What is an example of simile in Waiting for the Barbarians?

From the text:

"Sometimes my sex seemed to me like another being entirely, a stupid animal living parasitically upon me, swelling and dwindling according to autonomous appetites, anchored to my flesh with claws I could not detach. Why do I have to carry you about from woman to woman, I asked. Simply because you were born without legs? Would it make any difference if you were rooted in a cat or a dog instead of me?"