Elder, R. K. (Feb. 14, 2003) Their word is their bondage at these shops. Chicago Tribune.

"If you woke up from a dream with a design, drew it on back of a napkin in lipstick--we can make it for you," says Shawn Shaithis when I call the two-in-one fetish shop Black Market Chicago/Paul C. Leather.

In East Humboldt Park near Bucktown, a dual storefront shows off a pair of neon signs. Bright purple letters say "Black Market Chicago" on one side; "Paul C. Leather" shines red and purple on the other.

Near the yellow-brick entrance, a sign reads: "No solicitors, no gawkers, or loitering. This is a store, not a museum." and "Before entering store, ring doorbell."

So, I ring the doorbell and I meet Shaithis, my guide through Chicago's self-styled fetish headquarters.

Essentially a 2,600-square-foot studio with a foyer and leatherworking shop in the rear, Chicago's largest fetish store offers every thing from fashion to private fancies within its omni- purple walls.

"We don't carry any pornography or videos or magazines," Black Market Chicago owner Monica Lawson tells me later. "I think it brings a certain element into the store that we're not interested in entertaining. We feel that we've added an element of class to what is otherwise a seedy-type venue."

In its third location since opening in 1995, Black Market Chicago has shared space since April 2000 with Paul Christensen's custom leather shop.

Although Christensen started leatherworking 30 years ago in Texas, his home base for 16 years was a Rogers Park studio where he fashioned gear for HBO, Playboy and Penthouse models. Besides corsetry and bondage gear, Christensen handcrafts gun holsters, lambskin suits and leather wedding dresses in his new space. He's also made Catwoman and Robin costumes on order.

He still has many of the same high-profile clients, but the bulk of Paul C. Leather clientele are: "middle-/upper-class married couples who want a little spice in their life."

Photographs of various scantily-clad models line the walls above racks of rubber clothing and leather gear. Gold mannequins wearing chain mail bikinis stand next to glass cabinets full of bondage toys and accoutrements.

The WB filmed an episode of "elimiDATE" here this summer, against the leather, latex, fur and rubber that seem to coat most everything.

"We're a serious store for serious players," Shaithis says, directing me to wooden rack of whips hanging from the ceiling.

Real horsehair whips ($79) hang next to buffalo skin floggers ($169) and canes ($12.50 to $38), all tricks of the sadomasochism trade. And just to show it's all in fun, Furry "Naughty Wear Bears" ($39.95) sit on top of the rack, clad in mini-leather outfits, their fur pinched by tiny clothespins.

To the right of the checkout counter, a glass case holds the only literature in the place, mostly how-to manuals such as "When Someone You Love is Kinky" ($15.95). Some of "Interview with the Vampire" novelist Anne Rice's racy erotica books ($12.95) are present, written under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure: "The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty," "Beauty's Punishment" and "Beauty's Release."

On the left side of the counter, purple and red suede restraints for the ankles and wrists sit alongside something called a "vampire mitt." Dark fur covers one side, while the other offers a palm full of outward-pointed spikes.

"You can play with the rabbit fur and then turn it over," Shaithis says. "If you think fingernails down you back are one thing, 60 sharpened steel tacks are completely something else."

Compared to devices like the vampire mitt ($65), handcuffs ($11.50) and a leather straightjacket (starting at $395) seem almost tame. More than once during our visit, Shaithis is careful to point out that the pleasure/pain crowd are regular folks who like to mix extremes in the private lives.

"It's all safe, sane and consensual," Christensen says, "an adult Disneyland."

Corsets are the shops' bread and butter, as the Gothic fashion and fetish audiences overlap. Custom corsets can cost from $250 to $1,600, and require a 30- to 45-day waiting period.

"You can have an openly fetish/S&M shop and not have picketers outside," co-owner Lawson says. "Chicago is more of a melting pot than your small town . . . everything is becoming much more acceptable these days. It's frightfully almost becoming mainstream."