Country Meathead (Patreon)

 A six word request by patron Nate who asked for "music transforms listener into genre stereotype". 

Matty didn’t exactly love spending time in the gym, but he liked the attention he got whenever he stripped his shirt off at the local gay club every Friday night, so it was a necessary evil if he wanted to keep his six-pack abs looking fresh. It wasn’t as if he was looking to achieve the huge muscles that all the straight guys at his gym seemed to be gunning for; Matty was quite content with his lean runner’s physique and none of the guys who had seen him naked (and that was quite the number) had ever complained! Keeping his shape required careful tracking of his food intake and four hour-long sessions at the gym per week, with a particular focus on cardio and working out his core muscles. His life was an endless cycle of cable crunches, russian twists and hanging leg raises, but the gruelling physical work was worth it for all the attention he received.

Like any other sane gym-goer, Matty liked to listen to music while he worked out. His gym could usually be relied on to provide a soundtrack of upbeat dance music, but their speaker system had recently glitched out and they couldn’t get a repairman out for another few days. As such Matty had taken to wearing headphones and listening to his own carefully crafted playlist that included remixes of various chart songs like Cardi B and Dua Lipa, as well as some golden oldies like Britney and Beyoncé. While he wasn’t the most flamboyant of gay guys, he definitely enjoyed his pop divas; their music always got his body moving like nothing else!

For the first twenty minutes of his workout everything seemed to be going just fine, and then something strange happened: the next song to play featured a banjo, flute and some guy with a deep Texan drawl crooning about picking up girls in his truck. It was such a stark contrast from the song that had come before it that Matty almost dropped the dumbbells he had been overhead pressing and had to quickly adjust to avoid hurting himself. Once the weights were safely out of his hands he was able to open up his phone and skip to the next track that was thankfully more to his liking. He honestly had no idea how a Luke Bryan song of all things had made it onto his playlist, he’d made no secret of the fact that he loathed country music. The heteronormative and right-leaning attitudes that the genre presented always made his skin crawl, and the fact that he associated it with the country bumpkin meatheads who had pushed him around in high school definitely didn’t help either. No, if Matty could avoid it, he’d never willingly listen to a country song again!

Three minutes later though, Matty’s dance tunes had once again given way to a twangy guitar and a heavily accented southern gal swearing revenge on her cheating boyfriend. Despite his returning irritation he didn’t immediately skip the track: it would have interrupted his one-hundred-rep set of abdominal crunches. Besides, he supposed that it was at least a little closer to the pop divas he normally listened to. Taylor Swift had come from country music origins, after all, and he’d always found merit in Shania Twain when he’d been a kid. Once that song had finished though, it was succeeded by yet another Luke Bryan tune, this time about making his way through a crate of beers with his best buds from high school. Matty rolled his eyes at the sheer idiocy of the lyrics, but he supposed that the song’s melody wasn’t all that bad and there was even some merit to Bryan’s voice. Sure, country guys had never and would never be his thing, but there was something about that deep southern drawl that had caught Matty’s attention in an unexpected manner. He tried to put it out of his mind as he began his next set of crunches but that was much easier said than done, as it felt more like the music was playing directly into his brain than into his ears. That would be ridiculous though… right?

The following three songs were all of the country genre too and Matty was beginning to grow suspicious. He was absolutely certain that he hadn’t added them to the playlist himself and to his knowledge nobody else had access to add to his private playlists either, so how and why was he ending up with so many songs about riding around on a tractor and making love to girls in barns? Matty wasn’t sure why he was turning them over anymore either, and even more concerningly, why he was actively beginning to mouth along to the words with more and more confidence, even though he was certain he had never heard any of the songs before. His initial irritation was beginning to subside, although he still had his reservation towards some of the lyrics. Did all country music fans perceive these as universal experiences? Straight people lead such a weird life, he mused, as he moved on from training his abs to begin loading up a barbell for some heavy squats.

Even though he’d never made a habit of working with larger weights, Matty was surprised to find just how easy squatting one-hundred-and-thirty pounds was, so he decided to slip a few extra plates onto each end of the barbell. While he was doing so he caught sight of himself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror along the gym wall and was fleetingly surprised by just how well he was filling out both his tank top and shorts, the flexible fabric stretching out around the firm muscles of his chest and legs. He was by no means a match for some of the guys around him who were squatting over two-hundred pounds and more, but he was also fairly confident in the fact that he was heavier than any of the prissy guys who were only doing cardio and seemed terrified of lifting anything more than twenty pounds. Woah, where did that thought come from?

Thinking better than to dwell on such a bizarre invasive thought, Matt continued on with his next set of squats and was once again caught off guard to find that the weight which would have been a personal best for him felt so much lighter than he had been anticipating! He watched his reflection with mild intrigue as he proceeded through the movements and had it not been such an impossible notion he would have sworn that his quads grew thicker with each rep. His calves too looked far more pronounced and, after re-racking the bar and turning to inspect his backside, Matt was impressed by the roundness and perkiness of his ass. Why hadn’t he ever squat heavy before? He looked great!

By the time Matt had wiped down the bar and the weights and moved on to the dumbbell racks, the country music had become perfectly acceptable background noise to him. He no longer saw any reason to roll his eyes at the lyrics or bemoan the lack of dance beats to get him fired up. Now the tunes felt comforting, like sinking into a familiar embrace. Strangely he didn’t even miss the thumping bass that usually spread throughout all corners of the gym, in fact in a strange turn he was actually glad for its absence. He’d take the storytelling nature of country songs over generic autotuned garbage anyday!

With each curl of the thirty pound dumbbells, Matt’s biceps pumped up to form even greater peaks, while the increasing definition of his arms and shoulders seemed to make his delts ‘pop’ even more. Matt loved inspecting his muscles in the mirror as they tensed and flexed with every little movement; his reflection was the best damn movie he could ever watch! He soon noticed that he wasn’t alone in his admiration, as there were a pair of guys tucked away on the ellipticals who seemed to be intently watching him. Both were lean and handsome, and in another life Matt might have been delighted by their enraptured gazes, he now felt sheer apathy, even bordering on irritation. Before those negative feelings could truly take hold and hijack his focus though, Matt’s gaze drifted towards a cute brunette who had been watching him from her place on an exercise bike. As their eyes met, she blushed and glanced away, but Matt felt pride swell up within him. There was no question that she’d liked what she’d seen and the same could definitely be said in return. Her petite body looked like a tasty treat and Matt hastily rearranged himself in his shorts to make sure the surprise tenting wasn’t quite as obvious. Having Dierks Bentley singing in his ears about a beautiful woman’s curves probably wasn’t helping that situation much either.

Feeling bold all of a sudden, Matt dropped the dumbbells to the ground and began pulling a few poses in front of the mirror. He was no bodybuilder but he was sitting comfortably on two-hundred pounds of muscle and with his tan complexion and thick stubble he was easily one of the more desirable guys in the gym at that moment. More and more eyes were turning to him and Matt relished in the attention, although he made sure to sneer at some of the guys whose gaze lingered too long. He didn’t mind gay folks all that much, he just didn’t want them being all gay near him! The thought of another man wanting to feel up his muscles just made his skin crawl. If that cute brunette on the bike was the one tracing his strong muscles with her delicate hands though… now that was the kind of thing that got him going for sure!

Well aware of the fact that his arousal was pretty much on display for everybody in the gym, Matthew figured there was no better time for him to show everyone how to turn on the southern charm. Popping the headphones out of his ears and stashing them in his pocket, he sauntered over towards the exercise bikes, his thick cock swinging noticeably in his too-tight shorts. “Afternoon there, little lady,” he greeted, his words rolling out in a deep country drawl. “Ah couldn’t help but notice you starin’ and, well, I must say I was starin’ right back.” Now that he was up close to her, Matthew couldn’t help but stare at her breasts, they just looked so inviting! Still, he was gentleman enough to wait until they were in private to get his hands on them. “How ‘bout you an’ me get to know each other a little better somewhere more… private?”

All it took was a wink and the babe all but melted, another victim of his country boy allure. It wasn’t long before they were out of the gym and heading over to make love in the back of his truck, her petite body pressed up against his hard-earned muscles with a soundtrack of country music to accompany them. Now that was the only way Matthew got his cardio done!