Day 1

Early morning, and everything is calm. The ocean is sibilant against yielding white sand, and there is but the softest of breezes rustling the palm fronds. I lift my head from my scribbling long enough to sip a banana daiquiri and frown.

AJ: Wait, did you say magnets, or maggots?

Heather (removing chocolate muffin from her mouth with a grimace): Please stop writing horror.

I consider this through a fog of travel weariness and booze. It’s never going to happen, me not writing horror: I may venture into other genres for a bit, but I will always return to my first love.

Aj: I could try writing romance? I do a decent sex scene.

Heather: Indeed you do, however you write violence better. On a completely unrelated note, how’s your marriage? 

Aj: Violently romantic?

Heather: Is that a thing?

Aj: If it’s not, it should be.  And anyway, how do you figure I’m not romantic?

Heather slaps the page she’s editing for me.

Heather: Right here! She wrenched the pen out of his ruined forehead and sent it in a bloody arch across the asphalt. How is that romantic?

Aj: Well, would it be more romantic if she left it in?

Heather: Hun, you can’t kill off half your characters in a romance novel. They frown on that.

Aj: I’m flexible. I could totally write a book where no one dies.

We face off, unblinkingly, over a pile of beach towels, snorkeling gear and mutual disbelief, both slack-jawed with shock that I even suggested such a thing. Later that night, over red caviar, shrimp and white wine, she imitates my injured croak under her breath; yet again, we laugh and laugh and laugh.

Day 2, hot afternoon

Heather: That parasailing looks like a lot of fun.

Aj: Pretty sure that’s the most fun you can legally have.

Heather: No, that’s the most fun you can legally have.

I peer over my sunglasses to follow her gaze to the cresting waves, where a half-naked Frenchman (I’m assuming, only because of the hotness factor, and the cigar still nonchalantly–and soggily–clenched by a perfectly vulpine smirk, as though by his sheer fiery Frenchness he can deny the ocean its ability to de-smokify him) has surfaced from the ocean in a black speedo, his glorious bronzed body slick and perfect. If he claimed to be a spy working for Covert Op: Brain Melt, I wouldn’t doubt him for a heartbeat. He pauses in rinsing sand off his chiseled midriff to grin at us.

I casually lean over, pluck the remains of my melted brain out of the sand, give it a kneading-dough squeeze, and shove it back into my ear where it belongs.

Aj: We’re supposed to be working.

Heather: I’m working real hard at not running over there and tackling him into the surf.

Aj: At writing. Although, I will admit: my hands are shaking too hard to write actual words at the moment. Shouldn’t it be illegal for him to walk around like that?

Heather: Like what?

Aj: Assaulting innocent brain cells with his hotness. He’s going to be shimmying those narrow hips and cut abs in my dreams tonight, against my wishes I might add. Why, that’s tantamount to dream thievery.

Heather: That’s not a thing.

Aj: Then it’s fantasy invasion!

Heather: That’s pretty thin, too, but nice try. Have another drink. You need to loosen up, have some fun.

Aj: I had fun this morning.

Heather: When you broke the sliding door and got stuck in the bathroom?

Aj: Before that.

Heather: When you tried to high-five the breakfast waiter and slapped him in the nose?

Aj: After that.

Heather: When the peacock ambushed you from the tree?

Aj: That was kinda epic, wasn’t it?

Heather: It really was.

We clink our plastic glasses together; she returns to editing, and I bury my nose in the outline of book 3.

2 hours later:

Aj (running full-out, flapping my hands over my head): Gaaaaaah! The egret! The egret!

Heather: Awww. You’re making friends.

Aj: Waaaaahalp!

Heather:  See? I knew you could loosen up and have fun!

Day 3, late night, watching TV

Heather: You’re scowling at the commercial. Whatcha thinking?

Aj: If the Dyson guy made vibrators, would they be see-through with tornado action?

Heather: I should really never ask you what you’re thinking.

Aj: You learn great things from me. And you are welcome.

Day 4, over dinner

Heather: You’re quiet … whatcha thinking about?

My pencil breaks.

Aj: Balls.

Heather: Well, then. Not sure the women at the next table need to hear your obsession with–

Aj: No, not balls, you ninny. (I turn to the women at the next table, to assure them) I’m not talking about testicles.

Heather: That was nice of you.

Aj: I was thinking about how I missed my husband, you know? How he could be sharing this with us. I wish he was here.

Five minutes of amicable silence pass, while we enjoy our steak and watch the flamingos in the pond. The waiter fills our wine, and Heather eyeballs me suspiciously over the rim of her glass.

Heather: Just to clarify … you’re not thinking about your husband’s balls?

Aj: Well, now I am.

Day 5, on the patio over coffee

Heather: There’s a serious frown on your face, what are you thinking?

Aj: What if Megatron and Smurfette had a filthy night of passion?

Heather(deadpan): Uncanny … I was thinking the same exact thing.

Aj: Their baby would be a giant evil blue robot who would fuck Gargamel’s shit up.

Heather: Or a very tiny blue robot who would drive Azreael bonkers.

Aj: Have you learned nothing from me, grasshopper?

Heather: I learned more than I ever wanted to know about glory holes.

Aj: And you are welcome.

Day 6, early am

Aj: Are you going to help me out of the bathroom or not?

Heather: You’re almost tragically retarded, aren’t you?

Aj: You can hold a telethon for me later. Put the goddamned camera down and help me!

All in all, I would have to conclude that two writers unsupervised on a beach in Punta Cana might not lead to disaster per se, but it certainly offers fodder for the creative process. At least, that’s what I’m claiming on my T4.