"I really need some help. Can you come over to my cabin? Are you off for a bit?"
Sasha and I had been friends for a few months now, but this was the first time I'd heard this tone of voice.
"No problem, I've got nothing going on. Be there in a sec," I said.
I'd been working on the Enchantment since December. She was a 2,500 passenger cruise ship, and we we'd been on a 7-day run to the west coast of Mexico out of Los Angeles, but that run had ended on Sunday, and we were currently on our way to Honolulu for a series of 10-day Hawaiian cruises. Tough life, I know.
I was a sound technician, responsible for running the board during the shows in the main theater, and that's how I became friends with Sasha. She'd joined the crew in February, and as with any attractive new girl, she'd made an impression. I hadn't made a play for her, as I had a girlfriend back home and was trying to be good, but it was hard. Sasha was beautiful, about 5'9" tall, brunette, with dark eyes and tanned skin, and had a pair of what I later found out were 34DD breasts.
She was responsible for the shore excursion programs -- you know, when passengers wanted to take a walking tour of Mazatlan, Sasha was the one who set it up -- and she would give a talk in the theater at the beginning of each cruise outlining all the various tours available. I was her sound guy, and through that we became friends. There's a lot of sleeping around among cruise ship crew members; it's a lot like college only with money and more time off. I think part of the reason Sasha hung out with me at first was she knew I had a girlfriend, so I was kind of safe, if you know what I mean.
Anyhow, her cabin was only about a 20-foot walk from mine, so after she called sounding like she was in trouble, it only took me a few seconds to knock on her door. Her expression looked like she was in pain, but there was something else -- humiliation? I was concerned, and at the same time apprehensive.
"Come on in, I'm really sorry to call you like this," she said, as she walked over to the bed and sat down. (Our cabins weren't big enough for a separate seating area, so we used our beds like couches.) She was wearing a bathrobe, and her eyes looked like she'd been crying.
"Sash, what's going on? Are you ok?" It seemed obvious she wasn't, but I couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Oh, fuck, this is hard," she said.
"I'm your friend, whatever it is, you can tell me." More platitudes; I sounded like a Hallmark card come to life.
She took a deep breath, as if steeling herself, and then looked down, ashamed, as she spoke.
"Ok, here goes. I have a condition called hyperlactation. I've had it since I hit puberty. What happens is even though I'm not pregnant and haven't ever been pregnant, my breasts make milk anyway. Lots of it. All. The. Time."
She looked up at me to see how I was taking this in. The expression I was going for could best be described as "interested, concerned, and wondering how this affects me," while on the inside I was kind of thrilled. I'm a boob guy, so I was already interested in whatever she wanted to tell me about her breasts, and this particular revelation, while unexpected, was fascinating.
"Anyway," she continued, "because of this I have to use a breast pump to pump out the milk once a day." She reached into her bedside table and brought out a breast pump, holding it up for me to see. I nodded my understanding of what she'd told me thus far.
"Yesterday, this fucking thing broke, and there's no way to fix it."
"Sash," I said, "I'd be happy to fix it if I could, but I don't know the first thing -"
"No," she cut me off, shaking her head. "That's not it. I already took it to the medical office and asked the nurse to look at it. Apparently it's fucked and there's nobody on board who can fix it. She suggested -- oh, God, this is embarrassing -- she suggested I try to massage my breasts and pump them out by hand."
At this, tears formed in her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks. She looked up at me, pleading.
"I tried, I really did, but I only noticed the pump was broken on Monday afternoon, and I didn't work up the courage to go see the nurse until this morning, and now they're so full just touching them hurts like hell."
We'd left Los Angeles for Hawaii on Sunday morning, and weren't going to be in Honolulu until Friday morning. Today was Tuesday, so Sasha had another two and a half days before she could get a new pump. She was obviously in considerable pain, and I couldn't imagine her suffering like this until the end of the week, never mind how much worse it would get as her breasts continued to make milk.
She looked down into her lap and continued to cry softly. For lack of a better idea, I put my hand on her shoulder.
"I'll help you any way I can, but what can I do?" I asked. Had I only known what was coming, I don't think I'd have been able to speak.
"Well, I don't know if it would work, and I don't even know if it's something you would do, or even want to, or...." she trailed off.
"Sash, you and I have become pretty good friends, right?"
