Highballs, Cocktails, Cones and Hoses: A Hard Look at Hot Jobs

by Shanna Germain

I’ve had a lot of jobs over the years. I started milking cows for the farmers down the road (it seemed way better, in my fourteen-year-old mind than my other option: watching said farmers’ kids), and then moved on to stacking hay. I served up soft-serve cones for one summer, and watered plants for another. After that, it was grocery store clerk and waitress. Waiting tables soon led to slinging drinks at a bar (not to show my age, but you were allowed to do that at eighteen back then). I was a paramedic, a firefighter and part of a grounds crew. A newspaper reporter. A photographer. The list, surprisingly, continues for a while before you get to my current “smut writer” status. But you get the picture (and you get this bonus picture from FX Networks' show Rescue Me as well!).

Over the years, I learned one thing from all those jobs: how to cash a paycheck.

No, not really. I learned that work—no matter what you’re doing—can be sexy. It’s all in how you look at it (and who you’re looking at). Throwing hay in 102-degree heat was hot as hell, but so were the older college boys who drove the tractor. The older-man botanist who worked at the greenhouse had the kind of profile that made me accidentally drown more than a few poor seedlings. And as the only girl on an otherwise all-male firefighting crew…well, you can imagine the kind of trouble one could get into when you throw in hot flames, long hoses and big, shiny trucks (the trucks were never my thing, really, but the guys sure got off on them).

And bartending—that might have been the sexiest job I’ve ever had (other than smut-writing, that is). Sexy drinks. Sexy customers. Dim lights. The ba-ba-boom of the music...It was this inherent sensuality that convinced me to put together a collection of erotica based on drink names. (Shameless plug: Screaming Orgasms and Sex on the Beach will be available from Pretty Things Press in early 2008, and includes a number of our amazing Lust Biters writers).

As I wrote in my introduction: Before I became a sex writer, I was a bartender. The money was great, but that wasn’t why I stayed. I stayed for the chance to pour two fingers of Jack over ice and slide it to the sexy businessman on the other side of the bar. I stayed for the shy blonde who came in on Friday nights and blushed every time she asked for a Muff Diver. I stayed because I liked to lean in when I lit a customer’s smoke and I liked to whisper, “Here’s the Wet Dream you ordered. Let me know when you’re ready for another.”

I know I'm not the only one who thinks that jobs of all sorts are sexy. Recently, I picked up an erotic collection about hot cops and another about men in uniform. But it's not just doctors and lawyers and firemen that we're lusting after. One of my favorite stories ever (sexy or otherwise) is Maggie Gray's deliciously hot and sad, "Fuck Dying," in which the narrator has a most unusual job. And who can forget that other Maggie (Gyllenhaal) and her fantastic turn as a paper pusher in Secretary? For those of us who've always imagined that librarians really are the most seductive creatures on Earth, it turns out to be true--check out this sexy, funny and haunting video about librarians from musical group, Haunted Love.

When you're done with that, step up to Bar Lust Bites and have a seat. Here's your After Work Special. Sure, I can light that cigarette for you. But only if you're willing to talk. One thing about bartenders (and writers), we're good listeners...

So, what's sexy about your job right now? Or, if you're a writer, what sexy bits have you stolen from past or current jobs to give to your characters? And, yes, we can even talk about the unsexy bits if we must (like the time I got splattered with an entire blender of strawberry margaritas--I was picking strawberries out of my hair for weeks!).

Here, have another shot. Settle in. It's going to be a long, steamy night...