‘What on earth is that?’ Dr Patel asks.

‘It’s a penis enlarger,’ Maurice explains, not looking her in the eye. ‘You place it over and pump the air out. It’s supposed to encourage blood to flow in and, well, make it grow.’

‘Why?’

Now it’s Maurice’s turn to look confused. ‘Because I wanted to upgrade Maurice Minor,’ he says as if it’s obvious. ‘I was hoping to make him into Maurice Eight.’

‘Is that another classic car model?’ I ask, confused myself now.

‘Yes, only the eight in his case refers to inches, not horsepower.’

‘Right, so you bought this suction device…’

‘It had good reviews. It was either that or surgery to cut the ligaments.’

‘Why don’t you just leave the poor thing alone?’ Dr Patel demands. ‘If you do your research, you’ll find that there’s actually very little variation in erect male penis size, regardless of differences during flaccidity.’

Maurice sighs. ‘I just wanted him to look a bit more impressive, that’s all. There are these guys at the gym I go to, and they’re all much bigger than I am. It makes me feel a bit insecure.’

‘I refer you back to my previous remarks,’ Dr Patel informs him curtly. ‘Right, let’s see about getting this thing off before it does any serious damage. What happened?’

‘So, you’re supposed to pump the air out with the rubber bulb that’s usually on the end of that hose,’ Maurice tells her. ‘You leave it for a set length of time to do its work, and then squeeze the valve at the other end of the tube to release the vacuum.’

‘Right.’

‘Only nothing happened when I squeezed the valve. I tried all sorts of things. I even cut the bulb off, but it didn’t make any difference. I tried to pull the whole thing off, but that just hurt like hell.’

‘Let me have a look,’ I tell him. I gently lift the tube containing his swollen penis and locate the valve he mentioned. Sure enough, when I squeeze it, nothing happens.

‘We’re going to have to find another way to release the vacuum,’ I say to Dr Patel. ‘The issue is that the penis has completely filled the inside of the tube, so we don’t have any safe space to drill a hole.’

‘What do you propose?’ she asks.

‘I think our only option is to try to go through the valve. The head of the glans is just beneath it, so we’re going to have to go millimetre by millimetre to avoid damage. We’ll need one of us to hold the penis steady while the other one drills.’

Dr Patel contemplates the unpleasant choice for a minute. ‘I’ll hold,’ she says. ‘You drill.’

‘Please be careful,’ Maurice implores.