Breaking up with Britney It’s official: My relationship with the Divine Ms. S is over BY STEVE ALMOND

I wanted to be the first one to tell you guys, because I know there’s going to be a lot of press around this whole thing, a lot of lies and distortions, and I’m not saying that as a dig against Brit, because I have all the respect in the world for her as a person, and as a music/dance/endorsement talent.

At the same time, I felt like I owed it to my own fans to get the true story out there before the waters got muddied.

I’m not going to get into the details of how we met, because I promised Brit a long time ago that there were certain things that would remain entre nous, especially the stuff having to do with how she basically stalked me during my last book tour, showing up at all hours outside my hotel room in a leather teddy and flavored body paint. I also promised not to mention the tattoo (PROPERTY OF S.A.) she got on her mons pubis during that blurry weekend in Fresno. Or the leash. Some stuff is just off-limits, okay?

Because the truth is, Britney and I were just like any other dopey young couple out there. All we wanted was to build a little secret garden in which our love could flourish. Sure, she’s an international superstar who travels with a security detail larger than the president’s, and I’m a rising young author who is often mobbed by his own pets. But in the end, that’s really nobody’s fault.

The important thing to remember is all the good times we had, whether it was doing body shots with Bianca Jagger on Corsica, or firing shoulder-mounted grenade launchers off P. Diddy’s back porch.

I can still remember Brit’s exact words to me after the first time we made love, the way she tenderly looked into my eyes and said, "I thought Jews had, like, horns."

Well, all right, I’m not claiming we were the world’s most obvious fit. She had her friends, and I had mine. She liked to go out clubbing and pound Red Bull and vodkas and simulate sex with large reptiles. I was more of a movie-and-pie-type guy. She favored retail therapy. I’m into traditional Freudian psychoanalysis. She’s a Sagittarius; I’m a Scorpio.

But that’s what made it all so exciting, so fresh and new.

I remember the first time she came over to my place. It was early autumn, and she was on her way back from filming a commercial for a German soy product and smoking a clove cigarette. She marched right over to my coffee table and picked up one of my Thomas Mann first editions.

"What’s this thing?" she said.

"That’s a book," I said.

She cocked her head. "What’s it for?"

"Just, you know, to read."

"Yeah," she said, "I know that. But how do you turn it on?"

Oh, Brit! It gets me a little misty, even now, thinking about how hot she looked in her neon tube top and matching knee socks!

Now listen: I know what people think about Britney, this image she has of just being some witless publicity whore hoping to cash in on her tits before they sag.

But that’s not the Brit I grew to love. The Brit I grew to love was a tireless advocate of the disadvantaged. If you could have seen the way she conducted herself during corporate meet-and-greets, the little something extra she put into every photo shoot. It’s a kind of generosity that’s difficult to explain.

That was what I loved most about the time we spent together: not the reckless oral sex in public places, the violent altercations on hotel balconies, or even the secret weekend getaways to Sun City. No, it was the way we helped each other grow.

For example, Brit had all kinds of issues when it came to food, such as not eating for many days in a row. And I got her to eat. Not all at once, of course, but a little at a time. A carrot here, a Twinkie there. I also held her hair when, after a rather unfortunate corndog binge, she delicately vomited onto my Birkenstocks.

Nor was the learning a one-way street. It was Britney, after all, who got me into Pilates and horseradish colonics. She was the one who urged me to upgrade from my dented Tercel to a fully loaded Hummer 2. And it was Brit who nursed me back from the brink of a serious Advil dependence.

There was a time, not so long ago, when we were eagerly discussing how many little Spearses we might want. I even traveled down to Louisiana to meet her mom. I know some of the press accounts have made Lynne out to be a blood-sucking stage mother. But she struck me as a loving parent, one who not only cooked up a mean pot of chili, but stood ready to defend the gross and net percentages earned by her daughter over the course of any given eight-hour work segment.

So no doubt you’re wondering how it all went wrong.

It wasn’t the rumors about Ben Affleck, or the extended tongue-wrestling match she and Madonna staged at the MTV Video Awards. (That kiss was my idea, actually, although I had a private screening in mind.)

No, the truth is we just sort of grew apart.

I know this sounds strange, given the hundreds — no, thousands — of minutes we spent together over the past year. But a love as passionate as ours may simply have been too combustible. And we were both under so much pressure. Britney had her dance moves to deal with, and this new cell phone that was really hard to program. I had my own issues: overdue library books, unfinished haiku, outstanding parking tickets. We let ourselves drift.

I do know that Britney provided me some of the most magical, sexually charged, and physically dangerous moments of my life, and I harbor no bitterness toward her. To me, she is the same sweet, humble young girl who once told me she thought Cormac McCarthy was "the cute Beatle."

So please don’t expect some kind of tacky tell-all memoir from me, in which I expound upon all the dirty little secrets that sustain our desperate, fame-mongering culture — at least not until I can nail down the details of the contract.

For photos of Steve Almond with other nubile celebrities, check out www.stevenalmond.com.