Clare gasped. "You can't be serious," she squealed.
"We are," Martin replied, and stared at my fiancée and myself. "It'll be our wedding present to you. Well, I also want to arrange Jon's stag do, which may or may not coincide with a pre-season tour. He will walk down the aisle with a sore arse and a massive smile on his face!"
Victoria eyed Clare and wiped the tears from my partner's eyes. "This is massive. This... mansion... is anything beyond what we could afford and..."
"I know," Victoria replied. "But I really need you as our neighbour. We are going to turn the estate next door into our kinky B&B. I want to convert the stable block and the outbuildings into something special. Just like we fantasised about when I was at University after we went to that party at the manor house near Lancaster. I will have a near limitless amount of men to beat and punish, and I'll be able to explore and enjoy myself like never before."
"Vics, we got so pissed when we said that. It was a fantasy because we saw that piece on Other World Kingdom. A nation where women lorded it over men. It's not a reality."
"But I am making it a reality," Victoria squealed. "And I do not want my neighbour phoning the cops because she witnessed the lady of the house pulverise the backside of some oil executive in the back garden! Or that I whipped a misbehaving boy. Or plundered some jackass with a twenty-inch strapon."
Clare laughed through her tears. "It's just... I can't... just... We can't. We can't take a three million pound house from you! That's..."
Victoria snorted. "It was less than two when we bought it." She shook her head and looked at her husband. "Do I need to take you down to my dungeon until you'll accept my hospitality, Miss Clare Brownlees? I enjoy making men scream, but I will happily give you a damn good spanking. I have done it before. I am very versatile when it comes to my sexuality."
Clare sniffed once more. "But Vics, c'mon. This is..."
"I am the Lady of the House," Victoria interrupted. "And you are my best friend who I share, or want to share everything with. Surely, you can find a couple of kinky-minded lodgers to enjoy the house, the hot-tub, the summerhouse and the dungeon."
"Victoria, do you..." I said, but the fearsome woman glared at me and interrupted.
"Ssshhh! This is between me and my best friend. When you become Mr Brownlees, then you can have a say." She turned to my partner and held her hand. "C'mon Clare. This is our gift to you two. And I know you are not planning for a wedding for another eighteen months at least, but the day you walk down that aisle, I'll sign over the house to you. And until that moment, you stay here, rent-free."
"Martin, could..." I said, and the multi-millionaire just raised his finger to stop me.
"We both want to do this," he snapped. "And if Victoria says that she is doing it, then she is doing it."
"Let me show you," the dominatrix said, and tugged Clare's hand to make her stand up. Martin and I followed as she took my fiancée out of the front door and they walked through the gap in the hedges that separated the two properties.
"This - this will be the main house. Mostly private, but we are going to have a dungeon here, and some guest rooms for personal visitors. But over here..." She called and strode towards an unused stable block in a large U-Shape. "This is where the fun will be. I can convert these into half-a-dozen rooms right here. Hot-tub in the middle. And look at the views across the valley. It's magnificent. And there's still three barns and an old ramshackle cottage to think about. The possibilities are endless."
"How does this..." Clare cried out to her excited friend.
"Because I will need you," Victoria begged. "Do you think I can run this without your support? I need to unwind and escape. l need to share a bottle of Prosecco with my best friend in a hot-tub and tell her my secrets and insecurities. I am asking, please, stay in that wonderful house and help me. I can't run this venue of ill-repute without my best friend at my side."
"Oh, Victoria. I'll always be around for you. But a three million pound house. It's a massive, massive present."
"And you a massive, massive friend." Victoria sighed and looked at her husband. Clare had always been reticent at accepting financial gifts from the confident dominatrix. There was a vast difference in their wealth, and if Victoria had her way, my partner would live a luxurious life of leisure. But Clare was too independent for that and valued her career immensely. We had tentatively discussed moving to a nearby village when her company confirmed Clare's promotion in Manchester, and we had hoped to purchase a two-bedroom townhouse or cottage. We had seen a few houses on the 'net and had spoken tentatively to mortgage companies.
But Victoria and Martin's old house was in a different world. "We'll talk," I promised Victoria, and she scowled further. "It's really generous of you both."
This was one argument that Victoria could not win with dominance, although she and Clare played in her dungeon for a couple of hours later that day. The lady of the house treated my fiancée to a massage and then numerous forced orgasms in a lesbian BDSM session and I wished I had been a witness to it.
Instead helped Martin in the kitchen. "I find it easier to accept that Victoria will get what Victoria wants. It's much better just to give in at the beginning rather than the end," Martin told me as we prepared dinner. "Do talk to Clare. Victoria would be delighted if you do accept."