Just because two people have been intimate doesn’t mean they’ve been intimate intimate. In the waking moments after their one-night stand at a conference, Alex and Carey learn this, caught unawares by a situation requiring a much deeper connection.

With DISC running all of 14 minutes, credits and all, I’m not about to reveal details of the hole in which they find themselves. As Carey (Jim Cummings, The Last Stop in Yuma County) cryptically explains to the knocking housekeeper why they can’t cede the room quite yet, “This is R-rated stuff … so I’m sorry.”

Although Cummings isn’t DISC’s director (that’d be one Blake Winston Rice), it tonally fits his own wonderful films. One could see Cummings’ reluctant philanderer from The Beta Test stumbling into this fine mess of lanyard-bearing lovers. The other, Alex, the yin to his yang, is played by Victoria Ratermanis. She was heretofore unknown to me, as confirmed by a trip to her IMDb page (where her bio incorrectly calls her “an Oscar nominated actor”). Aside from starring, she also wrote the short with Rice from her (hopefully true) story.

Shooting in a fleabag motel with curtains the transparency of tissue makes the cringe-comedy piece feel more awkward and stressful — and, yes, funny — than the comparative professionalism of a hotel room (posh or economical) would allow. That smart decision pays immediate dividends, even if DISC’s final moments do not, in a grace note that feels unearned. That extends to a title card that attempts to pass off the all-caps title as an acronym — one that seems more convenient than functional.

But before that? Yeah, give ’er a hand. —Rod Lott