“So, what seems to be the problem?”

Master Felix looked across the table at the rabbit, frowning. “It’s something kind of crazy.” The muscular tiger said. As he spoke, he absentmindedly stroked the head of the just as muscular tiger kneeling beside his chair.

“I’ve been thinking about expanding our playroom down in the basement.” The tiger Master explained. “So, I’ve had slave here clearing out some of the old storage boxes down there. And he found these. I don’t know what to make of them.” He slid a small stack of photographs across to the rabbit.

The rabbit picked them up and looked through them. “I don’t see the problem. It’s just some pictures of you and your slave having some kind of play session. They’re very nice.”

“The problem is I don’t remember taking them!” Felix explained. “I don’t remember that play session. And look closer. That’s me as the slave, in the collar and cock cage, and slave here is the Master, holding my leash, making me lick his boots, worship his body. He’s even fucking me in one of them!”

“Are you sure that’s you?” the rabbit held up one of the photos to his face, peering at it.

“Yes!” Said Felix. “I’ve looked at them so much and that is definitely me! Those are my stripes! But I have never been anyone’s slave! And he…” He gestured to the tiger slave beside him, who was naked except for the leather jockstrap, collar, and hood. “He has never been my Master! Ever since we met, I have always been his Master, and he has always been my slave! So, what the hell is the deal with these pictures?!”

“Hmm.” Was all the rabbit said in response, still studying the photos.

“And I suddenly realized I needed to ask for help figuring this out, so I…” He trailed off, a look of confusion on his face. “I called you. After the number just suddenly popped into my head. And… and…”

Felix suddenly realized something. “And I’ve never met you before.”

The tiger Master glared at the rabbit. “Who are you?” He demanded. “Why did I suddenly know your number? Why did I trust you and let you into my home?”

“Oh dear.” Said the rabbit, putting down the photo. “I see you’re unravelling more that I expected.” He clasped his paws together on the table in front of him. “The truth of the matter is that I am your hypnotist.”

“What?” The tiger spluttered.

“I have been hypnotizing you and your dear slave regularly.” The rabbit explained. “I’ve just prevented you from remembering any of it. And I left you with a deep post-hypnotic command that if the hypnotic programming I put in your head started to falter for any reason, you would remember my number, call me, and then trust me when I arrived.”

“This is ridiculous!” Felix said. “Why would you do that?”

“Well, partly it’s been an experiment, to see if I could pull off what I’ve done here.” The rabbit said, a serious edge to his voice. “And also, it’s because I hate abusive Masters…”

Felix slammed a paw on the table. “Fuck you! I’ve never been abusive!”

“No, you haven’t.” The rabbit agreed. He pointed to the kneeling tiger slave. “But he was.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Felix said, confused by all of this.

“It’s simple, these photos are genuine.” The rabbit said. “When I first met you two at a BDSM event a few years back, you were the slave and he was the Master.” He shot the kneeling tiger a disgusted glare. “And he was a real piece of shit, treating you so badly. And I later found out he treated you even worse in private.”

The rabbit leaned back in his chair as he explained. “So, I intervened. I hypnotized the two of you. I discovered you were too in love with him, despite his violent, abusive nature, to leave him. I had to try something else. I reversed your roles in the relationship.”

The tiger Master was staring at him in shock. He could hardly believe he was hearing this.

“It was actually quite challenging.” The rabbit put on a wry smile. “But I managed it pretty well, if I do say so myself. Under deep hypnosis, I had you both imagine the traits and attributes necessary to be good at the other part of the master/slave dynamic, then have your mind absorb those very attributes, overwrite your personality with them.”

Felix glanced at his slave beside him, who was looking up at him, seemingly just as shocked and confused by this as he was.

The rabbit was still talking. “Then I had to have you both rewrite your memories, switching your roles in them so that you would believe you had always been this way.”

The tiger Master was only half listening, still trying to process what he’d been told.

The rabbit wasn’t quite done yet. “Then it was just a matter of concocting a cover story for you to tell anyone who might ask about the change in your relationship, along with a post-hypnotic command to forget ever being asked afterwards. And of course, getting rid of any physical evidence of the way you used to be. Obviously, I missed some.”

“What now?” Felix asked. “I really don’t know what to feel about all of this. I really love my slave…” He looked again at his tiger slave, who also seemed to be struggling to accept what he’d heard, but hadn’t said a word as his Master hadn’t given him permission to speak. “But you’re telling me he is my Master, or was, or…” He shook his head and glared angrily at the rabbit. “And you! Messing with our heads, interfering with our lives…”

“Yes, I am an arrogant, interfering asshole, I’m well aware of that!” The rabbit laughed. “But trust me, you’re better off this way. You do not want to remember some of the stuff your former Master there used to do to you. As for what now…” He shrugged. “I put you both under again, make you forget these photos, and all about me and what I’ve just told you.”

Felix was about to snarl something in protest, but the rabbit interrupted him before he could come up with exactly what to say…

“After all.” The rabbit smiled at him. “That’s exactly what I did all the other times some missed detail caused your hypnotic programming to start unravelling, triggering you to call me…”

“What are you…?”

The rabbit snapped his fingers. “Sleep.”

Consciousness faded for the tiger Master…

…

Master Felix awoke.

He sat up on the couch, yawning and stretching. He was momentarily confused; his thoughts were all jumbled. What had he been doing?

And then it came back to him. Clearing out part of the basement for the playroom expansion had been tiring, so he had laid down on the couch for a nap. That was all.
Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had happened, he was certain of that.

On the floor beside the couch, curled up and still asleep was his beloved slave, his subservient tiger having joined him in a nap.

He let him sleep, sitting there, stroking him gently and reflecting on how much he loved his slave and how great it was that he got to be his Master…