A Merry Little Meet Cute

“The people who watch those vanilla-ass excuses for movies are definitely not the same people who have Bianca von Honey underwear for sale in their search history.”

Sunny’s sardonic joke is a comment on the perceived wide divide between the consumers of sweet, holiday-themed romance films and the kind of adult content that Bee creates. This contrast is a source of irony and humor from the very beginning, when Bee straddles both worlds. By the end, however, the events of the novel suggest that these audiences might include many of the same people: those who enjoy love in both its sweetly romantic and graphically erotic expressions. Indeed, the meet-cute between Nolan and Bee relies on exactly that crossover.

“Everything about Christmas Notch was artificial and curated, but that didn’t bother me in the least. I was used to artificial and curated.”

Nolan reflects on how his time in a boyband, which involved curating his image, helps him relate to the town that is the setting for his movie, which is crafted to support a perpetual fantasy of holiday warmth and cheer. This comment establishes this important context for Nolan’s character: The sense of tension between his past image and the image he needs to cultivate drives his character arc throughout the book.

“My dirty dream girl showing up in Christmas Notch, Vermont, of all places, ready to spend the next two weeks wearing corsets in front of me (!!!) and […] I had to keep everything zipped up tight.”

Conflict is introduced by the premise that both protagonists are forbidden by their bosses to act on their sexual attraction to one another, which only increases the sexual desire. Nolan’s appreciation for Bee in a corset leads to their first sexual encounter, which is an important step in the development of the relationship arc. “Zipped up tight” is a visual pun that refers to keeping secrets and the sexual nature of Nolan’s feelings, providing an erotic tease for the reader.

“The duke of no boners. The softest duke who’d ever softed. That was me.”

Nolan’s efforts to restrain his physical arousal around Bee become a running joke as he tries various strategies for dampening his physical response to her. This passage is characteristic of the humor throughout the novel as well as its strong focus on physical desire.

“I suddenly needed to be anywhere but here. Anywhere but with a woman who couldn’t be mine for so many reasons, and who was nuking the slouchy-cool control I’d taken years to master.”

The need to maintain a certain reputation in order to rehabilitate his image causes a great deal of tension for Nolan when this directive comes into conflict with his desire for Bee. This passage suggests that Bee speaks to the person he is at his core, beneath the persona and image he has cultivated, exposing the novel’s interest in the divide between the public and personal self. It is also part of the novel’s romantic arc, indicating that they are “meant for” one another.

“Like me, she was trying to keep her past from getting in the way of her future.”

Nolan and Bee are brought together, in part, by their similar motivations, which are to move beyond a past that could potentially be held against them in search of their new careers. The pleasure of pursuing one’s ambitions and career dreams is part of the novel’s thematic focus on the pursuit of pleasure. This passage summarizes the paradox at the heart of the romantic comedy premise: that the reason for Nolan and Bee’s mutual understanding is also the obstacle to their relationship.

“The world is never quiet, is it? Somehow even in a place like Christmas Notch, the chaos seems to find us.”

Gretchen’s observation captures how Christmas Notch seems set apart from the world, an artificial fantasy. Her words symbolize the performer’s wish to erect a distance between the public and the private self and also foreshadow the chaos that will later enter Christmas Notch in the form of Dominic Diamond.

“Hello? Yes, I just humped the shit out of my costar’s erection, was nearly caught, and then wrestled my way into this dress like I was Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Could you please powder my nose and smooth out my frizzy hair? TYSM. I am one hundred percent a professional actress.”

This internal monologue capturing Bee’s scattered thoughts after her first sexual encounter with Nolan conveys the humor that is characteristic of her voice and the overall tone of the novel. The reference to popular actor Dwayne Johnson, whose stage name as a professional wrestler was “The Rock,” as well as the texting shorthand for “thank you so much,” are examples of the authors’ frequent use of celebrity references and jargon. Bee’s humor is often self-deprecating, and this passage shows her worry that she is not behaving—or will not be accepted as—a legitimate mainstream actress, even though she is already a seasoned professional in the adult film industry.

“Who cared if I had shit going on at home? Everyone had shit going on at home. That was just how it was, and I could hardly ask for special treatment because they used to print T-shirts with my face on them.”

Part of Nolan’s character struggle during the novel is his feeling of guilt at being away from his family, for whom he feels responsible. This conflict reaches its climax when he stops filming to take a call from his sister. Maddie’s distress raises the stakes and adds tension, but this experience also reminds Nolan that he doesn’t have the right to behave as if his problems are more important than everyone else’s, which is a sign of his evolving maturity.

“She wanted me. And suddenly nothing else mattered. Not the movie, not relaunching my career. Not staying good and manageable for everyone else.”

Bee and Nolan’s attraction follows the convention popular in the romance genre that sexual attraction can overpower every other obstacle. Nolan has been counseled to be “good,” but now he wants to be “bad,” which raises the question of who defines moral values for others’ behavior and on what grounds.

“It was all out of order and full of laughter and panting and honesty. It was a fantasy come to life, as though I’d stepped into every fic I’d ever written about bad boy Nolan Shaw in my head and I got to make it all come true.”

After she has sex with Nolan, Bee contemplates how the lines between fantasy and reality are becoming blurred; he still is the persona of Nolan Shaw to her to some extent, and their second sexual encounter is, for her, living out a fantasy. This is part of the novel’s exploration of the pleasure to be gained from fantasy and the boundaries between fantasy and real-life realms.

“When I’m Bianca, I am the fantasy, but as Bee Hobbes, actress, I get to live inside the fantasy too. I love doing both.”

Continuing the themes of fantasy and the construction of persona, Bee’s character arc during the film hinges on her realization that she would like to act in mainstream films, which she sees as a different kind of fantasy from porn. In both cases, she is performing as a character, and she enjoys exploring the different opportunities.

“[Horses] are like the animal kingdom’s big derpy version of Fabio.”

Murphy and Simone weave frequent references to pop culture into their text, some of them specific nods to the romance genre and history. Fabio is an Italian actor and model pictured on a large number of romance novels throughout the 1980s and 1990s. This line calling horses handsome but a bit foolish and dim-witted is characteristic of the novel’s humor.

“The truth in her words felt like the bottom-shelf whiskey. A deep-chest burn I needed, but not one I particularly liked.”

This image captures Nolan’s embarrassment when he realizes, through Steph, how taking phone calls during filming appears to the others on the movie set. This increases his inner conflict, as he feels responsible for taking care of his family and has a hard time accepting that his mother and sister can function without him.

“We stood there framed by his open window, as the sun hovered above the slopes crowding this town that was picture perfect from a distance until you looked close enough to see all its little rough and endearing edges and imperfections. Sort of like me. And Nolan. Whatever we were.”

The setting becomes a vehicle that brings the protagonists together in the context of their movie shoot, but here, it also becomes an explicit simile for their relationship. Both leads are beginning to feel that they are drawn together by more than just sexual attraction but aren’t certain about committing to a relationship, which still leaves questions and tension for the plot to resolve.

“I wanted to watch him for a moment longer. Just to observe him as him. A fleeting moment where Nolan wasn’t trying to be anyone or anything for someone else.”

As their relationship progresses, Bee makes an effort to see beyond the image of Nolan that she has interacted with for years. Instead, speaking to the novel’s exploration of the dissonance between public and private selves, she falls in love with the man beneath the persona, his true self.

“I had the sudden vision of Bee’s past work being smeared all over the press and the internet, of her career being spun as something immoral or tawdry, when it was neither of those things.”

Nolan’s acceptance of Bee’s career voices the novel’s sex-positive attitude and its depiction of sex work as a valid profession. The novel’s conflict depends on highlighting the opposition between this view and pervasive moral judgments in the US that dismiss sex work as obscene or demeaning. Nolan’s fear of how this attitude might affect his and Bee’s new careers provides foreshadowing for the exposure soon to follow.

“There was a clear prism of truth at the heart of Felicity and the duke’s story. And it was that even if fate could triumph over separate timelines and separate lives, no destiny, no love, ever came for free. Love—even love decreed by fate—always demanded sacrifice and risk.”

During the scene in the chapel, when sexual desire is conflated with images of marriage and lasting relationships, the novel introduces this reflection on love, moving Bee and Nolan’s relationship from lust toward love. The ability of two characters to connect across very different paths and worlds is a popular romance trope: This passage introduces new conflict with the warning that there is a price to lasting commitment, unlike the pursuit of pleasure, which the characters have been engaged in until now.

“For a moment, I felt like I could have it all. I could star in the silly Christmas movie and have the ex-boy band member boyfriend. I could have my ClosedDoors fan base and one foot in the porn industry. I could be every version of myself without any sacrifice at all.”

Bee’s ideal is that she can have both careers she wants, an expression of the several dimensions of her interests and personalities, but she recognizes the fantasy in hoping there will be no dissonance between her porn self and her mainstream actress self. Following on the previous reflection that love can come at a cost, Bee knows she is deceiving herself by hoping she can have everything without a price or sacrifice. This moment of enjoyment is ironic since, almost immediately thereafter, Bee learns that Dominic knows about Bianca von Honey, and the fantasy seems impossible to achieve.

“Nolan was celebrated by the media—even when he was vilified—for his promiscuity and party boy antics. I was just the fat, over-fetishized porn star who deceived her way into one of the few pure and wholesome forms of media left in this world: a Christmas movie.”

This contrast highlights the difference in sexual content between Bee’s porn career and a Christmas movie, a premise that the novel relies on for its humor, but the fallout of Bee’s exposure becomes an opportunity for the authors to reflect on the sexual double standard that still prevails in much of the mainstream media, in which men are permitted more sexual freedom than women.

“It was the worst part of my job. Even though most days I was proud of myself and my work, the shame that people so often felt from consuming my content and my films crept up on me sometimes.”

In this passage, the authors point to the ambivalent nature of cultural perceptions toward highly sexual content in the US. Bee is aware that she and her industry operate in a society that considers this content taboo: This attitude provides conflict and tension throughout the novel.

“Because that’s what love was—more than a word, more than a mountain of the best and noblest intentions in the world. It was saying I’ll be here with you when it feels like nothing else is certain. It was saying Let the storm come, because I’ll never stop holding your hand.”

Nolan’s realization about what love is mirrors and completes the novel’s question about the meaning of Christmas. In the romance genre, the moment when the romantic leads realize they are in love is pivotal to the story. Here, there’s an ironic twist in that Nolan realizes that he hasn’t been there for Bee and needs to remedy that if he wants to repair the relationship. The image of a couple weathering a storm together is a familiar and comforting metaphor.

“We’re proving to people all over the world that sex isn’t dirty or wrong and just because you’re a woman who enjoys sex—and even gets paid for it—doesn’t mean you can’t live out your own warm and fuzzy happily ever after.”

Through Bee’s experiences and the media storm that arises when her identity as Bianca von Honey becomes public, the authors firmly and clearly outline their positive view toward sex and sex work. The novel’s premise about a porn star acting in a family movie argues that the enjoyment of both romance and fantasy, love and sex, should be possible and available for women.