love with her."

Mrs. Townley laughed.

"Be my guest. There’s Laura’s bed upstairs. The sheets are clean, she doesn’t come home from university until next week."

When Theresa came out of the bath, Mrs. Townley insisted we both have something to eat. Neither of us had had much appetite for lunch.

"Now take your young lady upstairs and show each other how you feel about each other."

So I did and, although she was a little sore, we did and we did and we did, until finally she had to go home.

"Whatever anyone says," said Mrs. Townley to Theresa, "you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of."

She dropped us off near Theresa’s house. Theresa objected to me going further, saying, "I’ve never dared let a boy walk me home for fear of what they might say." But I insisted on walking her to her door anyway.

To our surprise we needn’t have worried. Her uncle opened the door and immediately spoke to me. "I suppose you’re Tim?"

"Yes."

"I understand we ought to thank you for the way you’ve looked after Theresa this week. I want you to know… we both want you to know, you’re always welcome here."

"Uncle," screamed Theresa and flew into his arms, totally startling him.

She went indoors with him and I walked home. And that was the end of our week, "naked in school". Will it be a new beginning for Theresa and me? Will I, can I, measure up to her standard? Yes, you read that right the first time… up to her standard.