It's not. I create a DTO and I set up an exact mapping of how that appears in the database. Then I create a type generic Repository pattern that makes the DB

It's not. I create a DTO and I set up an exact mapping of how that appears in the database. Then I create a type generic Repository pattern that makes the DB access explicit as opposed to NHibernate's magic database access. Then the rest is just one time wiring I set up so I don't have to worry about actually connecting to the DB in my code. In any solution you come up with you'll either need a repository that handles sessions and so on, or you'll have to explicitly connect to the db every time you need it. Either case will be more work than what I've done with this solution.