I shot the doc a scathing look. ‘I’m a journalist, you know. A journalist on a news desk. Everything you have just said is totally inappropriate. Just be warned. Anything you say may be taken down and used against you.’

It was a blatant attempt to make myself sound like a dynamic, empowered, super-successful award-winning journo – instead of a laughable hack who penned such groundbreaking exposés as ‘Local Scout Hall Cooker to be Cleaned More Often’. And, my most recent scoop, ‘Midget Rapes Nun, Then Flees in UFO’. No wonder I’d called my cat Pulitzer – it was the only way I’d ever get to say that I had one.

‘Hop up on the bed and I’ll apply an urgent unguent.’ He could not keep the amusement out of his voice.

I gazed up at the gurney with the same apprehension with which Ranulph Fiennes must have surveyed Everest from his base camp as he faced up to the fact that he was the oldest person ever to attempt the ascent. With my groin strain and singed behind, it was going to take me nearly as long to get up there as his mountain climb. Abashed and flustered, I just kept talking to ease the tension. ‘You may look down on the cougar cruise,’ I said, defensively, ‘but for women who’ve been taken for granted or ignored, or betrayed by their husbands, well, some horizontal refreshment can be very healing.’

‘How can bedding a male bimbo with the IQ of a crash-test dummy raise a woman’s self-esteem?’

The gel he applied to my pulsating arse was incredibly soothing but did nothing to cool my temper, which was heating up by the second. ‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ I seethed, ‘but yes. I had a revenge bonk and it was great. What a night. The guy was half your age and he blew my mind,’ I lied, craning my head to peer over my shoulder at the impertinent, party-pooping medic. ‘I’m feeling liberated. Reborn. Resurrected. And why not? Why can’t women play the same enjoyable field as you blokes?’

‘You really wanna know?’ He paused, then added, ‘I know I go on about those cubs being as thick as the plank I’d like to make them walk, but I have to admit, they’re not all stupid. Some of them are able to sum up a woman’s net worth to the nearest FTSE share with one long, cool, calculated look. Okay, you can get up now.’

I pushed up onto all fours so I could dismount without smudging the gel or stretching my loins, a complicated manoeuvre requiring such dexterity it could have scored me perfect tens in Olympic gymnastics.