It made him feel uncomfortable from the moment it entered the house. The moment he saw it peeking out of its carrier bag as Layla rooted around for the receipt. It even made its way into his dreams. Dreams about a pretty little eleven year old girl lying face up in the water, her hair tangled in grasping tendrils of dark green weeds, the hideous contraption floating independently round her body.
And here it was splayed out like a gigantic dead spider in a contortion of spindly suspender legs and crumpled lace. He approached the bed as if it were an open coffin, a warm dribble beading, then darting down between his shoulder blades as he slid a forefinger under one of its metal adjusters. The silky smooth panel of its gusset shone back at him. He stepped away, rubbing his hands and glancing towards the orange strip of illumination let in from the hall by the slim gap between the door and the wall. Outside, opaque high cloud slipped past unveiling the fat pale face of the moon. Its light washed in through the window, framing the subject in a bone-white grid.
He snatched up a stuffed pink elephant perched on top of a pillow, pinning its stubby body between his knees and yanking at the erect trunk until it finally split from the head spewing a large clump of white synthetic sponge out onto the deep blue carpet. Tossing it aside so that it bounced into a darkened corner, in its place he carefully positioned a framed photograph of a handsome young dog in a red leather collar.
