Prompt Images

The hulking man held the fireman’s helmet over his junk and maintained the nonplussed look on his face.

“Come on, this is supposed to be fun! Just a couple more shots and we’ll be done,” the photographer promised.

“I just don’t really understand why we’re doing this. Do people even still buy wall calendars anymore?” asked the fully nude, fully yoked firefighter.

“I sure hope so, or else I’ll be out of a job and you won’t have raised much money for the Los Angeles Firefighters Union,” kidded the photographer before getting closer and closer to the chiseled and apathetic firefighter.

They were almost two full hours into the shoot, and the photographer wasn’t feeling any of it. Besides his flawlessly marbled physique, the strapping firefighter certainly wasn’t giving him much to work with. He barely embraced the ladder series, said he was allergic to the two dalmatians, and called the photographer’s pole straddling suggestion “disrespectful.”

“You look distracted. Is something wrong?” the photographer asked the deliciously brawny and frowning firefighter.

“I just feel so silly. I didn’t work hard at the academy so that my body would look good in some calendar for moms. Do I really have to wear all this oil? It’s incredible flammable and something I would warn others not to wear,” countered the devastatingly statuesque fireman.

“Think about it this way,” the photographer began, but was immediately interrupted by the impatient but still majestically proportioned firefighter.

“I just want to fight fires. I don’t care about anything else.”

The photographer mulled it over. He knew he was losing the impossibly fit and impeccably toned firefighter. This wasn’t his first rodeo. In fact, he had just come from shooting the professional bull riders’ calendar, last week.

The photographer shuddered at how most people thought photography was only about the clicking the shutter button, but the art was so much more. It was composition and creativity and relationships and motivation and management.

The photographer knew the playbook and what to do. “Isn’t most firefighting preventative?” he asked rhetorically. Before the carved, herculean firefighter could answer, the photographer continued, “I would consider this preventative firefighting. You are not only spreading fire safety awareness to the masses, but you could be inspiring the next generation of young firefighters! Men and fires have been at war since man created fire. Neither you nor I will be here when this war ends, even if you are the best firefighter in the history of the world. But this is your chance to outlive yourself. This could be a recruiting tool for the next line of fire fighting defense and the generations after that.”

The icy façade of the beautiful naked adonis firefighter began to thaw. The photographer had sparked an ember in the core of his being, past the firefighter’s buxom pecs, just above the symmetrical bulging six pack abs. The glistening hunk of a firefighter loved the idea of his body inspiring others and being passed down to future of firefighters.

“Alright. Great! Let’s get the shot!” the lusty, stacked firefighter affirmed. “What should I do next?”

The photographer had a final shot in mind but wanted to be delicate in his approach. He was finally connecting with the monumentally tempting firefighter and didn’t want to lose him before the grand finale.

The photographer grabbed the limp firehose and began wrapping it around the pelvically-blessed firefighter’s waist. Around and around, the photographer occasionally looped the hose down between his legs. He couldn’t believe how compliant the infinitely buff firefighter had become. When the hose had reached full coverage, the photographer was ready for one last big ask.

“Could you weave the hose end through where a fly would be, so it hangs, you know, suggestively?”

Instead of an response from the golden-ratioed firefighter, the photographer was answered with an ear-splitting, body-jarring fire alarm. The taut, ready-for-duty firefighter sprang up, now finally demonstrating all of the hard work he had put in at the academy. The photographer also prepared, as his training instructed.

“This is good, don’t be distracted by all the alarms and commotion; tune it out. If you are in a burning building you need laser sharp focus to achieve the mission ahead of you. It’s just you and me here. Trust in your squad. Trust in me.”

Four firefighters full dressed, helmets in hand, sprinted past without even taking note of the photoshoot scene.

“That’s the focus I am talking about,” reiterated the photographer. “Now as I was saying, can you dangle the nozzle from your hose thong?”

Josh Bard

Josh Bard is a guy. A sports guy, an ideas guy, a wise guy, a funny guy, a Boston guy, and sometimes THAT guy. Never been a Guy Fieri guy, though.

learn more
Share this story
About The Prompt
A sweet, sweet collective of writers, artists, podcasters, and other creatives. Sound like fun?
Learn more