known it if they thought about it) that the Bostonian was as far from gayhood as, let us say, Vatican City is from Acapulco. Back home, he told us, he had done something or other in a boot and shoe factory. All I could think of at the time was smelly feet and all I said was that it seemed like a good occupation.

The idea of the new name for gay guys and gals didn't come to me right away. It came, in fact, while I was occupied with my toilet, after I'd washed a couple of unmentionables, followed by socks, It was while doing the latter, I think, that the toe passed the heel on its way inside out. "Bostonian!" I think I screamed, and a feeling of warm satisfaction came over me.

Having told my friend next day, she too seemed pleased at the appropriateness. The somehow puritanical connotation could nowhere be misunderstood (or, in our application, understood).

Boss-tone-ian. (Note the affinity here of "ian" with that of another "forbidden" gay word.) And so, Bostonian it became. We were no longer harassed by a word beyond our reach, knowing that here at last was a word for our use. Non-suspe ct. Plain. Ordinary. A word that didn't arouse too much interest or curiosity as maybe "kokopandoon" Just might have. Indeed, our very first chance to use the word was thrilling. Have you ever thought that it'd be like to shout in church Just before the passing of the plate? That's what it was like, using "our" word for the first time.

Then it happened. We began to regard

We used the word frequently after that, savoring our secret, enjoying it, applying it to all whom we suspected of "boing." (Sometimes I think we overestimated the numbor just so we could use the word.) Somewhere along the line, it happened. the word as we had first regarded all other words in reference to gay people. To say "Bostonian" we might have been saying queer, fairy, butch, dyke, flit, and on and on ad infinitum. It'd suddenly become taboo to us. When using it we'd come to a whisper so minute that it was shaping our breath around the sound, so that only my timid friend and I would know what we were talking about or suggesting.

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