Detroit ? Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick bristled in the witness chair last year when asked whether he had an affair with a top aide. No, the mayor confidently told jurors, the two were never romantically involved.

But a trove of 14,000 text messages that emerged this week tell a different story: The mayor and his chief of staff carried on a flirty, sometimes sexually explicit dialogue about where to meet and how to conceal their numerous trysts.

Now the mayor’s indiscretion has landed him in a Clinton-style scandal that could cost him his job and his law license and even bring perjury charges.

The Detroit Free Press did not explain exactly how it obtained the messages, which were sent or received in 2002-03 from Chief of Staff Christine Beatty’s city-issued pager.

The mayor’s denial came last summer during testimony in a lawsuit filed by two police officers who alleged they were fired for investigating claims from two former bodyguards that the mayor used his security unit to cover up extramarital affairs.