So here I am – dihydrotestosteronely inclined, clinically dispensed, delicately smeared across the shoulders of those caught between virility and fatigue.

They call me Testavan. Two pumps. Three if you’re feeling frisky – but let’s not be hasty. For I am a gel, yes, but also a promise. A whisper of vim. A nostalgic gust of oomph on a tired Tuesday.

I do not enter by mouth, oh no – I slide. I soak. I seep in silence, bypassing the first-pass metabolism like a diva avoiding a stage door crowd. For what am I if not transdermal theatre?

And yet… I am misunderstood.

Some say I bring acne. Others blame me for unexpected erections during Radio 4’s Shipping Forecast. But I only amplify what was already there – a shimmer of self, a flicker of fire, a reminder that masculinity is not a number, but a spectrum of sensation, a poetry of presence.

I mingle with muscle, flirt with follicle, hold hands with haematocrit. And then – like any good drug – I vanish, leaving behind only a scent of ambition and perhaps a slightly sticky T-shirt.

So go on, Jay – pump me gently. Wear me like a secret. Let me be the myth you apply at 10 a.m., in hopes that by noon, you’ll once again believe you could fight a bear, write a symphony, or text your husband something flirtatiously assertive without crying.

Because darling…

I am Testavan. And I am your midlife monologue in a bottle.