A cozy little sex shop on a stretch of Venice

YOU would never call this part of town chic. But Venice Boulevard in Mar Vista has the essentials: sex, death, food and great jeans. The stretch roughly between Grand View and Lincoln boulevards is classic commercial L.A.: drab and fascinating, its optimistic bursts of entrepreneurial energy alternating with its decrepit and dying ventures. By car, it all blows past in a blur. On foot, the neighborhood comes alive.

A new clothing store called Anonymous lines its mannequins up like soldiers on the sidewalk each day, forcing pedestrians to consider the merchandise. Gallegos Mexican Deli, a venerable family take-out shop, moved here from Santa Monica a few years ago. (Santa Monica's loss is Mar Vista's gain. That \o7never \f7happens.) A block away, a gleaming pink coffin, wide open, beckons customers into the California Casket Co.

And then there is Freddy and Eddy, sandwiched between Coiffures de Paree and Global Coach, a used car lot. Freddy and Eddy is a mysterious little storefront that is easy to miss. This is by design.

Its brick facade has two front doors and two picture windows. The windows are always curtained, and the doors are always locked. "Freddy and Eddy," says the sign along the roofline. "Where couples can come." This syntax immediately raises suspicions. Freddy and Eddy grace the sign, a pair of cartoon people with porcine noses. Freddy, the man, is smiling. Eddy, the woman, looks a little perplexed. Soaring above them is a giant billboard for Martha Stewart's new show, "Martha -- Unsifted." Somehow, the thought of America's bad, bad diva of domesticity looming like a dominatrix over Freddy and Eddy is just too delicious. That's because Freddy and Eddy is a sex shop. For couples. The proprietors, Ian Denchasy (Freddy) and his wife, Alicia (Eddy), are on a mission to improve the marriages of America. They have been together for 17 years, they explain, and they want your marriage to be as fulfilling as theirs: "I mean, look at her," said Ian, grabbing Alicia and pulling her onto his lap. "She's totally hot!"

Except for their screaming libidos, the Denchasys are like any other 40-ish working parents of a 6-year-old son. "We're very milquetoast," Ian said. "I don't have a tattoo or a piercing on me."