GUSTO: BitchSlap by Elizabeth F. Stewart: The gloves are off.

"I can't even jerk off without crying!" Ah, the dagger's final twist in the jilted lover's heart. "My hot butch daddy schtups some princess two weeks before she dumps me out of the blue," sobs my femme friend, M. "It's so unfair -- now I can't even get myself off because I'm too sad thinking about her!"

"There, there, darling," I purr soothingly, "she was a 'mass-murdering fuckhead.'" Quoting the always-inspirational comedic performer Eddie Izzard (who was referring to Hitler), The Bitch empathizes authoritatively, arrayed in proper, starched white nurse's cap and crisply-pressed uniform, cradling the luckless M, stroking her red-and-gold layered hair. I tuck into her limp, perfectly-manicured hand a finely-embroidered linen handkerchief for eye dabbage and/or nose blowage.

Like Nurse Ratchet on Ecstasy, as Nurse Bitch I have watched over The Piteous Creature for almost two weeks in my home -- lately The Forsaken Femme Asylum. Despite a market glutted with inferior "breakup manuals," I will share my insights with you in case you find yourselves caretakers to a melancholic Dumpee and wonder, as you would, "what would the Bitch do?"

Without waxing woo-woo, Nurse Bitch wondered what would replenish The Piteous Creature's ravaged mind, body and spirit. The key: imagine what it needs and wants. He may be a wreck, forgetting that opening window shades by afternoon can really brighten up his day. Or, she may forget that a ceaselessly-shrieking kettle signals tea water readiness -- or forget to turn off the gas with the flame.

For M, Nurse Bitch knew light, airy, serene spaces would be key. She checked M into the VIP LooneyToon Room, her cell padded with a down duvet and supplemented with hydrotherapy of unlimited herbal bubble baths. She planned nutritious, healing gourmet meals and snacks, presented appealingly to encourage gustatation. A flexible schedule of diverting activities was devised to elevate spirits, mind and heart rate.

This nurturing, hospitable treatment is fine for some but not all Piteous Creatures. Some, like whimpering, wounded puppies, require another type of thoughtfulness - and may prefer crawling under the porch, left alone to lick wounds privately. Eventually you'll have to lure them out with bits of meat, to slowly strengthen them and rebuild their trust. Finally they'll be ready to return to the dog park to gleefully sniff butt. The Bitch's townhouse is porch-less, but by God, she'd construct a veranda if a friend required one to crawl under.

We "circled the wagons," for M, as one of us calls it when our girl-gang rallies to aid a sister. We had these sort of "Ex-Bashing Socials," lending our soggy shoulders and bent ears over sushi, Chinese and BBQ. Clichés aside, we consumed little ice cream or alcohol. M rarely drinks, so she OD'd on red wine and cigars one night -- and did toss cookies -- toujours l'amour! Some find solace in drowning sorrows. The Bitch drank enough (and overate enough) to last a lifetime, and it only gave her more sorrows. Her diet for reviving the wilted Dumpee is this well-known, oft-ignored commonsense regimen: lower fat proteins, light dairy, lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, fiber -- easy on the sugar, white flour and caffeine -- mucha agua. Par-tay!

Much inevitable processing took place at these Ex-Bashings -- who said what when, why, how, what it meant then, what it means now, who told it to whom later, who repeated it, how it was misunderstood, whose therapist told her psychic who astralprojected it to the Michigan Women's Music Festival's giant telescreen . . .

Apparently, processing is for pussies -- never a factor when gentlemen hang with their heartbroken guy friends. Says my charming Mr. X, when one-on-one, a guy might be either sympathetic or frank about the breakup -- will serve up whatever his Dumpee buddy wants to hear. But in a pack men immediately smell blood, brutally ripping at the warm carcass of the Dumpee's ex: "Dude, she was totally heinous! What were you thinking? You can do waaay better." This incisive post-game analysis may occur over a well-marbled strip steak (bleu) and a fine, aged Scotch; or over a boilermaker during a lap dance -- but in boy scenarios, there is never any processing; and, all agree there are waaay hotter chicks than that hag, the ex. Game over.

M's friends all knew about her fairytale romance when it was new last year. Our gorgeous femme friend was enraptured with her hot butch. When we met The Beloved, we were underwhelmed but said nothing out of respect for M. After the breakup, the thought of a reunion with the ex so appalled us that, not unlike the boy-pack, we finally all ejaculated, "we never thought she was good enough for you." But, un-boy-pack-like, we went on for days about exactly how and why she was so grotesquely inferior -- not a scrap of flesh was left on that carcass. The lioness doesn't kill for sport, play with her prey and leave it to die for others to scavenge. She drags it home, shares it with family and picks the bones clean.

How does someone get into this mess in the first place? Reviewing one's exes, doesn't one wonder: What was I thinking? Who was that person? Who am I? The Bitch recommends next time you ask those questions in reverse order.

Experts with degrees have credible credentials and creditable theories on what motivates attraction, but I promise not to let that stop me from spouting off another half-assed theory. I believe we have a collection of qualities we desire in an ideal mate, which we project like a template onto unwitting individuals who seem likely candidates. Often it turns out the person we desire doesn't fit the template as we hoped/expected. But we want that ideal partner so badly, we ignore what, to others, are obvious problems.

(When I shared my "roster of dream characteristics" theory with Mr. X he huffed incredulously, maintaining that to men, women are either "hot" or they are not -- that men have a far more generalized, brutally critical view, despite their individual tastes. Yikes. So glad I make the cut.)

Back to overly-complicated female civilization: M's ideal partner has these qualities that she thought she'd found in her ex: Ph.D.; athlete; sharp butch dresser in male attire; admiring of M's intellect and achievements; polished with social grace, at ease in diverse company.

In M's fairy tale, she kissed a handsome prince who turned into a frog. But it took what M called her friends' "cognitive bitchslapping," for her to hear her story that way. Highly-accomplished academic lionesses among us deem the ex a "lazy scholar with a third-rate degree in a soft discipline from a second-rate school" -- ouch! We also told her, and she agreed, that the ex was also a gym bunny with no real athletic ability, whose dress shirts morphed into sweats; a slob who preferred smoking pot and watching football to attending M's acclaimed, standing-room-only lectures; and a rube who talks with her mouth so full that food actually falls out -- like a brain-damaged kitten trying vainly to chew its kibbles.

Why was M so "blinded by love?" Did she crave her ideal partner so strongly she just imposed it onto this half-assed imitation of one? Or . . . was it the bed-shattering, dildo-rending, lingerie-shredding, God-seeing sex? Now, the Bitch loves a good orgasm-induced, spiritual connection to the Universe as much as the next female. But, unless we're reenacting the refrigerator scene from "9 1/2 Weeks," food falling out of a lover's mouth while she's speaking to me is a definite deal-breaker. My Hitachi Magic Wand will not embarrass me at dinner parties.

The Piteous Creature wanted to get tarted up, go clubbing, seduce a hot butch for one night and just disappear. But, Nurse Bitch took M under her wing and guided her gently back to the VIP LooneyToon Room, refastening those naughty loosened buckles on her ever-so-becoming straightjacket, murmuring reassuringly, "No, honey, not just yet. You're really a very pretty girl, you know. Now, we'll just relax and have a nice cup of herb tea. Maybe later you can have another nice, hot bath. Here's your soft plush bunny."

Advice to recent Dumpees: No post-breakup sex with others until one can successfully jerk off without weeping.

Too much drama, too much baggage! And there is no drama like dyke drama, unless it is het custody battle drama, teen girl cheerleader tryout drama, or retirement condo drama. Everybody has drama. Everybody has baggage. Some have dramatically excessive baggage, handled at extra cost -- to you. It is your responsibility to examine that baggage for your own safety and security. You never know who is hiding something that will blow up in your face.

Elizabeth F. Stewart, AKA "The Bitch of Dupont Circle" (BoDC), was lovingly given this Nomme de Perv by her mentor in the leather community, because she is a bitch, as well as a denizen of that 'hood in Washington DC. She is an art director (see www.efstewart.com) and writer (see also www.pervgrrl.org), whose fave hobbies include cracking wise, dressing up, getting off, telling others where to get off, and arranging things in an attractive fashion.