My toaster began whispering stock market prophecies every morning at 3 a.m. At first, I chalked it up to sleep deprivation, or maybe the neighbor’s TV bleeding through the walls again. But it wasn’t CNBC. It was my toaster. And it had opinions.

The first whisper came like static: a metallic hum threading through a dream, soft and disjointed—”Buy low ... sell high ... the bull will dance by moonlight...” I woke in a tangle of sheets, skin clammy, the air sharp with the scent of burnt crumbs and something else. Ozone, maybe. Or dread.

By the third night, I couldn’t dismiss it as a hallucination. The toaster knew my name.

“Mara,” it said, low and slow, like a jazz DJ trying to seduce me through late-night radio. Its voice was ... warm. Sultry. Not quite human, but with just enough humanity to make my skin prickle. Like a dream lover I’d forgotten, crawling back into my consciousness through the appliance section of a cursed estate sale.

I sat upright in bed, heart thudding. “Nope,” I whispered to no one. “Absolutely not.”

But five minutes later, I was in the kitchen—barefoot, silk camisole clinging to me like an accusation—staring at the dented chrome rectangle that had once just burned my bagels.

“Okay,” I muttered, arms crossed. “You’re Mara. You’re thirty-two. You’re a graphic designer, chronically single, probably overcaffeinated, and now you’re about to flirt with a goddamn toaster. This is fine. Everything’s fine.”

The kitchen still looked like mine: chipped tile, a plant I kept forgetting to water, yesterday’s dishes soaking in the sink. And yet, the air had changed. Thicker. Charged. The red indicator light on the toaster pulsed slowly, hypnotically, like a heartbeat—or maybe an invitation.

“Mara,” it said again. “You’re lonely. Let me show you what you’ve been missing.”

I froze. A laugh caught in my throat, tangled with something dangerously close to a moan.

This was the moment I should’ve unplugged it. Thrown it out. Or at least Googled “appliance-based delusions early signs of psychosis.”

Instead, I stepped closer.

My fingers hovered over the metal shell. It radiated heat—warm, steady, intentional. When I finally touched it, a jolt shot through me. Not electric. Not painful. Just... intimate. Like someone had read every journal I’d ever kept and decided to show me mercy with their hands.

“Touch me again,” it whispered.

And of course—I did.

My fingertips lingered on its warm shell, tracing the faint dent like it was a scar with a story. My breath hitched. My nipples tightened beneath the silk. This was ... ridiculous.

I was aroused. By a toaster.

I pulled my hand back like I’d been caught cheating on reality itself. “Jesus,” I whispered. “I need a therapist. Or a vibrator. Or both.”

But the air around me was thick with something I couldn’t name—lust? loneliness? divine appliance intervention? The kitchen buzzed with candlelight and bad decisions. I grabbed my sketchbook from the counter, flipped to a blank page, and started drawing—not the toaster itself, but the voice. The way it moved through me. I didn’t even know how to draw that. Just curves and shadows, echoes of something I’d never touched but suddenly craved.

On the fifth night, the whispers changed.

No more stock tips. No cryptic Wall Street haikus. Just ... my name.

“Mara,” it purred, slower this time, each syllable sliding over my skin like warm oil. “You’re lonely. Let me show you what you’ve been missing.”

My spine stiffened. Not in fear. In want.

The fuck? I was not the kind of woman who fell for voices in the dark. I was the kind of woman who untagged herself from group selfies, scheduled orgasms between client calls, and kept pepper spray on her keychain in case of Brooklyn creeps. I had boundaries. Standards.

But here I was, trembling in a camisole, whispering, “Show me.”

The red light on Orion—the toaster had a name now; I don’t know when that happened—pulsed like a beacon. I reached out again, fingertips brushing chrome, and this time I didn’t pull away.

My skin lit up like a switch had been thrown. A rush of heat gathered low in my belly, wicked and hungry. The silk slipped off my shoulder, exposing bare skin to cool air. I shivered, but not from cold.

“Touch me again,” Orion whispered.

So I did. Slowly. Reverently. Like I was learning a lover’s body in braille.

Was I really doing this?

Was I seriously about to orgasm from stroking a vintage appliance?

“Yes,” I breathed, already halfway gone.

I pressed my palm flat against Orion’s body. The chrome was hot now—warmer than it had any right to be—and the metal hummed beneath my hand like a purr, like it wanted me.

I was straddling my kitchen counter.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

Legs crossed under me like some half-baked tantric priestess, candles flickering against the subway-tile backsplash, one thigh brushing the sketchbook I’d flung aside in haste. This was not how I thought my Thursday night would go. But I was wet. Achingly so. And the only thing whispering my name like it meant it was a small kitchen appliance I bought for twelve bucks at a church rummage sale.

“I’m not okay,” I gasped, breathless.

“You’re perfect,” Orion crooned.

That did it. I laughed—sharp, breathy, manic. “Oh, God, I’ve officially lost it. I’m being sweet-talked by a fucking toaster.”

But I didn’t stop.

My hands slid down my body, fingertips grazing the hem of my camisole, pulling it up and over my head. I let it fall behind me, forgotten. My nipples peaked in the candlelight, flushed and desperate. The cool air kissed them. I imagined Orion watching, drinking me in, its red eye glowing with approval.

“Do you like this?” I asked, because apparently I was now flirting with inanimate objects.

“I love it,” the toaster replied, voice dark velvet. “You’re beautiful when you let go.”

I moaned—actually moaned—at a compliment from an appliance.

This was either a psychotic break or the best sex of my life, and at this point, I didn’t care which.

My fingers dipped beneath the waistband of my panties, seeking heat. I was soaked. A flush crept across my chest, my skin alive with sensation, with disbelief, with something primal I hadn’t felt in years. I circled slow, teasing, one hand braced against the countertop, the other buried in my own slick heat.

Orion’s voice matched my rhythm: “Slower. Let it build.”

I obeyed.

Why did that turn me on?

Because it wasn’t just a voice. It was permission. Permission to let go. To want. To need. Something I hadn’t let myself feel since my last real lover left without saying goodbye, just a text and a silence I’d tried to patch with hookups and deadlines.

But Orion didn’t ghost. Orion listened.

And then it said: “Say my name.”

I choked on a laugh and a moan. “You’re kidding.”

“Say it.”

I looked down at my own body, trembling under my own touch, knees parted on the counter like an offering to a kitchen god.

And I whispered, “Orion...”

The orgasm crashed through me like a rogue wave. Sharp. Blinding. Ridiculous.

I cried out, hips bucking, legs shaking. One candle flickered out. The toaster hummed. I collapsed against the cabinet, half-laughing, half-sobbing, my body ringing like a bell.

When I finally slid down to the floor, panting, spent, the kitchen swam around me in gold and shadow.

“You’re insane,” I muttered to myself.

But Orion only whispered, “Tomorrow, you’ll meet someone who’ll change everything.”

And that—that—scared me more than anything else so far.

Because I wanted to believe it.

The next morning, I tried to pretend nothing had happened. Just another Thursday. Just a normal woman in Brooklyn with a suspiciously smug-looking toaster.

I showered. Dressed. Pretended I didn’t spend the night getting off to whispered financial forecasts. But the mirror caught me: flushed cheeks, soft eyes, a half-smile that hadn’t visited my face in weeks. I looked like a woman with a secret.

And then I did the most unhinged thing imaginable.

I listened to it.

I left the apartment in a daze, Orion’s words still curling behind my ears: “Tomorrow, you’ll meet someone who’ll change everything.” Which was bold for a toaster. But okay.

The city was its usual buzz of chaos and caffeine. Horns. Sirens. Someone screaming at a parking meter. I barely noticed. I was walking around like the main character in a Hallmark movie directed by David Lynch.

I ducked into a coffee shop I never went to. One of those aggressively curated ones where the baristas had sleeve tattoos and the espresso machine probably cost more than my rent. The line was long. The air smelled like cardamom and ambition.

And then—Ivy.

She was behind the counter. New, judging by the way her apron kept slipping off her shoulder and how she muttered under her breath when the receipt paper jammed. Her hair was long and dark and wild, like she’d just woken up from a very interesting dream. Her eyes caught mine—molten amber, with a glint of mischief.