Book Title: Persistence of Memory
Author: J.M. Snyder
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Narrator: Nick Johnson
Release Date: September 25, 2024
Pairing: MM
Tense/POV: first person, present tense, single.
Genres: MM Dystopian Romance
Tropes: amnesia
Themes: love despite everything
Heat Rating: 1 flame
Length: 2 hours and 28 minutes
It is a standalone story and does not end on a cliffhanger.
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Blurb
Five years ago Joah was culled—kidnapped by the government to be trained as a soldier. In the process, they erased his memory, destroying his past, his dreams, everything but his name. Armed with that alone, Joah escapes from the facility in search of someone to help him recall the man he used to be.
That person is Tobin, Joah’s husband, who never gave up hope of finding him again. He refuses to believe that the strength of his love alone won’t be enough to bring back Joah’s memories of their shared lives, and he’s determined to bring back the man beneath the soldier, the man he knows has to love him.
But an alarm in the chip blocking Joah’s memories was triggered at his escape, and if it isn’t removed soon, it will shriek his life away. Removing it won’t bring back his past, and may destroy the present that Tobin has tried so hard to build between them. How can the love they once shared possibly survive?
When I wake again some time later, there is a woman sitting in a chair by my bed. She has pretty strawberry-colored hair, a menagerie of crimps and curls and long, straight strands like spun wine that looks windblown and unkempt. She’s hunched over my hip, a healing laser held steady in one hand while her fingers smooth out the torn skin around my wound. I watch her work, detached—the pain has settled into a rhythmic throb that aches in time with my heartbeat, and the blue light from the tip of the laser leaves behind an echo of hurt as it weaves my muscles and skin back together again. When she shakes her head to brush the hair back from her eyes, she sees me staring at her and, for a second, her hands freeze on my leg, her touch gentle and healing. Her eyes widen slightly and, without turning away, she calls out, “Tobin?”
Running footsteps shake the house, and then the door opens and the man from the fields enters, a frown marring his angelic face. “Naphalie, what—”
Then he notices I’m awake and that frown dissolves so quickly, I wonder if it was ever there at all. “Joah,” he sighs, falling to sit on the edge of the bed. His hands find mine and his words tumble in a rush to escape. “Oh, God, I thought I’d never see you again. My heart broke that day they came. Do you remember me? Do you remember anything at all? The farm, Ashe, Naphalie?” He clasps my hand to his chest and I can feel his heart beat beneath my palm. His other hand caresses my cheek, the touch so soft, so gentle, so unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. “My God, what did they do to you? How did you escape?”
“Tobin,” Naphalie chides, concentrating once again on my wound. “Let him wake up first.”
Behind Tobin, someone else enters the room. This must be Ashe, this large bear of a man with blonde hair that looks out of place with his tanned skin, his dark beard. His brown eyes watch me cautiously—he’s the only one here who knows I’m not the same and he’s not giving me any chance to prove him wrong. He leans against the far wall and crosses his arms in front of his chest, studying me, waiting.
“Sorry,” Tobin says, but the smile doesn’t fade from his face. He glances at Ashe and when he turns around, I swear his smile has widened. It threatens to split his face in half, and right now I don’t think he’d mind that one bit. The way his eyes sparkle when he looks at me leaves me breathless—I could easily fall for this man if he keeps looking at me like this, keeps touching me so softly. It doesn’t matter if I loved him before, because I know I could love him again. “Do you remember me?”
I want to tell him yes. I want to say that I remember him and his hands and his lips, I remember the way it feels to hold him in my arms and fall asleep in his embrace. There’s so much hope shining in his face that I don’t want to say no, I can’t say it—I don’t want to see that happiness turn to disappointment. I don’t want to cause that smile to disappear. But I can’t lie to him, so I look at Ashe when I whisper, “No.”
Ashe closes his eyes but not before I see the resignation written there. He knows I don’t remember. He’s not holding out on the belief that being here might trigger something for me.
Tobin purses his lips into a pretty pout. Damn, I lost this when they took me away? These hands, these eyes, these lips? How could I have let them strip this man from my life? From my memory? How did I live for five years without remembering him at all? “I’m sorry,” I sigh, because I am. I am so sorry that I lost him in the culling.
“Well,” he says bravely, and there’s that stubbornness again; at least one of us never forgot, “you must remember me, you have to. Somewhere deep down inside where it matters, Joah.” His smile is contagious enough to make me smile back. “Why else are you here?”
I don’t have the heart to tell him I don’t know where I am. I escaped from the facility and ran blindly into the night. I would never even have stopped if I hadn’t been sick from the heat and my wound. I would have stuck to the road and passed by this house without a second glance.
And because I don’t want to crush the hope he clings to so desperately, I don’t answer his question.
J.M. Snyder is a multi-published author of gay erotic romance who started writing fanfic (specifically, boyband slash). She has worked with several different e-publishers, including Amber Allure Press and Torquere Press, and had short stories published in anthologies by Alyson Books, Cleis Press, eXcessica, and Lethe Press.
In 2010, she started JMS Books LLC to promote and publish her own work as well as that of other authors she enjoys.
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