Meredith awoke in the middle of the night. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and pressed the backlight button on her watch: 2:49AM. Given that the canvas of the tent was not illuminated with moonlight, she reasoned that the clearing in which she had pitched the tent was now in the shadow of the mountain's tall peak, or at least the shadow of the nearby tree line.
Faintly, she thought she heard something. Remaining absolutely still and quiet for several moments, Meredith heard it again: a whimper. It was an odd sound, seemingly human, likely female, yet when she had crawled into the tent, she had been alone in the clearing, and had assumed that there were no other humans in the area, and perhaps not even on this side of the mountain.
A few moments later, Meredith heard the whimper again, this time a little louder. Yet, she did not hear the sound with her ears; instead, she "heard" it in her mind. Further, it was very clearly a feminine sound, the sound of a young woman experiencing the opening stages of the pleasures of the flesh β a sound Meredith herself had often made, albeit usually at her own hands and toys.
Quietly, cautiously, Meredith unzipped the sleeping bag, the slightly-cool air of the tent rushing inside to momentarily chill her naked body. Slipping out of the sleeping bag, she reached blindly toward where she thought she had put the flashlight.
The whimper in her mind was now a soft, heavy breathing, with an occasional low moan. There was something compelling about that sound, about the fact that it was a feminine sound. The "voice" seemed to fill Meredith's head, growing louder and more insistent.
Suddenly, the flashlight no longer mattered. Meredith's right hand, almost of its own volition, snaked underneath her torso, the fingers gently stroking between her thighs. How many times had she performed this very act, screaming her pleasure into a pillow before pulling the sheets back over her glistening skin and drifting off to a well-satisfied slumber?
The first "voice" in Meredith's head was joined by a second, and soon a third β both new "voices" distinctly feminine, and one with an Oriental accent. The desire, the need, grew within her, her own, true voice joining those in her head.