The cauldron Venus

"It's not canon," I said, pushing a chair aside with my foot.  The chair was intended for a very small child and made of cheap plastic, so naturally it tipped over instead of pushing, and I finally just kicked it out of the way.  My shoe just caught the rim of the seat, and it lifted into the air and almost floated across the room, where it landed on a beanbag with a soft splashdown kind of noise.
"But it's beautiful," said Bill.  "Look at her, arising from the cauldron, her hair twining around her to titillate the viewer..."  He sighed a little, and I shuddered.  Whenever Bill starts getting romantic I just know it's going to go wrong.  "Of course, it's not completely accurate, but I think we have to appreciate that the artist was creating a metaphor, something to enchant the soul, not educate the mind."
"Not realistic?"  I bumped a plastic table aside as I shuffled across the floor, and it too fell over.  I was starting to wonder if the children had similar problems with it.  Perhaps it was training to ready them for when they would be too poor to buy their furniture at anywhere other than a cheap IKEA rip-off shop.  I had a brief flashback to my mother screaming at me when I was a child not to put anything on the table because it would collapse and wondered why we'd had a purely ornamental table like that.
"If she were really rising from a cauldron like that, her hair would be wet," said Bill tilting his head to one side as he looked at the painting.  "And if I'm honest, there would probably be food residue in any cauldron back then, it's not like people kept cauldrons because they thought they looked nice.  That'd be like having a table you couldn't put anything on."
"Have you been to IKEA recently?" I said.  I'm used to Bill saying things that make it seem almost like he's read my mind; I put it down to us having worked together for so long.  I finally found a clear stretch of carpet and could walk without having to keep checking where I was putting my feet.
"She reminds me of someone...."
"Not another prostitute," I said, unable to keep the groan completely out of my voice.  "Didn't the last one steal that Lalique vase from you?"
"She wanted to borrow it," he said, sounding uncomfortable.
"While she went to Portugal, for an extended, indefinite, stay."
"I never paid her, you know."
"That doesn't mean other people didn't.  Just because you got a freebie from a tom doesn't mean she's not a tom.  And by the way, freebies from toms are usually STDs."
"Haven't you got that storeroom open yet?"
I sighed, finally having reached the far wall, and clicked a light-switch on and off in a quick pattern.  Something behind the wall screeched briefly, then something else ground against something metallic, and the wall slowly slid back.
"Why did we rent this room out to a nursery?"
"We figured the police would be reluctant to raid a place with so many small children in it."
"Well I think they're weeing in the machinery."
Bill picked the painting up, the Venus rising from the cauldron, and carried it across the floor, trampling the teddy bears, toy ducks and squeaky things I'd been so carefully stepping around.
"They're a good cover though.  I know what this reminds me of."
"What?"
"Medea.  The story of Medea."
"Medea, in a nursery?  Dude, you're sick."