Smiling and sometimes bubbly, other times crying and self- pitying, Lewinsky described Clinton as a "good kisser" and a man with lots of energy and sensuality. She also said Clinton's finger-wagging denial of the relationship "with that woman" was "hurtful."

In a frank interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, the former White House intern revealed her innermost feelings about the relationship and the investigation that led to the first impeachment of an elected president in U.S. history.

Asked if she ever felt she was doing something wrong, Lewinsky said, "Now with everything that's happened I feel bad that I didn't. But I didn't at that time. I was enamored with him and I was excited and I was enjoying it."

"I thought he was my sexual soulmate," she said.

But she added that they never had sexual intercourse, although she wanted to.

Their affair first began, she said, when she revealed her thong underwear to the president in what she called "a small, subtle, flirtatious gesture." That night, he invited her to the Oval Office -- and the rest is history.

"I blurted out, 'You know I have a crush on you.' That was his cue I guess that it was OK for him to proceed in what he wanted and what he was feeling," she said.

The ABC interview was part of a promotional blitz by America's most famous intern, coming just before the release of her long-awaited tell-all book, "Monica's Story."

In her memoir, Lewinsky says the president once confided that he "was unhappy in his marriage" at age 40, "considered divorcing Hillary and leaving politics forever," and said he would become a "gas station attendant" if that's what it took "to live an honest life."

The 288-page book, written by Princess Diana biographer Andrew Morton with Lewinsky's help, speaks her mind about some of the key figures involved in the scandal, including Linda Tripp as a "treacherous bitch" for betraying their friendship.

Lewinsky even says she "would have tried to kill" her friend had she known "the full extent of Linda Tripp's treachery." It was Tripp's secretly tape-recorded conversations with Lewinsky that became a key piece of evidence for Independent Counsel Ken Starr in his probe of the president.

Lewinsky said in her book that Starr's office "was sick" for asking so many detailed questions about her sexual encounters with the president and also engaged in "dubious tactics" by trying to coerce her cooperation during a first confrontation in January 1998.

In the book, she reveals her unwavering support of the president and that she considered killing herself when Starr's investigators first began grilling her about her affair with Clinton. She calls one investigator a "pit bull."

She said in her book that first meeting made her so distraught that she considered hurling herself from the 10th floor window of the hotel room where prosecutors interviewed her, and later weighed fleeing the country with her mother.

"If I have to go to jail I will do so to protect the president," Lewinsky says in the book. "I can't do this to him. I can't turn him in."

"... So I thought there is no way out other than killing myself. If I kill myself, then there would be no information and I wouldn't have to deal with the hurt and trouble I had caused the president."

Even now with a promise from prosecutors that she won't be charged, she is "afraid of doing something to lose my immunity," she told Walters.

The other man and 'that dress'

In other chapters, she describes an affair with a Pentagon employee named Thomas and that she became pregnant during their relationship and had an abortion. She also recants her constant battle with weight problems, among other issues.

During the Walters' interview, Lewinsky was asked if she believed Clinton harbors any remorse about the relationship.

"When I think of the person that I thought was Bill Clinton, I think he has genuine remorse. When I think of the person that I now see as 100 percent politician, I think he's sorry he got caught," she said.

"There are some days that I regret that the relationship ever started," she said. "And there are some days that I just regret that I ever confided in Linda Tripp."

Lewinsky also discloses in the book that she and her mother briefly considered "fleeing across the border to Canada" to escape Starr's investigation "but that idea was discarded as soon as it was mentioned, because they believed that the FBI would have every airport and border post staked out."

And what about the now-infamous blue dress?

"This dress is one of the most humiliating things that has happened to me. Every man that I have met since this thing has happened eventually says to me, 'So what's the real story with the dress?'"

Asked what she'll do with to the dress if it's ever returned, she said, "I'll burn it."

-- AP - 3/03/99