The Horse Fair

Philip Markle
10 min readJul 12, 2019

Note: This story is NOT safe for work or for those uncomfortable with graphic descriptions of male-on-male sex.

“Red blindfold or white blindfold?” asked the bouncer wearing assless chaps and a T-shirt with a logo of a horse’s ass above the name ‘Fickstutenmark.’ “Red means bareback is ok. White means condom only.” This was the second thing asked of me at The Horse Fair — the kinkiest, craziest, sexiest, scariest thing I have ever done in my life. The first question the bouncer asked me was, “Have you read the FAQ?”

Daniel Nardicio, the notorious gay nightclub promoter and self-titled king of sleaze, had told me about The Horse Fair when I mentioned I was going to Berlin. “It’s this insane party. You choose whether you will be a stallion or a mare,” he said in-between doing five other things at once. “If you’re a stallion, you walk around and fuck any mare you want. If you’re a mare, they put a blindfold on you and tie you up somewhere in the stable, and you’re fucked for hours by anonymous D. It’s a great time!”

A week later, I was in Berlin and enjoying some afternoon biers with my lady friends from NYC when I off-handedly mentioned The Horse Fair. Like in a “Isn’t this insane?! Isn’t Berlin so crazy! Isn’t this wretched madness?” sort of way. What I didn’t expect was for the ladies to all start pounding the wooden table and chanting: “Pumped full of cum! Pumped full of cum!”

As good (or bad) luck would have it, The Horse Fair was happening the very next day in the basement of The KitKatClub at 5 p.m. The ladies insisted I must go. I had to experience it. Even if I wasn’t sure I wanted to go, they reminded me to think of the content. The song I could write. The Medium article I could compose. The need for #Content demanded that I become a horse for a day.

I gulped down my bier and told my friends I would think about it.

It’s no secret I’m a horny bottom. I’ve only topped a man once in my life, and it was during the witching hour of New Years Eve last year when I woke between 2–3 a.m., and in a haze begun to fuck my one night stand. It was like a sexual demon possessed me for five minutes, and while somewhat pleasurable, it was not my preferred motis operandi, and I didn’t stay hard long. The demon abated, and I was left wanting only to be fucked in return. Other than that single encounter, my best chance of topping a guy at this point is probably after I’m dead via rigor mortis.

I love to bottom. I love to be fucked by a great top. But, while I’ve fantasized about BDSM play or watched my share of “hardcore” pornos, I’ve never actually been tied up or done any sort of submissive/dominant role-playing. At best, I’ve been rough handled a bit during sex — spanked, lightly choked, forced to listen to a Tenacious D album — all of which is still pretty vanilla in the wide world of gay sex. At longest, I’d been fucked for about an hour. How was this basic bottom bitch going to survive a parade of stallions doing whatever they wanted with me for six?!

I couldn’t sleep the night before the Fair. I turned on my roaming cellular data and burned megabytes downloading extreme pornos on my iPhone to see if they put me in the mood. Sure enough, I felt my body primed with electricity, a current of antici….pation running through me, nervous but also excited for a new test. Like how I felt the day before I took my high-school SATs. The idea of not having any control or say in what happened felt antithetical to how any sexual attraction worked. I liked looking at a guy across a bar and scoping the chemistry. This would be me checking out the inside of a cloth bag. But there was magic in this powerlessness, in this anonymity, in losing my personhood to become equine.

I switched from watching porn to pouring over The Horse Fair’s FAQ:

  • Once you chose your preference, you could not switch roles. #MareForever.
  • I would go as a mare. There was little chance of me enjoying being a stallion.
  • I would be blindfolded with a cloth bag over my head — covering everything except my nose and mouth (for breathing and other uses).
  • I would be buck-ass naked except for shoes and tube socks (recommended for storing poppers).
  • All the mares would arrive first at 5 p.m. to undress, enjoy a bier and socialize. Then, at 6:30 p.m., we would be tied up somewhere in “the stable.” The stallions would arrive and inspect that day’s selection of meat — examine us; compare our physical attributes, and decide which mare each wanted to break-in.
  • Then, we would be at the mercy of the stallions, passed around horse to horse, for the next six hours!
  • But I could leave whenever I wanted if I was uncomfortable. I could get help by raising my hands above my head and a staff member not participating in the fuck fest would come to the rescue: be it toilet, bier, water, cigarette, or just a chance to go into the mare’s changing room and give this horse a rest.
  • I had the right to ensure whomever was fucking me was wearing a condom. Safe sex was strictly enforced if you chose the white bag. And, I could refuse a stallion on the condition he was condom-less or — as the website put it — “too well-hung.” This had to be the only sex party in the world where too big a dick was grounds for rejection.

There was a parade of mares in line when I arrived at The KitKatClub at 5 p.m. the next day. No one was making eye contact with one another, despite the fact we were all consenting to this insane adventure. I asked to bum a cigarette from a cute guy named Erich behind me in line. I asked if he’d ever done something like this. No, he was a horse virgin like me. We giggled and chatted about how the weather was quite hot, then — silence.

I took out my phone and texted my female friends who had motivated me to do this my two final thoughts:

First: “Well, I’m off to the races! 🐴!”

Followed by: “As Mary Poppins says, ‘If we must we must!’”

My last thought before I descended into a curated slice of Hell was Mary Poppins agreeing to join a tea party on the ceiling. She loved to laugh; I loved to neigh.

We entered and each paid the 12 Euro admission fee. We went downstairs into the Dragon Room of the KitKatClub. Ultraviolet light painted a picture of a two-story sex dungeon, replete with everything you’d find in any darkroom — from the forest of glory holes to den of slings slung from every orifice. I met the bouncer who made sure I was properly informed of the FAQ. He asked if I wanted to take a Polaroid to compete for the “Ass Of The Month.” I passed.

I went to the Mare’s changing room, took off all my clothes, and put them in the provided extra-large trash bag. The bag check man wrote a number on my arm in blue Sharpie — branding me Mare #50. I ran into Erich again at the bar. I began chain-smoking Vogue cigarettes and downing Gin & Tonics, ordered via the number on my arm (to be paid for when I left). The bartender noticed I was nervous and gave me a hard time about it in the way that shows a gay really cares. He sassed me right out of my doubts and by 6:30 p.m., I was grinning and drunk.

“It’s time,” said the bouncer. “The stallions are waiting.”

“Giddy up!” I said and raised my glass to no one. I drained it and realized just how late I was to be tied up in the stable. Every spot in the crowded two-floor dungeon was taken up with a bound and blindfolded mare. I walked over with my white bag and asked where I should go. “Sling?” asked the staff member, pointing to the only free spot in the vicinity. “Sure, sounds fun,” I said, without a thought. They secured the blindfold over my head and helped helpless me into the sling, binding both my feet in the air.

I found myself rock hard waiting for the market to open. They were pumping remixed disco Donna Summer throughout the Horse Market. “I Feel Love” reverberated in my mind and my body. There is no greater feeling in the world than waiting for something new to begin.

I heard the sounds of the stallions entering; I felt air move beneath my ankles as they passed me. After about two minutes, a stallion sidled up to me and touched my leg. I gasped in surprise. He began caressing me, moving up the length of my body until he met my lips. He offered me poppers, and I inhaled as deeply as I could. He was gentle and took things slow. He entered me, built up the pace, and we had glorious sex for about 15 minutes. I loved every minute of it.

He gave me a kiss goodbye and left me there, glistening in sweat and euphoria. But almost immediately, I felt someone else plow their way into me. And then, my girl friends’ prescient theme song “Pumped Full Of Cum” came into fruition.

There were a line of men at the sling waiting to fuck me. I had made a rookie mistake. I thought the sling would be a relaxing place to pass the time in repose. Little did I know, the sling was an advanced choice. The sling is the parking garage for the event, and, one by one, men came and parked themselves inside me.

There was no break. I tried to relax and roll with the insanity, find a way to be turned on by the onslaught, but it was relentless. I could only identify different men by the varying size and girth of their members. It was like speed dating by dick. The sweat from twelve different men on my body was a kind of primal-smelling funk. I began to panic; I felt overwhelmed; and I needed a break. I raised my hand and right away an attendance came to my aid. “What do you want?” he asked. “Break! Beer! Toilet! Whatever!” I said, glad my voice hadn’t transformed into that of a horse. Something human remained.

The attendant led blindfolded me into the break room and took the mask off. My right leg wouldn’t stop shaking. I was in shock — the fantasy turned near nightmare by sheer intensity. I thought about leaving — but I hadn’t cum yet, and lord knows I believe in capitalism; I wasn’t going to take that much and not get my rocks off before I left.

I sat down and drank my bier until my body calmed itself. I saw other men in there also taking a break; I wasn’t the only one who’d called a Time-Out just 30 minutes into the event. I gathered my wits about me, put the blindfold back on, and asked to be led back into the breach.

This time, I found myself deposited in a corner, where the rate of men approaching me to play was at a more leisurely pace. Some even talked to me: asked me where I was from, told me how handsome I was, teased by asking what I wanted done to me. One guy, in-between kisses, told me about his recent trip to South Africa. He suggested some sites I should visit one day. I just said, “Danke.”

Then, the Prize Horse came up to me. I couldn’t describe what he looked like, but I felt his face, and the aspect ratio of his eyes, nose, cheek bones, and lips seemed to conform to the Golden Ratio! He must have been attractive. I decided that his face was that of my favorite porn star, because why not? He could be anyone I wanted him to be. My fingers explored his body — his chiseled chest, strong back, taut stomach — he was an Adonis from stern to bow. I played with his hair — how nice, the simple discovery that he had luscious, thick locks that fell to his shoulders. It reminded me of Western paintings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And like Christ, he had a heavenly dick. We took things slow. We kept at it, in union with one another — the stallion and the mare — for at least 30 minutes. I experienced a full body orgasm, and the ecstasy was incredible. He finished at the same time as me, thanked me, kissed my ear, and left me alone.

I raised my hand and said, “Done, thanks! Check please!”

The bouncers teased me as I dressed. “What?! Only two hours!” they said, “You have four more to go!”

“I’m good,” I replied, smirking. I had done it, done something that the Philip 24 hours before wouldn’t have dared if not for the push over the ledge from his friends who know best.

I paid my tab at the bar and left The Horse Fair, but not without first peeking into the main room. Like Orpheus leaving Hell, I couldn’t resist one last look. And I saw with my eyes everything that had been a fantasy before. It was a grotesque picture of men fucking bagged men every which way like animals. The visual disturbed me and tainted the movie in my mind, which has been so much sexier than reality. My last thought as I climbed the stairway into the afternoon sunset was, “I wish I hadn’t looked.”

I wonder if some people may find this story frightening or even problematic, given the fuzzy boundaries around consent at this shindig. The truth was, I knew what I had signed up for and bought into the rules. I felt immense kindness from the staff; I felt taken care of and that they truly wanted me to enjoy myself. I would estimate I had sex with 16 strangers. I road the wave of the experience, be it extricating myself when it was overwhelming to surrendering to the kink to have one of the best orgasms of my life. It was — all in all — a sex-positive adventure.

I don’t know if this mare will ever go back to the stables. One day at the races may have been enough. That said, the name Philip translates to “lover of horses” in Ancient Greek, so never say never.

http://www.fickstutenmarkt.com

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Philip Markle

Performer, storyteller, teacher - living in NYC and traveling worldwide (www.philipmarkle.com). Artistic Director of The Brooklyn Comedy Collective.