There are as many ways to do D/S as there are people, so you really need
to know what your partner wants, doesn't want, is comfortable with, is
afraid of, and so forth.  A lot of submissive’s will have great trouble
telling you what they want.  For some of them, this is because they don't
really KNOW what they want.  Or, perhaps, they know how they want to feel,
but they aren't sure what it is that will make them feel that way.  Other
submissives do have at least some idea of what they want, but they're too
embarrassed to be able to tell you directly.  And some submissives know
what they want but feel as if it spoils things if they have to ask for
it -- they want the impetus for the scene to come from you, and if they ask
for something, then it's as if _they're_ controlling the scene, when what
they want is for _you_ to control it.  And of course, more than one of
these can occur at once. A person can know only what it is she wants to
feel AND be too embarrassed to talk about it AND feel as if it gives her
too much control over things if she tells you.

There are a couple of ways around these problems, but they all take a
bit of work on the Dom’s part.  For the sub who isn't all that sure
what she wants, you get her to describe how she wishes to feel.  You
ask her what things in her past have gotten her to feel this way, even
if it's only a small and mild version of what she really wants.  And
of course you also use your knowledge of your partner to guess at what
you suspect would make her feel what she wants.  You get her to tell
you what she fantasizes about (bearing in mind that fantasies are
often more intense than anything a person would like to do in real
life).

And you experiment.  A scene doesn't have to last for hours.  In the early
stages, when you're just figuring out what works for both of you, you can
try something for five minutes.  (But just because the scene is short
doesn't mean that you take it less seriously.  You have to make these
mini-scenes as real as your usual ones, or they won't work as a testing
ground.  Put your all into them, just keep 'em short.) Say you suspect
that your submissive would enjoy wearing a collar.  You put one on her, do
a few things with it, then take it off and ask her how she felt about it.
If you and she both liked it, you can always do it again for longer.  But
these mini-scenes let you try out things in the knowledge for BOTH of
you that if you hate it, it only lasts for a short time -- this takes
some of the pressure off.  (When an ex-lover and I seemed to be moving in
the direction of no-safeword scenes, I bought an egg timer.  The idea was
that he would have no safeword for the length of time it took the sands
to run down.  Three minutes is not very long, objectively speaking.  But
it can be a _very_ long time to someone who's never played without a
safeword before and who realizes that this time there's no way out.  I
wasn't going to do a full-length no-safeword scene until after I'd seen
how he handled the egg-timer version.)

For the sub who has at least some knowledge of what she wants but who
is too embarrassed to tell you what it is, there are a couple of routes
to go.  You can ask her to write it down and give it to you, since a
lot of people can write things that they cannot say.  You can also try
dominating it out of her -- try winding your hand in her hair, pulling
her head into a position that lets you stare into her eyes, and
demanding that she tell you what you want to know right now.  Or you
can threaten some sort of physical punishment unless she divulges the
information (only with her permission, of course.  The punishment
isn't really intended to be a motivator -- it's intended to be a way
for the sub to save face with herself.  She can tell herself that it's
not greedy or forward or too bold or whatever to tell you what you
want to know because you're _makingngs you can try.  You can tell her that you
aren't promising to do any of the things that she asks for -- you're
just asking because as the dom, you have the right to ask any damned
thing you please and to get an answer.  "Since you are my property,
the contents of your mind are also my property, and you will give them
to me when I ask" is something I tell my submissive.  You can tell her
that you want the information for your own selfish pleasure -- "Making
you be submissive in a way that's good for you is likely to be more
fun for me than making you be submissive in a way that's bad for you,
because the second way makes me work harder for less return.  So give
me what I need to know to get what I want."

Oh, yes, and a type I forgot to mention.  Some submissives think that
no one _really_ wants to dominate them, that you're just humoring
them, and leaving you to your own devices is sort of a test.  It's as
if they're saying, "If you really want this, you'll figure it out on
your own."  My own submissive had a touch of this, so I just jumped in
and started ordering him around, and once he was assured that I wanted
it, too, his fantashes started pouring out.

Once you start getting information out of the person, there are a
bunch of things you need to know.

1.  You know she's interested in D/S, but what kind?
 a.  Does she want to do D/S for a short time in bed and be equal out
     of scene, or is she after a full-time D/S relationship?
 b.  Does she want this to be you and her, or does she want the two of
     you to assume some sort of fantasy roles, like teacher/student or
     parent/child or jailer/prisoner?
 c.  Does she want to be treated as a valuable submissive, or does she
     crave humiliation?
 d.  Does she go for lots of symbols, like kneeling at your feet,
     wearing a collar, and so forth?
 e.  Are there things that she likes to be made to say?  Some subs like
     being made to say things like "I am yours, Mistress" or "Please use
     me for your pleasure, Sir," whereas others find this sort of thing
     too flowery and prefer sharper exchanges and still others get
     nonverbal when in scene and find speech annoying.  (I'm reminded
     of a woman who told me that she could never bring herself to call a
     man "Master," because the word always made her think of Igor saying
     "Yesss, Massster," and she would start laughing.  It wasn't that she
     was disrespectful -- she had no trouble with "Sir" or "My Lord," but
     "Master" made her crack up.)
 f.  What sorts of things would she like _you_ to say?  Some
     submissives like being called names by their dominants, some like
     hearing that they are slaves or that they are owned, others like being
     told about the various unspeakable things that are about to happen to
     them, others like hearing an explicit list of rules and expectations,
     others like hearing that their dominant enjoys what she's doing --
     there's a really long list of different things that turn different
     people on, and I can't cover it all.  (For example, my submissive
     loves hearing the words "You're my slave."  Very simple sentence, but
     it does something to him.  He also loves hearing, when I hurt him, "I
     need this, and I want you to bear it as a gift to me."  To show you
     how different even very similar people can be, I would hate being told
     "You're my slave" but I would love being told "I need this, and I want
     you to bear it as a gift to me."  (To make it even more
     complicated, I have no trouble with "You're mine;" it's the word
     "slave" that I can't stomach.)  Getting a feel for what sort of
     thing underlies your submissive's submissive desires will help you get
     a feel for what sorts of things she likes to hear.)
 g.  The above point leadst you to control
     everything" mindset, some have a "I want to be so desirable that you
     have to take complete control of me" mindset or the "I want us to
     blend into one person" mindset or the "I want to prove I love you by
     doing difficult things" mindset or any number of others.  Once you've
     talked and played for a while, you might get an intuitive feel for
     this.  It may be something that your submissive can tell you, but it
     may not be -- she may not have thought about it or analyzed it to this
     extent.  But if you _can_ figure out what sort of mindset underlies
     your partner's submission, it makes doing new things and guiding your
     future play a lot easher.  You'll know what new things are likely to
     work and what won't because you'll understand the underlying
     motivations.

2.  What sorts of things does she like besides D/S?
 a.  Is bondage okay?  If so, how much and what kind?
 b.  Is pain okay?  If so, how much and what kind?

Okay.  So now you know what your submissive wants.  You also have to
figure out what YOU want.  It's easy, when you're first starting out
and trying to figure out how to be a dom, to imagine some
stereotypical stern, sneering dominant and try to emulate that image.
But not all of us are cut out to fit that mold, and luckily for us,
not all submissives _like_ dominants who fit that mold.  You need to
find _your_ personal style.  The best style for you is not the one
that's the closest to the stereotype, it's the one that makes your
eyes light up and your energy rise and makes you feel that THIS is the
alivest you've felt in a long time.  Personally, I'm a pretty gentle
dominant as far as manner goes, but manner can be deceiving.  One of
the things I like to do is to force my submissive to do things that he
wants to do but is too frightened to do -- the "You are so much mine
that I can make you do something that terrifies you" feeling is quite
a rush for me, but I know I can let myself give in to that feeling
because I'm making him do something that he secretly wants.  I also
like mental stripping -- making my slave be mentally and emotionally
naked with me -- he must tell me anything I want to know about him.
Oh, and making him scream is fun, too. :-)

Of course, your style will be influenced by your submissive's style.
The sort of submissive who wants to be forced into submission will
elicit a different response from you than the sort of submissive who
wants to lay her submission at your feet like a present.  And of
course, some submissives can do one thing at one time and the other
thing at another time.  Just to keep you on your toes. :-)

Don't worry if it feels sort of strange in the beginning.  When I
first started dominating my slave, I would look at my face in the
mirror and chuckle and say, "This is NOT the face of the sort of
person who owns a man."  But that "WHO?  Sweet little me?" feeling
wore off after a while.  That "I'm not cut out for this.  I don't know
what I'm doing" feeling wore off after a while.  If it's TRULY not for
you, don't force yourself.  But do give yourself a little while to try
it on and get used to it before you decide whether or not it's for
you.  I felt silly and nervous and out of place at first.  But after a
while, I came to feel that there were few things I'd ever done that
were more satisfying.
 

Cory