THE PLEASURING OF RORY MALONE

Does the readership for telekinetic hooey overlap with the readership for leering, voyeuristic porn? If so, there may be a few takers for this murky sleaze about handsome Forest Hills teenager Rory, a ""poltergeist child"" loaded with psychic energy, a puritanical Catholic upbringing, and horny hormones. Result? Well, Rory's uncontrollable fantasies about women not only lead to his own embarrassing orgasms in public; they sometimes even affect the woman (depending on her ""biocurrents,"" it seems). And when Rory zaps gorgeous classmate Kathy with his mind-sex, she's so discombobulated that she falls onto the subway tracks, suffering critical injuries. So, seething with guilt, Rory tests his powers on other women--to ascertain if his fantasies really do affect them (""the connection between hard cock and soft brain clicked into high gear""). Meanwhile: the cops, including the injured girl's vengeful uncle, are on Rory's trail; the researchers who've been testing Rory begin to worry--especially when it seems that Rory's lust-thoughts are turning women on all over N.Y. (""His Tinkerbell can travel miles and integrate itself into a woman's sexual fantasies""); Rory's relationship with nice-girl Melissa is becoming, as you might expect, problematic; he wreaks poltergeist havoc on his foul father. And when Kathy dies in the hospital, Rory flees--to Manhattan, where he has violent encounters with a homosexual and a hermaphrodite before a Central Park showdown: all the characters converge as Rory, near suicide after sex with Melissa, agrees to undergo any therapy necessary in order to overcome his tempestuous testosterone. Heavy-breathing folderol in a slow, awkward narrative--no less distasteful for all the pseudo-science and pseudo-psychology.