Brazilian beauty recalls hot Rio affair with young John McCain:

Maria Gracinda in 1957

In 1957, John McCain hooked up with a saucy Brazilian beauty queen named Maria Gracinda Teixeira de Jesus.

In “Faith of My Fathers,” his best-selling book, McCain recalled wild times in Rio where he and his Annapolis shipmates “indulged in the vices sailors are infamous for” and writes of meeting a Brazilian woman he doesn’t identify.

“I met and began a romance with a Brazilian fashion model, and gloried in the envy of my friends,” wrote McCain. “I spent every free moment with her” for the rest of the eight-day stay in Rio. He had sailed to Brazil aboard the destroyer Hunt.

McCain at Annapolis, 1954

The former model was tracked down by Brazil’s O Globo newspaper.

“He was tasty, loving and romantic,” says Maria Gracinda Teixeira de Jesus, 77. H”e was a lovely person and loved to go out with me. I called him ‘John’ but he was my dear and my coconut dessert. He was such a good kisser that I had to purchase a book which taught me how to kiss to keep up with him.”

Asked about John in bed, Gracinda says, “Of course we had sex…he was not only good at kissing but good at everything.”

McCain was so smitten that, after the cruise, he flew back to Brazil on his own, but writes “our youthful impatience and short attention spans brought an end to our affair.” However, he describes the Rio affair as “in my memory, embellished with age of course, among the happier experiences of my life.”

Despite 50 years passing, the ex-model also speaks fondly of McCain. “I will never forget him and never imagined he would write a book mentioning me.”

If McCain wins the presidency, the Brazilian promises to send him a telegram of congratulations “from his great love in Brazil.”

Maria Gracinda Teixeira shows an old photo of herself, in Rio de Janeiro.