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The woman who says she dated Sen. John Kerry for 20 months in the early 1990s - former Harvard graduate student Lee Whitnum - tells me she has written a novel in which a Kerry-like character tries to become President.

The fortysomething Whitnum - who received her master's in education from Harvard and uses the pen name Lee Roystone - describes "The Hedge Fund Mistress" as part financial potboiler, part political thriller and part romance.

Kerry, she revealed to the Daily News this week, liked to cook seafood dinners for them in his Beacon Hill apartment and whisper sweet nothings in her ear - in French - during moments of passion. [Bleah]

Whitnum's Web site, hedgefundmistress.com, features a blog in which she worries that her novel - if published before Nov. 2 - might harm her one-time lover's election chances. Especially if conservative radio jocks exploit it to damage the Democratic nominee. "By the time John Kerry won Iowa, this novel was mainly completed," writes Whitnum, who tells me she has spent $15,000 out of her own pocket to self-publish the book. [what a surprise]

"There is a chapter on a character who dated a United States senator. When John won, my first reaction was: What do I do now? Shelve my book? Rewrite the book? That portion of the book is crucial to the story. It puts me in a strange situation because I do not want my personal experience with him to be twisted and I put nothing past the right-wing talk show hosts - especially in such a close election (I hate Rush Limbaugh - in the book I call him 'The Rash')."

Whitnum's Web site also features her "John Kerry Scrapbook," including several snapshots of herself and the senator, a couple of notes from Kerry and an account of their romance - along with with exhortations to support Kerry's campaign. "Vote for John!" the Web site repeatedly urges. Daily News