I once caught my thumb between a stationary 4 inch nail and a rapidly moving hammer head. And after a black-nailed sleepless night, and an un-remittent day of a throbbing swollen digit, I returned home to my shared house where I relayed my plight to Jade, she was a newly qualified doctor.

"Oh, you need to go to the hospital to get your nail pierced!" She advised, in her alluring Scottish accent (Before the invention of the Indian practitioner, all British doctors were once Scottish for some reason. I think it was the law or something), "That will release the pressure." But then she said "Or, I can do it for you now if you want?"

Now, two things: 

First off, I was in pain, and could not bear the thought of a four-hour wait in casualty with all the junkies and the drunks for company.

And second, apart from her sultry-yet-authoritative accent, Jade was possibly the most sexually attractive woman I have ever shared a confined space with and this day, we were talking about a very small kitchen here. A very confined space indeed.

So obviously, "Yes" I heard myself reply only too eagerly, and expected her to go fetch a doctor's bag, although I had never actually seen her with one, I just assumed doctors were issued with them as soon as they qualified.

Well imagine my dismay as she just turned and began to rummage around the adjacent kitchen drawers, searching amongst all of our accumulated crap until she uttered an "Aha!" and turned towards me holding aloft a paperclip!

"Right!" she enthused, "let me just get the gas on!" 

At this she then seemed to sense my apparent dismay, and began to reassure me with a description of the procedure that she had in mind for my only reason for being at the top of the food chain, my opposing thumb:

"I'm going to heat the paperclip until it's red hot, and then I'm going to burn (melt) a hole through your nail to relieve the pressure of the blood building up behind it!" she purred in her seductive Caledonian brogue.

OK, I know. I should have begun running the moment she produced the paperclip. I should have kept running to the nearest phone box and phoned the medical authorities, and then run some more; but I didn't.

Why not? Well like I say, I was in a confined space with the type of lubricious professional female than only James Bond usually gets to meet. And let's face it, she was offering the only chance of penetration I was ever likely to get to ever experience with her. And it wasn't just my thumb that was throbbing now... despite the pain.

"OK!" I stupidly agreed, and placed a trembling digit upon the worktop...

Then, as the paperclip finally glowed a bright and vivid orange she smiled to herself, turned, and approached with the words "Now, this is really going to hurt!"

She grabbed my thumb and proceeded to push the scorching metal through my thumbnail, which began to immediately emit an acrid ammonia smelling smoke at around the same time I began to feel an agonising pain, at which point I had an involuntary spasm and pulled my hand away.

"Oh no!" she cried, ambiguously "I was nearly there!" and appeared to be genuinely disappointed, possibly with my lack of manliness.

"OK," I replied, calming myself, "I'll do it!" and took the cooling paperclip from her beautifully delicate, yet masterful hands.

I reheated the clip, and then, with her leaning over beside me to get a closer view, I found myself grimacing, taking a deep breath, and after pausing for a contemplative second, pushed a burning piece of metal into my own thumbnail!

The pain was indescribable, and I let out a sizable "Aaargh!" as the fiery stylus burnt its way through and pierced the blackened nail. Yet then, as the all-consuming agony rapidly accelerated, there was just as suddenly a release, not just of the trapped blood which gushed from my smouldering finger up onto the galley walls, but from the pain itself, accompanied by a shrill scream from my accomplice who threw her hands to her face as the spurt gushed outwards at her.

The relief was as indescribable as the pain itself. I exhaled, dropped the paperclip, and shook my haemorrhaging hand, as I eased myself back against the cupboard. Jade held her own hand to her chest and said "My! That was exciting!" before asking to inspect the wound, and volunteered to expertly bandage my traumatised limb.

How we both laughed as we wiped my emissions from the tiling.

And then, that was it. Just me, Jade, a kitchen, and a not so black fingernail. 

I don't think I ever got that close to her again until I came home with a nosebleed or something, but that, dear reader, is another bag of plasma!

Oh and by the way, my fingernail eventually dropped off, and took an AGE to grow back again. They never tell you that bit do they? And as for Jade, well in the end she married a balding advertising man. So it seems I dodged another bullet and bleeding to death one more time... 

Smiley face.