Strange Bedfellows
Beads of sweat poured down his face. A soggy cig clung to his lower lip despite the salty torrent. His hip gyrations increased with the tempo of the Argentinean club beats, as he led the late-night dance party at UFO Point. A pink one-piece women’s swimsuit barely contained his manhood as he put on an exhibition from atop a table, but what really put the “dulce” in his “de leche” was the pair of hand-me-down ski boots that he only wore at night.
The first time I saw the man known as La Pantera in 2005, he wasn’t skiing. In fact, he never skied. Although he spent the austral winter in the remote ski valley of Las Leñas, Argentina—famous for its steep alpine terrain and howling winds—Pantera couldn’t have cared less about the incoming Santa Rosa storm. He was there for something else entirely. As his nickname suggested, he lived for the neon blur of nightlife, not the thrilling descents found on the surrounding peaks.
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