It was quite obvious that this "boyfriend" was her pimp, but she did not see him like that.
She was an adult, but she lacked the inner resources most of us develop before we make our way in the wider world - a resistance to being manipulated, a sense of our bodies as our own, the notion that we get to choose what we do with our lives.
She had none of those things and when you throw into the equation that she was on crack and living with her "boyfriend" with nowhere else to go, it is hard to imagine by what miracle she would find the means to escape.
I was so touched by the plight of this woman that I have wanted to write about her, and those in a similar position, ever since.
But it is very hard to do.
Firstly, I am concerned some people could get turned on through reading a piece about prostitution and seeing the images used to illustrate it.
To my mind, there are few things more nauseatingly unerotic than the plight of women, who are children inside, with no meaningful choice, having sex because they are desperate for a fix.
Evidently there are those who feel otherwise. The awareness that some could be titillated by my writing inhibits me as it would mean my words had inadvertently become a part of the abuse.
Secondly, I am concerned that the women I am writing about really do agree to telling their stories.
Under normal circumstances, I would expect someone I was interviewing to be capable of consenting to their words being quoted in a newspaper.
When someone has been so abused that they do not know when they are being manipulated, I am reluctant to probe for fear the woman will not be able to safeguard her autonomy.
Many years after my night with the nuns, I returned to Anawim, as their organisation was known, to write a feature to be published in The Birmingham Post.
I am not convinced I have got it right. I am confident it is accurate but I fear my inhibitions have obscured the heart of the subject.
"Just look at these women, see their humanity." That is what I want to say - and yet I hide them because of my concerns they might be objectified, eroticized and unable to bear the glare of being seen.