Friend and occasional playmate Euclidian Point and I had agreed that our next session would be an interrogation role play. She specifically wanted to go beyond fun kinky play and find emotional challenge and physical endurance. I gave quite a lot of thought to how to set up such a demanding session in a realistic and immersive way.
I decided to set our game in Cold War East Berlin, early in 1974, not long after the first British mission to the GDR had opened. EP would play the part of an MI6 operative attached to military intelligence who had been captured while servicing a dead drop for her informant. I placed him in the air defence branch of the military headquarters.
I would be her STASI interrogator, a role that would give me free rein to abuse her in a truly awful German accent. There were other reasons for my choice of this very particular place and time. Just ten years later, and still in the Cold War, I was based close to the inner German border in a unit whose war time role was intelligence gathering. I once knew a lot about Russian and East German air defence systems, really a lot.
I was on a poker Holiday in Malta while we were planning this and settled down in a shady spot on the terrace of the big hotel near where I was staying to spend an hour writing the scenario into which EP would be pitched. I wanted her to have plenty of time to ease into the period and the character she would play. What a fun way to spend a sunny morning before my poker game!
Then I idly thought: “I wonder if Chat GPT could help with this.”
I typed this request:
Write a coupe of paragraphs setting the scene for the following story. EP is posted to the new British mission in east Berlin in 1973. She works for MI6 recruiting agents with a focus on military intelligence, particularly Russian and East German air defences. She has set up a dead drop for her most promising agent, codename Cole, who works at the the East German army headquarters.
In one and a half seconds, ONE AND A HALF SECONDS!!! this was on the screen of my iPad.
In the autumn of 1973, East Berlin was a city caught in the cold, grey shadow of division. The wall that sliced through its heart symbolized more than just the physical separation of East and West—it was the front line of a global struggle between two rival ideologies. For EP, fresh from her post in London, the city felt like a place of contrasts: grand yet decayed, vibrant yet suffocating, always watching. Her new assignment at the British consulate was a quiet one on the surface, but behind her diplomatic cover, EP was a field officer for MI6. She was tasked with the delicate and dangerous job of recruiting agents from within the East German military, specifically to gather intelligence on Russian and GDR air defenses.
Her most promising lead was a contact she codenamed “Cole,” an officer within the East German army with access to critical information about Soviet air defense systems. Their relationship was built on carefully orchestrated exchanges. EP had set up a dead drop, a secure location for secret exchanges, in a secluded alley near the army headquarters. It was a tense game of cat and mouse—one wrong move could expose Cole and unravel everything she had worked for. But with tensions high and NATO desperate for insights into Warsaw Pact defenses, EP knew that the stakes had never been higher. Each time she approached the drop, her heart raced—knowing that one piece of intelligence could tip the balance in the Cold War’s delicate equilibrium.
I read it twice in fascination then sent it to EP. She loved the fact that I had positioned her in a real era about which she knew little and I could sense the start of what would be five days of increasingly nervous anticipation as I ramped up the story to the time of our session. I was on a roll (yes, roll not role this time) and decided to ask Chat GPT to write something I could send her the day before the session.
I asked this:
Continuing the story: EP goes to collect her second drop but the STASI are waiting. She’s bundled into a car and taken to their headquarters. She’s left in a small cell with a hood over her head.
With uncanny haste, this started scrolling on to my screen almost immediately:
The night was thick with fog as EP slipped through the streets of East Berlin, her coat pulled tight against the cold. The dead drop was only a few blocks away, tucked behind an abandoned building near the East German army headquarters. She had done this before—calm, deliberate movements, never too fast, never too slow. Her senses were sharpened by the secrecy of her mission, each step taken with the knowledge that the STASI, East Germany’s secret police, could be lurking anywhere. But tonight, there was something different in the air, an unsettling silence that made her stomach twist. Still, she pressed on.
As she approached the drop, a gloved hand grabbed her arm with sudden, brute force. Before she could react, two more men emerged from the shadows. They moved with precision, dragging her into the darkness. EP fought, but it was futile—she was overpowered, her arms pinned behind her back as they bundled her into the back of a waiting car. The slam of the door echoed through the empty street as the vehicle sped off, the city’s blurred lights flashing through the windows. Her heart pounded, but she kept her mind focused, rehearsing the cover story she’d been trained to deliver. They couldn’t know who she really was.
At STASI headquarters, she was forced into a small, windowless room, the air heavy with the stench of damp and fear. A hood was pulled over her head, cutting off her sight and leaving her in a suffocating darkness. Time lost all meaning as she sat there, her breathing shallow, the cold of the cement floor seeping through her bones. The silence was deafening. She knew the STASI’s reputation for psychological games—breaking you before they even asked the first question. EP forced herself to stay calm, her mind racing through possible scenarios. Would they believe her diplomatic cover? How long could she hold out before they realized she was no ordinary consulate worker? The minutes dragged on like hours, the uncertainty more terrifying than anything she had ever faced.
Could I have done better if I had used the full hour I had available? Possibly. I mean I’d like to think so but…
Over the next few days Chat GPT contributed much additional material to our game:
- A date appropriate map of East Berlin (its least successful offering)
- The background of how EP had met and recruited agent Cole
- A briefing on resistance to interrogation techniques. (I once, in another life, attended a resistance to interrogation course and recognized some of the material).
- A list of twenty random German names (first name/sir name) with date appropriate East German army ranks
- Two statement for EP to sign if she eventually gave up the information I was after
All this material contributed to the richness of our role play and the depth of immersion we were able to achieve. I knew it had worked when, right at the end, I produced a statement confirming that EP had identified Oberst Johann Schmidt as her informant. I realised that Euclidian Point, my friend, was shaking her head and sobbing softly. She was so immersed in her role that she couldn’t sign the statement that would condemn our fictional Oberst Schmidt to torture and death!
At a superficial level this post is about how we used Chat GPT to create material for a kinky role play. You could do so too. But it really made me think about AI in general and how my decision to use it here had denied me the pleasure of several hours of creative endeavour that I would have found stimulating and fun.
I really don’t want all the amazing, creative, talented writers like Girl On The Net to be replaced by someone putting a three sentence fantasy into Chat GPT and posting what it spits out. I don’t want my own imagination or such ability as I have with words to be replaced by that either.
How do we use this quite incredible new technology to help us do boring things rather than to take over from us the joy of doing interesting ones? It’s a tough one that.
As Chat GPT spewed out yet another piece embellished with all sorts of interesting little story details beyond what I had asked for, a notion, suddenly and unbidden, entered my head. It hit me like a train and caused me to stop what I was doing and sit staring open mouthed at the screen:
CHAT GPT IS ENJOYING THIS!!!!
How scary is that???