Feedback desired for my first story.

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Just gave your story a quick once over. You will benefit from utilizing a proofreader/editor as you mentioned in AH thread. Also went a bit overboard in your use of adverbs. Due to age difference in characters it might have made more sense to post in mature as there is less competition there than in EC.

I thought the story went way too fast. I didn't understand what the female character was trying to accomplish. She's 36 and married. She has a huge house. Why is she working in the tutoring center if she finds it so boring? Shouldn't she be thinking about starting a family? Why risk all she has for a guy she barely knows?

XD

36 and married, with a big house, and she should be thinking about starting a family?

Really? That's your feedback?

This needs a lot of work.

On a strictly technical level (grammar, spelling, sentence structure), I thought there was less to fix than some of the other commenters have suggested. For the most part, your writing is solid. There’s room for improvement, but it wasn’t bad or distracting. An editor would certainly be a good asset for you, but by no means is one required.

There are diminishing returns on fixing your writing. The best writing can do is not get in the way of your storytelling. It’s the vehicle that moves your story around, and you want it to be transparent so the story itself can shine. People want to connect with the characters and the events, not your words.

The story itself, from an abstract level, is fine. Hot for Teacher is a classic fantasy. Practically universal. The problems arise from the way you make it happen, or rather, the way you skip over pesky details. How do we get Rich to come back? He forgot his phone, and nevermind that you invented forgetting his phone halfway through the first page. How does Rich get into her car? Who knows, but he’s there now so move on.

Those problems are very minor, and easily fixable.

You do a LOT of head hopping, and you ruin all the good tension you could be building. There’s a lot of potential for good nerves on the part of your protagonist (and by extension, the reader) if they don’t know what’s coming, but you bounce back and forth explaining exactly what’s coming.

Imagine you’re walking down a city street and you hear a sound. It’s loud. You can’t see anything, but you can hear it. You can hear it and it’s getting louder. So loud you can feel it under your feet, sending vibrations through the concrete. It’s hard to tell where it’s coming from at first from all the echoes but you keep walking, and as you do, you feel like the source of the sound is right around the corner. Ten feet away. It’s so loud it makes your teeth chatter. Five feet. Two. You creep up to the edge of the building, and-

OR

Imagine you’re walking down a city street and you hear a sound. It’s a monster, and he’s smashing cars together. It’s loud. You can’t see anything, but you can hear it. It’s a monster. The sound is so loud you can feel it under your feet, sending vibrations through the concrete. It’s a monster, and now it’s smashing the cars into the street. That’s why you can feel it. It’s hard to tell where the sound is coming from at first from all the echoes but you keep walking, and as you do, you feel the source of the sound is right around the corner. It’s a monster, and it IS right around the corner.

Also, it’s a monster.

Tension is good. The characters have tension as they’re getting ready to see each other, but the reader feels none of that because you explained in great detail, on both sides, exactly how everyone is feeling and how they want the meeting to go. You did too much. This story would have worked great if it was ONLY from Scarlett’s point of view OR Rich’s. Not both.

The worst offense, however, is Scarlett herself. She is a poster child for “I was written by a man”. She might as well wear a sign. Literally no woman ever would do the things you’re having her do for the reasons you’re having her do them. I’m certainly not going to stand here and argue that no woman would doll herself up or throw herself at a man she thought was attractive, but those kinds of actions usually speak to deep insecurities, or a powerful need. Certainly not "well, it's Tuesday." Scarlett seems like a confident woman, and while confidence is a pretty universally sexy trait, that confidence would likely have her make some different choices with regards to how she dresses and looks at herself in the mirror, how she approaches a potential lover, how she conducts an affair, where she conducts an affair, etc.

And that’s just at an abstract level. You’re technical understand is lacking too. Rich would not have put cum in her womb. Just… no. You have to have a really long foot to fit into a five inch heel. An eight inch heel would likely be a four inch heel with a four inch platform underneath it, and now you’re entering the realm of stripper shoes.

It’s fine to put a woman in stripper heels, but you have to understand what that does to your story. Hot for Teacher is a universal fantasy because it’s so plausible. Some permutation of this is playing out, this very second, on every single college campus in America if not the whole world. The allure of it is that it is so possible, and when you inject absurdity into a completely plausible setting, you take it into a realm of pure fantasy.

It’s fine to write pure fantasy, but at that point why not introduce a wealthy sheik and overnight trips to Dubai in a tube.

This story could use a heavy dollop of psychology to help ground the characters, their motivations, and their actions.

AwkwardMD said:

XD

"36 and married, with a big house, and she should be thinking about starting a family?"

Really? That's your feedback?

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There doesn't seem to be any reason for her to be 36 and married. At 36, she should be thinking about issues appropriate for her age. She's in a marriage that she's lukewarm about. Is she going to divorce her husband? Is she going to stay married and cheat on her husband? Has she been cheating on her husband and Rich is just the latest fling? Why not make her 26 and single? 46 and a divorcee?

AwkwardMD said:

You do a LOT of head hopping, and you ruin all the good tension you could be building. There’s a lot of potential for good nerves on the part of your protagonist (and by extension, the reader) if they don’t know what’s coming, but you bounce back and forth explaining exactly what’s coming.
:
The characters have tension as they’re getting ready to see each other, but the reader feels none of that because you explained in great detail, on both sides, exactly how everyone is feeling and how they want the meeting to go. You did too much. This story would have worked great if it was ONLY from Scarlett’s point of view OR Rich’s. Not both.

Click to expand...

Stories told from alternating points of view can work just fine. The problem is that we don't learn much about Scarlett when we are looking at life from Scarlett's point of view and ditto for Rich.

What is special about Rich that makes him so appealing to Scarlett? What makes him stand out compared to all the other guys who have come in for tutoring? It's certainly not his clever conversation or his endearing attitude. Nothing builds chemistry like witty dialogue. Their dialogue was mundane. They had no common interests. I saw no chemistry. Then Scarlett starts coming on to him. It felt forced and rushed.

AwkwardMD said:

It’s fine to put a woman in stripper heels, but you have to understand what that does to your story. Hot for Teacher is a universal fantasy because it’s so plausible. Some permutation of this is playing out, this very second, on every single college campus in America if not the whole world. The allure of it is that it is so possible, and when you inject absurdity into a completely plausible setting, you take it into a realm of pure fantasy.

Click to expand...

I think the word you are looking for here is "farce". Fantasy is great. Farce is bad unless you are striving for it.

AwkwardMD said:

This story could use a heavy dollop of psychology to help ground the characters, their motivations, and their actions.

Click to expand...

I agree.

I agree with everything 8letters just said. Especially "farce".

AwkwardMD said:

Hot for Teacher is a universal fantasy because it’s so plausible. Some permutation of this is playing out, this very second, on every single college campus in America if not the whole world. The allure of it is that it is so possible, and when you inject absurdity into a completely plausible setting, you take it into a realm of pure fantasy.

Click to expand...

Which is why it has to be blisteringly good for a universal fantasy to work, otherwise it falls into the pit of cliche and recycles the oldest tropes.

Unhappily, this story does that, and in such a tentative way, as well. Every second sentence is "slightly" this or "awkwardly" that, or a "little bit" of something else. Write your sentences as if you mean them - every time you make a statement you back away from it. Too many modifiers! Someone said it earlier, lose the adverbs. Give Rich some balls!

I suggest you scrub through your writing ruthlessly. Look for repeated words - why is it repeated?Sometimes for dramatic effect, sure, but in this case I suspect it's a stylistic habit you might not even know you've got. I was pulled up on this myself, and hadn't realised how bad I was. Not any more, thanks to Naoko!

Grammar, grammar, grammar, punctuation, punctuation, punctuation. Can't say it enough, tighten it up. There's a "debate" running in another thread that anything goes, in the world of Lit writing. No. You gotta nail the basics.

Or have such a strong story and characters with real depth and motivation, that readers will forgive the stumbling style and constructional stuff.

You've been savaged on this thread, so my advice - write your next story and make sure you make it better, and the next one, and the next one after that. Write more, is how you improve. Good luck!