The After Show with Lisa: Hungry for More

After the show, you head back to your dorm, chatting with Lisa in the cool autumn night.

“Bet you that guy called it a tie because he digs you,” you say, gently ribbing Lisa.

Your sister doesn’t take the joke like you thought she might. She shoots you a withering look. When you look back at her, confused, she crosses her arms.

“You have no business making bets anymore,” she says. “What would you have done if Jack had brought up me instead of Gina?”

{if JackOff == 1} “I would have asked you if you were cool with it first. I checked with Gina before taking on Jack,” you say. “I wouldn’t leave you out to dry. I’m not that kind of person.” {else} “I would have turned him down anyways,” you say. “I’m not that kind of person.” {endif}

“I suppose I have to take your word for it,” she says.

The two of you fall into a silence, an awkward one that you aren’t quite sure how to break. Is the tension in the air from the jokes you just cracked in front of that audience, or from something else?

“You’ve been quiet lately,” she says, and you give her a questioning look. “You were pretty silent the other day too, when we were talking about the new seminar prompt in class.”

“What, the one about the Freshman 15?” you ask. “I… I’m surprised you noticed. I wanted to hear what you girls were thinking first.”

“You got your answer. I’m interested in yours. What do you think about this whole phenomenon?”

You hold the door open as the two of you enter the hall.

“Let’s find some privacy and I’ll tell you what I think,” you say.

Lisa gives you a bemused look.

“Alright, we can go to mine,” she says, and the two of you head up the stairs.

“I’m happy the movie came out this year,” you say, as the two of you plop down on the edge of her bed. “I mean, I don’t know what it’s like around here usually, but I think the movie must have made girls a little more open to the idea of having some fun, and… I’m a red-blooded guy, can you blame me?”

Lisa shakes her head at that, looking deeply unimpressed.

“That’s all you have to offer?” she asks. “You’re really going to write that in your essay? I’m horny and the movie let me get some action. The prof will fail you for that.”

“Tell me what you think about it, then.”

“The movie is nothing more than a symptom of our modern day ills. It’s a symbol for the hedonistic cycle that we’re trapped in. Gratification now, more gratification, never enough gratification. Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. To try to read deeply into the movie is to try to read the entrails of a slaughtered pig. Maybe, two-thousand years ago, we might have fallen for it. But there is nothing there. It is void of content. The only inference one can make is here there once was life, and then a butcher came by. The movie is an empty shell. Hollow images. Sex, marketed to the masses.”

You exhale, looking deeply into Lisa’s eyes. What a beautiful pale blue they are. She blinks slowly at you, something smug in her expression.

“I could keep going,” she says, more quietly now. “But I think you get the idea.”

“I do,” you say. You laugh. “With you, somehow, it always has to be a symbol for something.” She gives you a questioning look, so you continue. “To you, the movie must signify something greater than itself; the thing itself is meaningless. The movie is meaningless. All that matters is what it represents. I’m a fool for liking it, much less thinking that it could mean something.” You see her nodding along. “But is it not real?”

She blinks at you again. This time, there’s a hint of uncertainty there.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“How is it possible that you could spend two hours in a theatre, watching a screen, millions, billions of pixels flashing by, and think—there was nothing there. I just saw nothing.” You grab Lisa’s shoulder, forcing her to look at you. “Life is not just meta-commentary. There’s something real here.”

“Come on,” she says. “Then what’s the message? I want to fuck girls? Really?”

“That’s as real as anything else,” you nod emphatically. “Sex is real. Sex is primal. Sex is the essence of life itself. It’s where we all came from, it’s where we’re all going. Tell me that’s not real enough for you.”

“Uh-huh, and we needed this movie to tell us that?” Lisa says, standing her ground.

You lean in closer to her, the two of your foreheads almost touching. Her lips are brushed in a disarming shade of red tonight. You hear her breathing pick up slightly.

“We did. Everything today is bogged down by social commentary or political correctness or the crushing weight of the human condition. You wanted to turn this movie into another vessel for that. Fuck that. The Freshman 15 is about something, but it’s something far simpler. It’s the kind of teen flick that they don’t make anymore.It’s just about guys and girls having fun, simple as that, and that’s… honestly kind of radical.”

“So your point is that there is a message, and the message is sex. How deep,” she says, but you can tell you’ve hit a nerve. There’s something different in her eyes now. A yearning. And you know just what that yearning is for.

“Still more sarcasm,” you say, shaking your head. “Don’t you get it? All this sarcasm, this nihilism, this pointing at the signified… the point is that there is something here that’s real.” Your hand caresses her cheek, bringing color there. “You and me. Sitting here. This is what’s real.”

“And… and the message?” she asks, breathily. “Of the movie?”

You lean closer into her, the bridges of your noses barely pressed against one another, your lips coming awfully close to hers. She’s still, perfectly still, watching you approach with a held breath, and then you’re past her, lips against her ear.

“Some things are real,” you whisper. “Some things are worth caring about.” You draw back, lips ever so slightly kissing her cheek. “Some things are worth chasing.”

You get up then, heading for the door.

“Alex, wait,” you hear Lisa call out as your hand closes around the door knob.

You turn around, glancing at her questioningly. She’s flushed, more than you expected her to be.

There’s a pause.

“I…”

“I’m headed to Philly tomorrow for an away game,” you say. “But I’ll catch you Sunday.”

And with that, you make your exit, your heart hammering away, wondering what she must be thinking, not knowing that the same questions are running through her head just the same.

Lisa +15